The purpose of this article is to introduce two items:1) the Civil participation Tool developed by the Council of Europe’s Centre of Expertise for Good Governance, for the purposes of selecting, ...evaluating and classifying civil actors into groups and selecting the most appropriate forms of participation in decision-making processes as well as providing accurate information for classified stakeholders and develop the most appropriate strategies to activate the processes of participation for different stakeholders, based on the assessment of their potential to engage, and to enhance the level of participation; 2) the results of educational pilot projects implemented in Lithuania in 2020. The results of the educational pilot projects confirmed the scientific hypothesis raised by the authors of this article that more active civil participation in decision-making processes can be expected while recognizing the objective differences of the local stakeholders and according to that, provide different forms of information, as well as different strategies for improving their skills and increasing their engagement in participating in decision-making processes.
The relevance of the study is conditioned by the need to better understand the mechanisms and ways of foreign interference in electoral processes in North America and Europe. This is necessary to ...develop effective measures to counter attempts to undermine democratic processes and improve them in accordance with the challenges of the digital media era. The purpose of the study is to analyse the current policy of China and the Russian Federation in the sphere of influence on electoral processes in democratic countries, to analyse possible measures to counteract this interference. The following methods were used in the study: heuristic, induction, synthesis, abstract and logical. According to the results of the study, electoral processes in North America and European countries are subject to constant interference from China and Russia, since each of these countries has its own motives for dismantling democracy in these countries. There is an increase in these manipulations due to digitalisation processes. Based on the results of the analysis of manipulation mechanisms, a classification of the types of interference of these states in electoral processes is developed, in particular, three main scenarios of such influence and five types of interference are indicated. It is determined that Russia mostly resorts to manipulating information, implementing the concepts of “post-truth”, and China – to subversive activities in society. There are many measures in both the EU and the US to counter such interference, but most of these measures consist of exposing the interference, spreading such information to the public, and taking technological action. It is concluded that the defence of democracy should be based solely on open and democratic ways of countering foreign interference, and the violation of citizens’ rights will only further undermine faith in democratic values. It is concluded that countering interference in electoral processes, first of all, should be based on informing citizens about the risks of manipulation, media literacy, critical thinking, and readiness for constant political activity. The practical significance of this study is that it will help in developing a strategy for countering foreign interference in democratic processes
Successfully combining paid work and various forms of social and civil participation is commonly assumed to be beneficial to both individuals and society. However, integrating these aspects can be ...difficult, partly because they can be connected through relationships that operate in opposing directions. Combining paid work and participation over the long term can be especially challenging, as the factors informing each continuously evolve. This balancing act may be particularly difficult for women who, relative to men, often manage greater caring responsibilities alongside work. To build understanding of these matters, we weave together the participation and work‐related content of the UK's National Child Development Study and the associated Social Participation and Identity Study (2008). Using TSOL (total social organization of labor), we unpack a bidirectional relationship between these items and highlight the importance of household dynamics and gender. Paid work's flexibility, autonomy, predictability, and intensity also emerge as important elements in achieving a sustainable work–participation balance.
This case study discusses how the democratic governance principles and norms impact development in the SADC, and how institutional and structural reforms require greater participation by society to ...address the governance challenges encountered in this subregion of Africa. Consequently, the aim of this paper is to examine and assess the relationship between SADC’s governance, democratic principles and norms, development plans and processes. A comparative analysis was conducted using SADC’s key democratic achievement connected to policies, processes, and remaining challenges. Subsequently, the key causes of SADC’s slow development on the African continent were explored, focusing on the failure to institutionalise liberal democratic governance consistently during postcolonial transition periods, speculating SADC’s slow development. The findings suggest that SADC is impacted by democratic principles, norms, and processes, such as local governance, civil society, and decentralisation of power. Bearing in mind Southern Africa’s economic frailty, elevated levels of civil unrest and poor service delivery, SADC authorities require a strong sub-regional governance strategy supported by robust national programmes to determine and overcome the factors hindering the institutionalisation of democratic principles in SADC, and promote strengthened institutional capacity. The unambiguous progression towards the consolidation of democracy, within the SADC, has impacted the governance and development successes of the region, resulting in democratic values and practices remaining shallowly rooted, and slow progress toward open and transparent governance.
