Territorial Self-Government in the System of Forms of Direct Democracy in Local Self-Government (Organizational and Legal Problems)

The relevance of the study is dictated by the fact that the responsibility, initiative and involvement of the population in the process of developing and making decisions at the local level is manifested to the greatest extent in the process of participation of the population in the activities of territorial public self-government. One of the explanations for this, in the author’s opinion, lies in the limited territory within which territorial public self-government operates, which brings such activity closer to the private sphere of life. To the greatest extent, the responsibility, initiative and involvement of the population in the process of development and decision-making at the local level is manifested in the process of participation of the population in the activities of territorial public self-government. One of the explanations for this, in the author’s opinion, lies in the limited territory within which territorial public self-government operates, which brings such activity closer to the private sphere of life. At the same time, the functioning of territorial public self-government, in accordance with the semantic content of the concept of “public sphere” by Jürgen Habermas, is the activity of people within the public sphere, but with certain features of the private sphere. Conceptually, the functioning of territorial public self-government can be described using the following semantic concepts: democratic space, "transparency" in decision-making. But all the potential advantages of territorial public self-government in a number of constituent entities of the Russian Federation are not fully disclosed due to the fact that regional and local authorities do not sufficiently support the establishment and development of territorial public self-government by program methods, as well as due to insufficient information support of their activities by representatives of the territorial public self-government. Based on the above problems, considering successful practices of territorial public self-government in the Volgograd region, the author offers recommendations on the development of the institution of territorial public self-government in the Russian Federation.