This paper proposes a research design which allows for a comprehensive assessment of the effectiveness of the European citizens’ initiative (ECI) – the first EU transnational participatory tool. It provides an analytical framework based on a broader conceptualisation of the notion of “effectiveness” which goes beyond the sole legislative function of the ECI. Consequently, the paper suggests to evaluate the ECI in five different dimensions: as a dialogue and communication enhancing tool, an awareness-raising tool, a deliberative space, a citizen-activating mechanism, as well as an agenda-setting instrument. Operationalisation of the dependent variable through a set of democratic functions that the ECI might perform allows not only to evaluate its capacity to enhance the democratic legitimacy of the EU but also to identify the tool’s limitations and propose ways of improvement. The paper also suggests a qualitative method of testing the hypothesised effects of the ECI.
The paper describes a problem of collision between the concept of solidarity which is based on concern for the others interests of others with the liberal concept of implementing particular goals. Institutional solutions adopted in Poland, as well as the theories and tools and methods for their description and interpretation, still have imitative character. The result is a hybrid conglomerate of institutional arrangements that are created along the lines of the existing organizational structure of the EU countries. The structure and the way of functioning of those institutions are most commonly analyzed by using borrowed theoretical solutions present in the European or American sociological literature. Social dialogue and civic dialogue do not work so as to bring the expected results which causes permanent institutional and intellectual crisis. The paper postulates to use the new dialogue for the reflection about intellectual mechanisms that create the world better suited to people's expectations.
The reform of the entered into force at the beginning of 2020. The changes are intended to popularize and to give effect to the ECI, especially through the strengthening of the position of this tool as an instrument of e-democracy and the reinforcing of the principle of subsidiarity and the model of multi-level governance. The reform is a step in the right direction, however, it is rather unlikely that it could boost the ECI as an instrument of indirect legislative initiative, which so far has had little impact. The sheer scale of this issue can be illustrated by the juxtaposition of the over seventy registered ECIs with the merely two initiatives in which the EC decided to follow up with legislative proposals. Such a situation results from the fact that the ECI is treated as a subsidiary tool to the instruments of representative democracy, generally accepted as the basis of the system. This is also the effect of the way the quasi-monopoly of the European Commission in the area of legislative initiative is interpreted. In consequence, the effectiveness of the ECI is currently perceived through the prism of collecting over one million signatures and conducting noncommittal dialogue. Nevertheless, in this context it should be remembered that the most effective form of encouraging the civil society to participate in political activity is to reinforce its agency. Indeed, increasing the impact of the ECI on decision-making processes is not dependent on potential changes in primary or secondary law. The change of attitude will suffice. Indeed, an increased number of legislative proposals stemming from the ECIs might be the result of a change in EU political culture and a greater respect for democratic rules.
The article focuses on the national dimensions of the EU communication policy in Sweden, Finland and Denmark. The cornerstone of the EU communication policy is the dialogue with citizens about the policies and the future of the EU. It is based on openness, transparency and accountability which greatly contribute to building citizens’ trust in the authorities’ activity. EU communication policy is realized through e-governance, language policy and the policy in the sphere of mass media. The aim of the article is to analyze the experience and best practices of top 3 EU countries (Sweden, Finland and Denmark) in terms of the assessment of national policies in the field of ICT and digital skills of citizens in the sphere of communication policy. The hypothesis is that these states being the leaders as to citizens’ digital literacy have introduced efficient channels of involving citizens in the decision making process.
European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) is deemed to be one of political tools adjusting EU’s democratic deficit. Although the ECI has been largely analyzed from a theoretical point of view, the article presents an empirical snapshot of this participatory instrument viewed from the Slovak and Czech perspective. Using a series of research interviews, the author explains its strengths and weaknesses, as well as a possible path to move on in order to achieve more democratic, responsive and citizen-friendly Union.
The article presents the results of a survey conducted on a group of generation 55+ Poles living in the city of Rzeszow concerning their knowledge of issues related to participatory budgets and the state of their activity in this area. At the beginning an assessment of the knowledge of the idea of participatory budget was presented. In the following, the residents’ participation in the participatory budget was assessed and the factors influencing this activity were analyzed. Conducted examinations allowed to state that the majority of respondents knows as well as positively is assessing the idea of participatory budget. Unfortunately the level of the knowledge of respondents about principles of his functioning is low. To it sources from which they obtained information about participatory budget have a direct effect. The majority of respondents is keeping the passive posture towards works on participatory budget. They are confining themselves only for giving back the vote for notified projects.
