Siniša Trkulja

Public participation in planning, though a foundational democratic principle, faces persistent implementation challenges across diverse planning systems. This paper examines participatory planning practice in Ireland and Serbia—two countries representing distinct planning traditions (discretionary and conformance-based, respectively) yet confronting shared structural pressures. Through comparative analysis of four local land use planning instruments (the Development Plan and Local Area Plan in Ireland; the Municipal Spatial Plan and General Regulation Plan in Serbia), the study investigates how institutional design and legislative frameworks shape the depth and quality of participatory practice. Methodologically, the research triangulates statutory regulations, public hearing documentation, and non-statutory participation records across two planning scales (county/municipal and local/sub-municipal). A four-dimensional analytical framework—informing, consultation, collaboration, and monitoring—guides the systematic comparison of participatory mechanisms across the selected cases. Findings reveal that, while both systems remain predominantly at the informing and consultation levels, critical differences emerge in how participation is structured and documented in institutional practice. Ireland’s discretionary system enables multi-channel information dissemination, feedback-oriented consultation, and non-statutory collaborative experimentation beyond legal minimums. Serbia’s conformance-based system confines participation largely to statutory procedures, with objection-based consultation and limited collaborative mechanisms, though distinctive features, such as the public hearing session, provide direct opportunities for deliberation absent in the Irish context. The study contributes to European comparative planning scholarship by demonstrating that participatory depth is shaped less by the formal existence of legal provisions than by the interplay between institutional design, procedural arrangements, transparency, and responsiveness.

Public participation in planning, though a foundational democratic principle, faces implementation challenges across diverse planning systems worldwide. This study examines participatory planning practice in Ireland and Serbia – two contexts shaped by distinct planning traditions yet confronting similar tensions between democratic ideals and practice realities. Through comparative analysis of four local land-use planning instruments (Development Plans and Local Area Plans in Ireland; Spatial Plans and General Regulation Plans in Serbia), the research investigates how institutional design, power relations, and democratic commitments embedded within planning systems fundamentally shape participatory outcomes. Beyond external pressures such as neoliberalisation and democratic decline, the study demonstrates that the internal dynamics of participation, seen in the quality of dialogue, distribution of knowledge, strength of civic networks, and negotiation of power among stakeholders, ultimately determine whether participatory processes enable genuine democratic engagement or reproduce existing hierarchies. Methodologically, the research triangulates statutory regulations, public hearing documentation, and non-statutory participation records across multiple planning scales. Employing a four-dimensional analytical framework, including informing, consultation, collaboration, and monitoring, the analysis traces information dissemination strategies, consultation mechanisms, collaborative practices, and transparency structures. Findings reveal that, while both systems remain largely at the informing and consulting levels, critical differences emerge: Ireland demonstrates multi-channel, immersive approaches, feedback-oriented consultation, and structured collaborative experimentation, whereas Serbia exhibits statutory-minimal information provision, objection-based adversarial procedures, and exceptional rather than systematic collaboration. The study advances comparative European planning scholarship by identifying how planning cultures, legislative frameworks, and institutional responsiveness generate divergent participatory outcomes even under similar global pressures, offering practical insights for strengthening inclusive urban governance across varied institutional contexts.

Under conditions of decades-long neglect of rural areas in Serbia, which has resulted in complex demographic, economic, and social problems, the development of non-agricultural activities represents one of the key mechanisms for strengthening the economic resilience and demographic vitality of non-urban areas in Serbia. The subject of this paper is the functional transformation of settlements, i.e. the analysis of quantitative indicators related to the dynamics of employment in the secondary and tertiary-quaternary sectors in rural areas of Serbia in the period 2011-2022. Starting from the problem of limited diversifi cation of the rural economy and insuffi ciently developed alternative sources of income outside agriculture, the aim of the paper is to highlight the importance and dynamics of the development of non-agricultural activities and to assess their potential for sustainable rural development. The initial assumption is that structural changes in rural settlements predominantly take place in the same direction-towards an increase in employment in development sectors-but with diff erent intensities. The results indicate that post-agrarian transformation is territorially polarized, with more dynamic changes occurring in rural areas within the zones of infl uence of urban centers, while peripheral and demographically endangered areas stagnate. A thorough understanding of the functional transformation of rural Serbia provides a basis for the formulation of more eff ective rural development policies; however, due to the pronounced heterogeneity of rural areas in Serbia, a diff erentiated spatial and development-policy approach is required.

In accordance with the valid normative framework in Serbia, the decision on preparation of a planning document is rendered by the authority competent for its adoption, upon securing the prior opinion of the authority responsible for professional control, i.e. the planning commission, except for the Spatial Plan of the Republic of Serbia, for which the decision on the preparation is rendered by the Government of the Republic of Serbia, on the proposal of the ministry responsible for spatial planning. Although one of the initial ones, the decision on preparation of a planning document represents a very significant step in the planning process, which in practice very often focuses only on meeting formal conditions, without sufficient consideration of possible consequences in the further process of preparation and adoption of planning documents. In this sense, the paper discusses the normative framework for the decision on preparation of a planning document, it presents the basic characteristics with examples from domestic and foreign practice, and it points out the problems that arise, in order to provide proposals for improving the situation in this area in the concluding part of the paper.

As several Western Balkans countries aspire to become members of the European Union (EU) in the (near) future, it is interesting to explore to what extent EU territorial trends are adopted in both the official national regulations and spatial planning practice. To do so, we: 1) screen EU territorial policies to elucidate the trends and principles of territorial development, 2) analyse the contents of spatial plans in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and 3) compare the practical application of the principles such as decentralisation, diffusion of power, subsidiarity, multi-actorship, synergy, transparency, citizen participation, coordinated action (among various disciplinary bodies), and holistic strategies. The findings show the ineffectiveness of declaratively adopted EU territorial trends against place-based territorial policy approaches.