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The COVID-19 pandemic has brought significant changes to the daily lives of citizens, their interactions with their communities, the nongovernmental sector and the public administration, as well as threatening the continuity of the civic initiatives they had developed. This paper draws on the scientific literature on public participation and uses qualitative methods of inquiry (semi-structured interviews) to explore how external factors, in this case the COVID-19 pandemic, affected the public participation of citizens organised in civic initiative groups in Bucharest, Romania. One key contribution of the study pertains to the interplay between practice and the conceptual level of public participation. In this respect, the results showed that many members of civic group perceive it to be genuinely contradictory in practice in their definitions of public participation. However, their ideal visions of public participation in genuine democratic politics are markedly collaborative. The research showed that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on civic groups has been quite limited, adding obstacles to public participation but also enabling opportunities. In particular, it can be concluded that the pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing challenges. It should also be noted that co-creation of public services can be defined by a certain level of continuity, especially in the case of civic groups that were involved in co-initiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the data from an online survey and a focus group, the article explores the public participation of citizens with a focus on participatory planning processes. The exploratory research tackles participatory initiatives and interactions between citizens, public administration, and professionals that aim to improve the well-being of citizens in their cities of residence. The research employed a theoretical view of collaborative public participation, one that is not, however, confined to a dualistic approach, but one in which the citizens value the existence of intermediary actors or structures to guide public participation. Moreover, adversarial potential in participatory planning processes is not excluded, especially as participation involves a diverse network of actors. In the context of a significant consensus regarding the importance of citizen participation in all stages of decision making, the article shows that there is, however, a low level of information regarding participatory planning processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]