The author draws attention to the consideration of the complexity of civil participation in deliberative democracy, indicating that the legislator assumed that dialogue is to be a way of existence, ...and thus the basis of any social situation in the state. State authorities appointed to serve the people and the common good have to ask citizens about their position in the case, not in order to obtain the desired response, thus emphasizing the departure from the monologue culture in favor of dialogue and communication with the public. The author claims that the normative foundations of the community state are linked by the conviction that public values and purposes are established in the communication process. In this approach, it is important to achieve public purposes and the quality of their achievement, its constructive features are: network, multi-level management, conciliation, participation. The basic mechanisms of action of this type of state are: deliberation, compromise and arrangements are made in the social networks – the dominant type of management of public affairs in this model is co-management. Solicitude of the state as a common good obliges not only a citizen, but means that a citizen has the right to expect that public authority will act so that the Republic of Poland can be considered a common good by citizens. Referring to literature, the author notes that deliberative democracy and its concept put more emphasis on the importance of conversation, discussion and debate on democratic practice than on the importance of voting. Its supporters argue that the debate improves the quality of collective decisions and increases the chances of their acceptance. Varieties of deliberative democracy range from accentuating local representation to reinforcing the debate within representative legislative bodies. The article points out the differences between discourse and deliberation. Moreover, the forms of civic participation and civic participation techniques used in Poland are presented. We have come to live in times when communication, both traditional and with the help of modern media, plays a significant role in shaping societies. It is important to understand the basic laws guiding communication, the ability to properly form interpersonal relationships, cognize the factors affecting the quality of messages transmitted, the technique of freedom of expression, the skill of persuasion and argumentation. The correct perception of the essence of dialogue in a deliberative democracy is its foundation, especially when it concerns institutions aimed at turning natural and legal persons to public decision-making process. Considering the literature, it was found that new participative solutions, primarily the ability to dialogue, could prevent a democratic deficit and also indicated that that civic participation impacts on the creation of deliberative democracy.
A sustained period of social, economic, and political unrest took place during October of 2019 in Chile. As an institutional solution, the "Agreement for Social Peace and the New Constitution" was ...signed. In this document, most political parties committed to reestablishing peace and public order in Chile, agreeing on the initiation of a constitutional process. To promote participation of civil society actors, the "Popular Initiative for Norms" was enabled. This was a platform where civilians could submit proposals for constitutional norms to be discussed by the Constitutional Convention. We aimed to analyze proposals related to migrants and migrant health.
We conducted a qualitative thematic analysis of the proposals. Sixteen of them were related to migrants, and we analyzed their association to health. We also evaluated their link to the Health Goals 2030 set out by the Chilean Ministry of Health and the Global Action Plan 2019-2023 for Promoting the Health of Refugees and Migrants by the World Health Organization.
Four main thematic categories were identified: 1) Humans rights of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers; 2) Nationality and regularization of migrants and refugees; 3) Political participation and cultural integration of migrants and refugees; and 4) Specific regulations on slavery and human trafficking. These resonated with broader frameworks established in the Health Goals 2030 (Chile) and the Global Action Plan 2019-2023 for Promoting the Health of Refugees and Migrants by the World Health Organization.
The 'Popular Initiative for Norms' was a non-binding participatory mechanism. Although the proposals sent through were not guaranteed to be included in the constitutional draft-and despite the final draft being rejected last September 2022-the platform allowed to gain insights into civilian opinions. Our findings showed that there is an incipient yet weak recognition of the rights and situation of migrants in Chile. There was no direct mention of health nor an explicit contemplation of social determinants of health. Despite there being an urgent need to define strategies for migrants' health in Chile, this study demonstrated that civil awareness and interest are still insufficient.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The global need to reverse political disaffection has motivated researchers to seek ways of fostering citizenship engagement. This study focuses on the role adolescents’ citizenship self-efficacy ...plays in linking civic knowledge and classroom climate to civic engagement. We use data from 4838 Chilean students (
M
age
= 14.16) who participated in the International Civic and Citizenship Study (ICCS). Using structural equation modelling, a mediational model with multilevel clustering showed that civic knowledge positively affects formal participation, but not civil participation, while an open classroom climate increases both forms of engagement during adolescence. Citizenship self-efficacy mediates the relation between classroom climate and both types of participation. We discuss the implications of these findings for the design citizenship education curricula for youth who live in contexts of inequality.