Joining these two concepts of political science and philosophy (i.e. individual political identity and participatory political culture) is an attempt to explore their comprehensive potential, regarding the foundation of any democratic regime, namely the rule of law, civil society, a civilized global political world in which each individual can find his dignity, without being considered simply an anonymous in the great mass of people controlled and dominated through propaganda and restrictions by a relatively small number of people. The paper is structured on the main stated aspects: citizenship and political identity; identity, human dignity and the rule of law (as “medium term”); participative political culture. Participatory political culture is defining for the identity of a citizen in a state of law, but when the myths of democracy come into conflict with the political reality, indifference or absenteeism are also part of the cultural practices of citizenship and this is a challenge to political philosophy.
This article deals with the issue of civil activeness in a system of free market democracy. Participation in social and civil dialogue is a sign of citizens’ engagement and is considered here in the context of Jürgen Habermas’s theory of communicative action. The manifestations and consequences of the extant institutional arrangements are shown, as are the means of describing and explaining them in the Polish socio-political and economic context. The reflections presented here illustrate the weakness of the existing measures. Both the institutional structure and the theoretical tools used in Poland are imitative in nature and do not fulfil the practical expectations of either participants or researchers of civil dialogue.
The paper focuses on the “spillover thesis” which constitutes a pillar of much of contemporary participatory democratic theory; specifically, we assess the claim that workplace democratization leads to a higher degree of political participation amongst labourers. The paper analyses the thesis as formulated by Carole Pateman, including its later revisions triggered by ambiguous results of empirical studies aiming to (dis)prove it. The spillover thesis is then confronted with important methodological and theoretical critiques, the upshot being that in order to be able to arrive at determinate conclusions, more carefully designed empirical studies are needed. Normatively speaking, however, blame can always be laid on the wider environment of market economy and/or representative democracy, to the effect that the spillover thesis is both difficult to disprove and radically subversive. Given the recent dominance of deliberative democratic theory which incorporates a strong participatory element, we finally discuss whether a recent innovation – namely, the concept of deliberative systems – could be fruitfully employed as a flexible umbrella-type framework for the spillover thesis and the participatory ideals related to it.
In response to the political and economic crises, new political and social movements appearing in mature liberal democratic countries (such as United States, Italy or Spain) call for “real democracy” and create strategies for more participatory politics. Groups of academics together with the third sector activists around the world elaborate, test and introduce new forms of participatory mechanisms which allow bottom-up, direct deci-sion-making. Recent massive social movements try to change the dominant, but clearly obsolete model of democracy based on elite groups of political representatives by pro-moting a new paradigm of inclusive citizen-centered politics. What are the ideological and philosophical bases for political activity of these movements and how their demo-cratic ideals translate into political practice? What does it mean “real democracy”? Why direct participation of citizens in decision-making is so important for the new move-ments? How technological tools can be used to support participatory processes and democratization of public governance at different levels? How should the new democra-tic model of doing politics look like? These are several questions on which the paper will try to answer.
The co-creation/co-production paradigm received significant attention in the last decades from Public Administration managers, officials, and scholars as a viable tool to overcome the limits of the New Public Management framework. Some scholars recognise that co-creation can be the basis for building an alternative administration model called New Public Governance. Other research found that co-creation is an innovative practice in the social investment policy frame. A more recent EU research project examines the idea and practice of co-creation in public services informed by lived experience pilots in 10 European countries. This paper presents the Italian case as an example of an institutional configuration open to the citizens’ participation in the co-design of public services. The paper is organised as follows. In the first paragraph, we illustrate the recent development of the legislation concerning the participation of citizens and civil society organisations in designing and delivering public services and/or management of common goods. The second paragraph deals with a deep analysis of “grey material” and scientific publications concerning the history, evolution and future perspectives of the “Shared Administration” procedures. The third paragraph presents a case study of collaboration between citizens, Third Sector/Civil Society Organisations (TSO/CSO) and public administration at the local level (Municipality of Bologna). The conclusive paragraph summarises the key findings of our study.
The paper considers the issue of participatory democracy which has recently got high in the European integration agenda. In the history of ideas, however, it has been a controversial as well as neglected idea associated mostly with Rousseauian and Leftist models of democracy. The autor points to the key features of participatory democracy such as the idea of self-mastery. The philosophical idea of participation lies at the heart of the pragmatist conception of democracy as developed by J. Dewey. Its functioning may be illustrated by the concept of "democratic normative community". This conception of participatory democracy as a broad social rather than a narow political phenomenon provides the framework that makes it both a vital ideal and a creative task for current global as well as local efforts to bring about the sociopolitical change.
