Culture of Local Democracy: Structure and Functions

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Culture of Local Democracy: Structure and Functions

Journal Title: Politicus - Year 2018, Vol 1, Issue

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to analyze possible approaches to understanding the essence, structure, functions of such a phenomenon as a culture of local democracy. The culture of local democracy is a co-operative, specialist culture (part of) local political culture, the system of knowledge, value and convictions of members of the territorial community in relation to legally determined mechanisms of local democracy (local referenda, public hearings, citizens’ meetings at their places of residence, activities of bodies of self-organization of the population), and also the forms of political participation in the mentioned mechanisms, the meanings of the subordinate, the general norms, the fundamental aspects and the useful institutions, which orientate the subjects of this or other activities of politics, provide some skills, contribute to stability local democracy in time. The essence of the culture of local democracy as a phenomenon and socio-political phenomenon is manifested in the disclosure of the relationship between a particular group of social relations, the comprehension and implementation of which involves the emergence and development of the culture of local democracy and the subjects (carriers) of this culture. The structure of the culture of local democracy is as follows: the outlook substructure (the forms of political consciousness), the activity (technological) substructure (the forms of political behavior, political participation), the organizational (institutional) substructure (institutions/forms/mechanisms of the functioning of local democracy, normative, organizational, practical conditions). The functions of the culture of local democracy are divided into general (principleorienting, forming, regulatory, criterionl – estimated,) and special (integration, identification, organizational, socialization). The culture of local democracy as a whole fulfills the function of co-inclusive participation of local democracy and civic culture in the fields of cognitive, identification, orientation, educational, regulatory, communicative, and integration. The study of the culture of local democracy is the basis for an analysis of the factors of the transformation of regimes in the post-socialist space in general, and the formation and development of the civic culture of local democracy in Ukraine, which is of great importance in the era of decentralization and euro integration processes initiated by the authorities. Further research needs: - the formation of the civic culture of local democracy is a complex process of internalization (transfer of the corresponding actions belonging to external activity, into the mental, internal plan, certain scheme, image, model, algorithm, etc.) and exteriorization (transferring to the political environment the acquired features of the individual; - the transition of external actions into the internal in the form of the embodiment of plans, the implementation of plans and programs, the construction of new objects, cultural assets) of social values, political knowledge and experience, social activity of citizens and their ‘Associations; - normative, organizational, practical prerequisites for the formation of a culture of local democracy, which ensure the involvement of citizens in the political process, interaction with political reality.

Authors and Affiliations

Марат Іванович Цумарєв

Keywords

EP ID EP627112
DOI -
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