Community engagement policies in the era of populism: Finland

2020 ◽  
pp. 187-206
Author(s):  
Suvi Aho ◽  
Juha Hämäläinen ◽  
Arto Salonen
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Community Engagement ◽  
International Comparisons ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
The Public ◽  
Civil Society Organisations ◽  
The Government ◽  
Political Spectrum

This chapter studies community engagement policies in the era of populism in Finland. Finland, although performing excellently in international comparisons of social cohesion, has seen the steepest decrease in the level of trust in the government among all the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries during the past decade. At the same time, right-wing populist rhetoric has strengthened and the populist movement has established its support in the political spectrum. To transform Finnish democracy, participatory programmes have been created in order to reach out and engage different groups to join community development practices. These efforts stem both from the public authorities and the renewed Finnish Local Government Act of 2017, as well as from projects undertaken by civil society organisations (CSOs). Further, there is a long tradition of building civil society in Finland, which has often been based on the unique Finnish liberal adult education system. Yet growing inequality is currently deepening the polarisation in political participation. The chapter then explores the ways of countering the polarisation and populism by supporting the political capabilities of communities and nurturing deliberative discussion.

MECHANISM OF PROVISION OF SOCIAL SERVICES AS AN ESSENTIAL FACTOR OF SELF-ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY AND CIVIL INITIATIVE

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kosukhina K.V.
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Self Organization ◽  
Essential Factor ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Government

The article is devoted to the analysis of the development of public initiatives in Ukraine, as well as their role in building a dialogue between the government and civil society. The connection of the public initiative with the provision of social services is considered. The interaction of civil society institutions with public authorities is determined.

Denmark's weak new government faces complex alliances

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Content Type ◽  
People's Party ◽  
Reform Agenda ◽  
The Government ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
The Right

Significance The new government will have only 34 of the 179 seats, because policy differences among the right-wing parties, and the political strategy of the electorally strengthened anti-immigration, Euro-sceptic Danish People's Party (DF), mean DF will remain outside. Policy-making will be difficult. The government will be more economically liberal and pro-EU than it would have been with DF, but to make policy it will rely on partners across the political spectrum, especially the ousted Social Democrats -- who remain the largest party -- and DF. Impacts If DF is seen as a welfarist protector of ordinary citizens, it is more likely to repeat, at least, its 22% vote in the next election. The much-tighter immigration regime which is in prospect could taint Denmark's image and make it less attractive to foreign investment. The new government is likely to be an ally for much of UK Prime Minister David Cameron's EU reform agenda.

scholarly journals The Legal Framework for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in Cameroon by Non-Governmental Organisations

2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-45
Author(s):  
Alvine Longla Boma
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
The State ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
The Public ◽  
Civil Society Organisations ◽  
Protection Of Human Rights ◽  
The Right

Civil Society organisations play key roles in African countries. This is not an exception in the Cameroonian dispensation. Indeed, the existence and operation of civil societies in this jurisdiction is legitimated by a 1990 law allowing the free formation of associations. Even though the state has the primary obligation to promote and protect human rights, there also exists a plethora of associations with the same interest. This paper is motivated by the state’s wanton failure in ensuring the enjoyment and fulfilment of the right. For one thing, the state has maintained a stronghold on the Civil Society through legislation which gives public authorities a leverage over human rights defenders. Moreover, an analysis of existing legal and institutional frameworks available to allow human rights non-governmental organisations thrive, leaves much to be desired. Findings reveal that though there are adequate laws and institutions which ensure the creation and functioning of Civil Society organisations in Cameroon, there are also contradictory laws which give the public authority an edge over these organisations and allow them to sanction the activities of some human rights defenders under the guise of maintaining public order. We argue that there should be adequate protection offered to human rights defenders as well as the relaxation of laws permitting public authorities to illegally sanction the activities of relevant non-governmental organisations.

scholarly journals Citizens’ Expectations for Crisis Management and the Involvement of Civil Society Organisations in China

2021 ◽  
pp. 186810262110520
Author(s):  
Reza Hasmath ◽  
Timothy Hildebrandt ◽  
Jessica C. Teets ◽  
Jennifer Y. J. Hsu ◽  
Carolyn L. Hsu
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Crisis Management ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Civic Participation ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Civil Society Organisations ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Management Function ◽  
The Government