Tekst koncentruje się na kwestii współzarządzania przestrzenią miejską postrzeganego jako proces społecznego komunikowania się. Zjawisko jest analizowane z perspektywy teorii podmiotowości, które pozwalają uchwycić dynamikę proc esu będącego rezultatem „ucierania się” istniejących struktur (np. lokalnych wzorów działania i form partycypacji, w tym form pozornej partycypacji) i aktywności aktorów społecznych. Na przykładzie Krakowa autorka wskazuje, że w praktyce społecznej idea współuczestnictwa może być definiowana jako artykułowanie punktów widzenia i oczekiwań przez różne grupy miejskiej społeczności. Konsekwencją jest wówczas polifonia, czyli sytuacja, w której poszczególne głosy (lokalnych władz, mieszkańców, organizacji pozarządowych itp.), włącznie z głosami rzeczników partycypacji, stają się samodzielne, autonomiczne, wzajemnie niekorespondujące
EN
The article focuses on the issue of urban governance interpreted as the process of social communication. The conceptual basis of the analysis is the theory of social agency: from this perspective the participation phenomenon is seen as the “structuration” and dialectic relationship between the present structures (e.g. institutional local patterns, forms of participation, including tokenism) and the agents’ activity. Referring to the case of Krakow, the author shows how the idea of participation (participatory democracy) could be realised as simple articulation of various points of view and expectations of different urban communities. Thus, poliphony could be the consequence: a situation in which particular voices (expressed by local authorities, citizens, non-govermental organisations etc.), including voices of participation advocates, become separate, autonomous and not interrelated opinions.
We can identify positive and negative trends in the model of information democracy that associate with a new approach to understanding the importance of in- formation and power, especially when the information becomes a tool and method of information technology and democracy. This paper proves that the consultative model is based on the interaction between civil society and political system.
PL
W modelu informacyjnym demokracji można zidentyfikować pozytywne i negatywne tendencje, które kojarzą się z nowym podejściem do zrozumienia znaczenia informacji i władzy, szczególnie gdy informacja staje się narzędziem i metodą tak technologii informacyjnej jak i demokracji. Zaprezentowane analizy mają wykazać, że model konsultacyjny demokracji oparty jest na interakcjach między społeczeństwem obywatelskim i systemem politycznym.
W modelu informacyjnym demokracji można zidentyfikować pozytywne i negatywne tendencje, które kojarzą się z nowym podejściem do zrozumienia znaczenia informacji i władzy, szczególnie gdy informacja staje się narzędziem i metodą tak technologii informacyjnej jak i demokracji. Zaprezentowane analizy mają wykazać, że model konsultacyjny demokracji oparty jest na interakcjach między społeczeństwem obywatelskim i systemem politycznym.
EN
We can identify positive and negative trends in the model of information democracy that associate with a new approach to understanding the importance of information and power, especially when the information becomes a tool and method of information technology and democracy. This paper proves that the consultative model is based on the interaction between civil society and political system.
This paper proposes a research design which allows for a comprehensive assessment of the effectiveness of the European citizens’ initiative (ECI) – the first EU transnational participatory tool. It provides an analytical framework based on a broader conceptualisation of the notion of “effectiveness” which goes beyond the sole legislative function of the ECI. Consequently, the paper suggests to evaluate the ECI in five different dimensions: as a dialogue and communication enhancing tool, an awareness-raising tool, a deliberative space, a citizen-activating mechanism, as well as an agenda-setting instrument. Operationalisation of the dependent variable through a set of democratic functions that the ECI might perform allows not only to evaluate its capacity to enhance the democratic legitimacy of the EU but also to identify the tool’s limitations and propose ways of improvement. The paper also suggests a qualitative method of testing the hypothesised effects of the ECI.
PL
Poniższy artykuł proponuje metodologię badawczą, która pozwala przeprowadzić kompleksową ocenę skuteczności Europejskiej Inicjatywy Obywatelskiej (EIO) – pierwszego transnarodowego narzędzia partycypacji obywatelskiej. W tym celu autorka określa ramy analityczne oparte na szerszej koncepcji „skuteczności”, wykraczającej poza samą funkcję legislacyjną ECI. Proponuje oceniać ECI w pięciu różnych wymiarach: jako narzędzie wzmacniające dialog i komunikację, sposób podnoszenia świadomości europejskiej i aktywizowania obywateli UE, przestrzeń deliberacyjną, a także mechanizm agenda-setting. Operacjonalizacja badanej zmiennej za pomocą szeregu powyższych funkcji ECI pozwala ocenić potencjał tej ostatniej do wzmocnienia demokratycznej legitymizacji UE, zidentyfikować słabości analizowanego narzędzia oraz wysunąć postulaty jego naprawy.
