Water management in transition? : investigating the underlying reasons of low level of public participation in water planning in Hungary

Abstract: This thesis examines how the Water Framework Directive has been implemented in Hungary with a particular focus on public participation. Hungary with its heavily centralized water management is relatively new to deliberative approaches, so it is interesting to assess how the country is dealing with a piece of legislation, which requires decentralized steering during the making (planning, reviewing, updating) of the river basin management plans. The qualitative research was based on the semistructured interviews to identify and explore the underlying reasons of the low level of participative potential in the country. During the investigations, the key concept of deliberative democracy served as a theoretical framework. The main finding of the paper is that the participative and communicative processes during the implementation of the Directive are reduced to an elite of participants, deforming deliberative ideals and that the broader public is not even motivated to take a more significant role. It is argued that the establishment of institutions which are based on more deliberative foundations would be crucial for a more democratic water planning, as currently the efficiency and effectivity of social participation is strongly dependent on and limited by the national characteristics. The findings of this paper can be of interest to both Hungarian and non-Hungarian audiences, as it reflects the current democratic changes, which are happening in the polarized population of the EU.