Chinese citizens are relatively happy with the state's management of national disasters and emergencies. However, they are increasingly concluding that the state alone cannot manage them. Leveraging the 2018 and 2020 Civic Participation in China Surveys, we find that more educated citizens conclude that the government has a leading role in crisis management, but there is ample room for civil society organisations (CSOs) to act in a complementary fashion. On a slightly diverging path, volunteers who have meaningfully interacted with CSOs are more skeptical than non-volunteers about CSOs’ organisational ability to fulfill this crisis management function. These findings imply that the political legitimacy of the Communist Party of China is not challenged by allowing CSOs a greater role in crisis management.

scholarly journals Equality in Community Engagement: A Scoping Review of Evidence from Research and Practice in Scotland

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 355-380
Author(s):  
Ruth Lightbody ◽  
Oliver Escobar
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Community Engagement ◽  
Scoping Review ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
Research And Practice ◽  
Civil Society Organisations ◽  
Community Processes ◽  
Evidence Review

In Scotland, innovative designs for community engagement have been developed by national and local governments, public authorities, and civil society organisations, leading to a wealth of literature and research. This evidence review of 79 articles and reports, explores the intersection between community engagement and inequality in Scotland. We find that the ways in which equality must be supported within community processes are often overlooked. Community engagement must be placed in the context of broader democratic innovation and citizenship at regional, national and global scale in order to become future proof. Appropriate resources are required to avoid replicating systemic inequalities as well as to support the development of a variety of institutions, processes and methods that cater for groups often mislabelled as ‘hard to reach’ but that are perhaps best seen as ‘easy to ignore’ ( Matthews et al. 2012 ). The paper highlights key learning and strategic considerations to inform practice in Scotland and beyond. The findings and recommendations are of relevance to reformers, innovators, researchers, practitioners and policymakers working across diverse policy areas and levels of governance.

Sources and their frames

2018 ◽  
pp. 61-83
Author(s):  
Marina Dekavalla
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
Media Attention ◽  
Civil Society Organisations ◽  
The Media ◽  
Communication Campaigns

Chapter 4 focuses on the key actors who ran communication campaigns during the referendum, aiming to attract media attention for their views. It focuses particularly on the main Yes and No campaigns and the political parties that comprised them, as well as civil society organisations that did not support either outcome but still communicated to the media about issues they felt were significant in the debate. The chapter discusses the frames these participant actors promoted in the public debate. It is based on interviews with communication directors on both sides of the argument and representatives from impartial civil society organisations. It explores how different actors understood and defined what the referendum was about and how these understandings may be organized conceptually into different frames. It looks at similarities, differences and interactions between the frames that different actors proposed and explores whether different sides of the argument had ‘ownership’ over certain frames.

scholarly journals Methods of increasing operational efficiency of the communication channels of civil society

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 52-57
Author(s):  
I. V. Chaplay
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
National Level ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Government ◽  
External Management ◽  
The Right ◽  
Civil Sector

In general, Ukraine has developed a sufficiently detailed practice on the management of public sector entities, although unfortunately, not all of its fundamentally important provisions, adapt the experience of managing the civil sector. For example, especially at the national level, the overall goal of the government is to achieve certain policy goals, for example, in environmental, social or economic aspects. In this context, governments need to have well-organized work with the civil sector on social security programs or health care services to study service delivery performance for target groups.It is established that today, improvement of the mechanism of introduction of modern technologies of information presence and informing citizens about their rights, in particular, about the right to choose, the right of responsibility is the first important step for their participation in the process of monitoring the development and implementation of state policy. By receiving full information, civil society institutions can better assess the effectiveness of the public sector and submit their proposals. Despite the apparent need for a thorough analysis of competitors of the communicative environment of the interaction of public authorities with the public, when formulating the state strategy, analysis is far from always sufficiently clear and comprehensive. The difficulty lies in the fact that a comprehensive analysis of the competitors of the communicative environment of the interaction of public authorities with the public requires a large amount of data, most of which is difficult to obtain without much effort. Many state authorities do not systematically collect information about competitors of the communicative environment of the interaction of public authorities with the public, but act on the basis of fragmentary information, informal impressions, assumptions and intuitions. The lack of qualitative information is extremely difficult to analyze the competitor’s communicative environment of interaction between public authorities and the public.However, it is important that such an exchange is bilateral - from officials to citizens, and vice versa. This leads to maximizing the effectiveness of internal system management and to qualitative improvements in external management performance both of public authorities and the public sector as a whole. Control measures in the management of both sectors should be directly linked to the use of these indicators, both for feedback and for direct control. This will help identify new strategic opportunities for achieving control objectives and ensure the ability to use existing capabilities.

