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The paper is focused on the discussion about the role of nongovernmental organizations during the decisionmaking process in local governance and what factors influence it. To achieve this, the following steps have been made: first, the concept of nongovernmental organizations and their relationship with civil society was analyzed, then possible variations of relationship between nongovernmental organizations and their impact to the public sector was described. In the last part of the paper, the stages of the decision-making and implementation process in the municipality were analyzed and theoretical aspects of enabling NGOs were discussed. The analyses showed that the decisionmaking and implementation processes depend on the understanding of the need to cooperate, the ability of both subjects to work together, their relationship with citizens and other interest groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of state capture, which is widely used when speaking about corruption in transitional democracies, defines illegitimate and non-transparent influence on state policy development. Though widely-spread in Lithuania, this phenomenon still has not been studied thoroughly by Lithuanian scholars. The phenomenon of state capture in Lithuania is analyzed in this article emphasizing three main aspects: its' prevalence, forms and reasons. After the short introduction on state capture the authors analyze this phenomenon using the Lithuanian case study, which is based on the analyses of legal acts, other surveys, scientific papers, and the interview with representatives of the Transparency International Lithuanian Chapter. The analysis showed that level of state capture in Lithuania decreased during the period of 1999 - 2002 but increased in 2005; however, there are not enough data to confirm the latter conclusion. Institutions mostly affected by state capture are legislative (Seimas), executive (Government), judicial and political parties. Business enterprises, separate individuals and foreign countries (especially Russia) sought to influence the formation of public policy in corrupt ways in Lithuania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social policy and philanthropy are often considered as the two faces of the coin. Many of welfare and civil society theorists view philanthropy as an expression of state welfare policy, or on the contrary, it appears when state social policy is rather weak. It is assumed that a strong role of the state in social policy results in decline of philanthropic initiatives. The paper discusses the issues of philanthropy situation in Lithuania, the role of the state in social policy, and the post-communist welfare model. The study is based on the results of a quantitative and qualitative research that offer some challenging findings. The analysis reveals the conflict among state social policy, philanthropic actors' attitudes and expectations of the society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]