The purpose of the paper is to examine the potential of participatory budgeting (PB) for the formation of citizen identity and attachment to the place in terms of individual, territorial and thematic focus. In the theoretical discussion, the authors analyse the concepts of place attachment, social identity and their influence on civic participation. The authors propose a conceptual framework for the analysis of relationships between PB, place attachment, and social identity. In the case of the community development model of PB, place attachment should lead to the citizens’ increased inclination to participate. In the case of participatory democracy model of PB citizen participation can lead to a stronger place attachment. The conceptual framework presented in the paper requires empirical confirmation. Further research on the subject should revolve around the influence of place attachment on the formation of social identity and vice versa by application of the discussed models of PB. The placemakers should take into account literature-based evidence that advisory models of PB do not reinforce place identity. The places that apply one of the transition models should consider the evolution of their PB policies towards either community development model or participatory democracy model. By review of diverse theoretical approaches on place identity and local participation, the paper creates a solid foundation for further analysis of the relationships between the application of PB and the development of civic identity and place attachment.
The European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) is the first transnational instrument of citizen-participation and agenda-setting worldwide and it has been created with the aim to bring citizens to the decision-making process in Europe. Its potential for creating a European public sphere and alleviating the democratic deficit has been emphasized either in EU political level and in Academia level. Thus, it is a participatory democracy mechanism and currently it could be one of the main instruments to increase the legitimacy of the EU. The ECI main goal is to enable citizens to influence the political agenda of the Union inviting the Commission to submit legislative proposals and to create a proper European public sphere. It is, therefore, an attempt to reduce the citizens’ disaffection. Such high expectations reflect normative criteria which form a difficult basis for empirical measurement. This paper analyses the ECI and whether it is a proper tool of participatory democracy. The paper especially answers the question about whether the ECI is the propitious participatory democracy tool aimed at reducing or eliminating the citizens’ disaffection with the main political institutions that is suffering the EU, besides the proposal of enhancement mechanisms. Thus, an in depth legal amendment of the ECI regulation would constitute a measure to be taken to strengthen EU’s and European integration’s legitimacy. This paper provides an overview of the theoretical expectations towards the ECI.
At least since the moment Poland joined EU Polish authorities have been insisting on the stronger and wider civic participation. It is reflected in the increasing number of emitted governmental documents. One of the most important items here is the attempt to engage NGOs in the decisive processes in the state. The aim of this article is the analysis of the relations between Polish NGOs and public administration in terms of the quality of civic discourse. The author focuses on those mutual relations before and after Poland joined EU. She does so both on the basis of the research conducted in 1990s and her own research results from 2011.
PL
Co najmniej od momentu przystąpienia Polski do Unii Europejskiej polskie władze deklarują potrzebę zwiększania i pogłębiania partycypacji obywatelskiej w Polsce. Deklaracje te znajdują odbicie w różnych dokumentach emitowanych przez władze publiczne. Jednym z elementów realizacji tych deklaracji ma być włączanie organizacji pozarządowych w procesy decyzyjne w państwie. Celem artykułu jest analiza wzajemnych relacji organizacji pozarządowych i administracji publicznej pod kątem jakości funkcjonowania instytucji dialogu obywatelskiego w Polsce. Autorka analizuje wzajemne relacje organizacji pozarządowych i administracji publicznej przed i po akcesji do Unii Europejskiej. Czyni to w oparciu o dostępne wyniki badań empirycznych z lat 90. oraz w oparciu o wyniki autorskich badań przeprowadzonych w 2011 roku.
Participatory democracy, now how massively promoted and implemented, on the one hand led to the formation of the city (municipal) guard, but on the other it has imposed her some limitations. Polish society has forgotten about the narrow nature of this formation, and began require from her the activity adequate for the Police. In addition, as a result of the creation of the social demand to comprehensive minimize risks appeared the dilemma over the location of the guard in the public security system, which increases the confusion around her, and worsens her public perception.
PL
Demokracja partycypacyjna, obecnie jakże masowo propagowana i wdrażana, z jednej strony doprowadziła do powstania straży gminnej (miejskiej), lecz z drugiej narzuciła jej pewne ograniczenia. Społeczeństwo polskie zapomniało o zawężonym charakterze tej formacji i zaczęło wymagać od niej aktywności adekwatnej dla Policji. Dodatkowo w wyniku zawiązania się społecznej potrzeby kompleksowego minimalizowania ryzyk pojawił się dylemat nad umiejscowieniem straży w systemie bezpieczeństwa publicznego, co nasila niejasności wokół niej i pogarsza jej odbiór społeczny.
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.