(1) Background: In response to the recent political crisis in Chile, the "Agreement for Social Peace and the New Constitution'' was approved. We aimed to analyze the health-related civil proposals ...uploaded to the official website for popular participation in the new constitution in Chile. (2) Methods: We carried out a qualitative thematic analysis of 126 health-related valid proposals. Moreover, we analyzed their link to the Health Goals 2030, established by the Ministry of Health of Chile and to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). (3) Results: Sixteen main categories were reached. In all, they were organized into four main areas: (i) the right to health and the establishment of a universal health system; (ii) effective access to selected healthcare services; (iii) improving health outcomes for all and for the relevant subgroups; and (iv) the social determinants of health, health in all the policies, and community health. We found that these four areas were strongly linked to the Health Goals 2030 for Chile and to the SDGs. (4) Conclusions: Despite the fact that the new constitutional proposal was rejected in September 2022, the civil health-related proposals and the areas of health and healthcare were of interest to the citizens as the request showed a strong demand from the population for participation in matters of health, healthcare, and public health.
The authors of the article aimed to study institutional designs for implementing digital public governance in the context of the problem of state governance. It was revealed that digital designs act ...as ways to ensure the implementation of the rules laid down in the system. They are focused on the development of communication skills, on preventing or minimizing conflicts in public policy, but do not exclude the risks of developing dysfunctions and serious contradictions. The article presents the results of a comparative study of the digitalization policy of European leaders in this area, Estonia and Germany, where there is a tendency to “slow down” innovations: uneven implementation of digital technologies in business and public governance, a wary attitude of citizens, a stable number of political and cultural attitudes and a focus more on regulation rather than coordination in Internet management. Contradictions between the network, procedural and cognitive components of digital public governance implementation designs appear. The authors believe that the gap with practically implemented technologies increases due to the existence of organizational and institutional barriers that need to be overcome in various ways (process, cognitive, etc.). Organizational barriers can be removed directly by state managers, while institutional barriers are the subject of policy initiatives. The novelty of the study lies in the recognition of the mobilization effect of “coercive digitalization”. In the context of the pandemic, this mobilization was based on stable (stereotypical) interaction practices. According to the authors, as the forms of cooperation deepen, mutual long-term obligations become the main requirement and the state should create incentives for it. This is what prompts the demand for mutual responsibility of the digitalization “apostles”, users and the state.
The structure of political opportunities was the study basis for determining the type of civil subjectivity based on the parameters of political competence (awareness) of the population living in the ...regions of Russia. The representatives of the expert groups from Belgorod region, Moscow region, the city of Moscow, Bryansk region, Vladimir region, Voronezh region, Lipetsk region, Orel region, Ivanovo region, Ryazan region, Yaroslavl region, Kostroma region, Tambov region, Tver region, Tula region took part in the research. This study has enabled the researchers to determine the preferred model of the political participation for each type of the region in the Russian Federation.Consequently, to suggest for recommendations, which will help to synchronise the structure of the political opportunities with the parameters of constructive political participation, which will lead to increasing the consolidation of the elite and mass groups and to deradicalisation of political interactions. It was proved, that it could be methodologically justified to view the category “political participation” in connection with the category “political activity”. On the basis of the main attributes of the activity, an operationalisation of the concept of “political participation” was conducted. Taking into account that the regions of the Russian Federation even within the boundaries of one Federal District differ from each other in levels of social and economic development, “structure of political possibilities”, types of the elite and mass value systems, the forms, directivity and effectiveness of the local initiatives also vary considerably. The complex research enabled the authors to verify the validity of the conclusions. The research employed a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. The results of the expert survey demonstrated that the specificity of any form of political participation is determined by several factors: the political context, the social context, culture, a historical process and a level of political consciousness.
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