Le immagini vaganti. Migrazioni iconografiche tra destra e sinistra

2013 ◽  
pp. 121-146
Author(s):  
Luciano Cheles
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
The Public ◽  
War Propaganda ◽  
Post War ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
The Right

Parties frequently appropriate propaganda images from other movements, which all too often belong to the opposite end of the political spectrum. This article considers the main forms of visual appropriation and illustrates them with examples drawn from Italian and French post-war propaganda. It argues that the phenomenon is widespread especially among right-wing parties, which tend to adopt the imagery created by well-established political organisations to legitimate themselves, to present themselves to the voters in a more modern and appealing way or to attempt a dialogue with them. The technique of imitation may also be used to create a sense of confusion with the ultimate aim of neutralising the messages of other parties, or to steal votes from their natural constituencies. Left-wing parties too at times mimic the images (and slogans) of the right, but usually with parodying intentions which can escape the public at large.

Nazistowski mord na Żydach w prasie polskich komunistów (1942–1944).

2006 ◽  
pp. 54-75
Author(s):  
Klaus Peter Friedrich
Keyword(s):  
Shared Responsibility ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Government ◽  
Post War ◽  
Polish Government ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Right

Facing the decisive struggle between Nazism and Soviet communism for dominance in Europe, in 1942/43 Polish communists sojourning in the USSR espoused anti-German concepts of the political right. Their aim was an ethnic Polish ‘national communism’. Meanwhile, the Polish Workers’ Party in the occupied country advocated a maximum intensification of civilian resistance and partisan struggle. In this context, commentaries on the Nazi judeocide were an important element in their endeavors to influence the prevailing mood in the country: The underground communist press often pointed to the fate of the murdered Jews as a warning in order to make it clear to the Polish population where a deficient lack of resistance could lead. However, an agreed, unconditional Polish and Jewish armed resistance did not come about. At the same time, the communist press constantly expanded its demagogic confrontation with Polish “reactionaries” and accused them of shared responsibility for the Nazi murder of the Jews, while the Polish government (in London) was attacked for its failure. This antagonism was intensified in the fierce dispute between the Polish and Soviet governments after the rift which followed revelations about the Katyn massacre. Now the communist propaganda image of the enemy came to the fore in respect to the government and its representatives in occupied Poland. It viewed the government-in-exile as being allied with the “reactionaries,” indifferent to the murder of the Jews, and thus acting ultimately on behalf of Nazi German policy. The communists denounced the real and supposed antisemitism of their adversaries more and more bluntly. In view of their political isolation, they coupled them together, in an undifferentiated manner, extending from the right-wing radical ONR to the social democrats and the other parties represented in the underground parliament loyal to the London based Polish government. Thereby communist propaganda tried to discredit their opponents and to justify the need for a new start in a post-war Poland whose fate should be shaped by the revolutionary left. They were thus paving the way for the ultimate communist takeover

The Right to Information in India Implementation and Impact

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
_______ Naveen ◽  
_____ Priti
Keyword(s):  
Public Life ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
The Public ◽  
Know How ◽  
The People ◽  
The Government ◽  
Right To Information ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Impact

The Right to Information Act 2005 was passed by the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) Government with a sense of pride. It flaunted the Act as a milestone in India’s democratic journey. It is five years since the RTI was passed; the performance on the implementation frontis far from perfect. Consequently, the impact on the attitude, mindset and behaviour patterns of the public authorities and the people is not as it was expected to be. Most of the people are still not aware of their newly acquired power. Among those who are aware, a major chunk either does not know how to wield it or lacks the guts and gumption to invoke the RTI. A little more stimulation by the Government, NGOs and other enlightened and empowered citizens can augment the benefits of this Act manifold. RTI will help not only in mitigating corruption in public life but also in alleviating poverty- the two monstrous maladies of India.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document