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This thesis focuses on the topic of active citizenship in democratic societies. An emphasis is placed on the clarification of the role of the citizen as an engaged actor who has the right to influence political processes and decision-making at the local level. Democracy is seen from a variety of angles in the theoretical part, particular attention is given to participatory democracy and deliberation. The practical part is devoted to the research that was carried out in the Dutch city Utrecht, where the specific tools used for engaging citizens in policy- making were investigated together with motivations of public officials as well as citizens to support civic participation. This thesis attempts to provide a picture of the functioning of democratic principles in Utrecht with reference to an example of good practice. Keywords democracy, democracy at the local level, participatory democracy, citizenship, participation, deliberation, tools of civic participation, civic participation, political participation

This study aimed to identify the type, extent, and predictors of civic and political participation among addiction professionals. A sample of 633 addiction professionals participated in an online survey using the Citizen Participation Study’s survey instrument. Twenty-two political activities were measured as well as three predictors of political participation: resources, psychological engagement, and recruitment networks. Political participation and predictors of participation were analyzed for the full sample and compared among subgroups--social workers vs. those who were not social workers; those who reported they were recovering from alcohol and other drug (AOD) addiction vs. those who were not recovering; and those who held a professional addiction certification vs. those who were not certified and those who were certified plus held other professional credentials. The mean political participation index for participants who were not certified was significantly lower than for participants with a certification and those with a certification plus other professional credentials. No significant difference was noted in the mean political participation index for recovering participants and those not recovering from AOD addiction; and social workers and participants who were not social workers. Hierarchical multiple regression was used to assess the influence of resources, psychological engagement, and recruitment networks on political participation while controlling for recovery status, professional credentials, age, race, and gender. Resources, psychological engagement, and recruitment networks were all significant predictors of political participation. Recruitment networks was the strongest predictor for the full sample and for subgroups who were not social workers, certified, not certified, certified with other professional credentials, and not recovering from AOD addiction. Psychological engagement was the strongest predictor of political participation among individuals recovering from AOD addiction and social workers. However, the validation analysis did not replicate the findings for social workers, those not recovering from AOD addiction, and those who were certified. The significant role of recruitment networks in political participation has important implications for social workers and others interested in mobilizing addiction professionals for political participation. Recommendations for further research include the need to develop valid and reliable measures of political participation that capture civic activities and the use of technology. / text

Magistro darbe nagrinėjamas politikų komunikacijos ir įvaizdžio formavimo procesas tinklaraščiuose, analizuojant skirtinguose valdymo lygmenyse: Europos Parlamente, Lietuvos Respublikos Seime bei vietos savivaldos institucijose piliečių interesus atstovaujančių politikų tinklaraščius. Tyrimu buvo siekiama patikrinti dvi pagrindines darbe formuluojamas hipotezes: 1) Lietuvos politikai tinklaraščiuose komunikuoja pasyviai bei formuoja personalizuotą politiko įvaizdį; 2) politiko veiklos aplinka lemia politiko tinklaraščio komunikacijos pobūdį: Lietuvos piliečių interesus Europos Parlamente, Lietuvos Respublikos Seime bei vietos savivaldos institucijose atstovaujančių politikų komunikacinės bei įvaizdžio formavimo strategijos skiriasi. Tyrimas buvo atliekamas keliais etapais. Pirmiausia, buvo aiškinamasi, kaip aktyviai tinklaraščiuose komunikuoja politikai. Šiame etape kiekybiškai ir kokybiškai tirti šešių politikų tinklaraščiai. Tyrimo metu siekta nustatyti politikų tinklaraščiuose vyraujančias komunikacijos ir įvaizdžio formavimo strategijas. Turinio analizės duomenys toliau buvo analizuojami remiantis penkiais pusiau struktūruotais kokybiniais interviu su skirtingo valdymo lygmenyse piliečių interesus atstovaujančiais politikais, kurių komunikacijos ir įvaizdžio formavimo strategijos nėra aiškiai apibrėžtos, ir ekspertais: elektroninės ir politinės komunikacijos specifiką tyrinėjančia mokslininke bei aktyviu tinklaraštininku, politikų tinklaraščiais besidominčiu politikos... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / This MA thesis focuses on the process of politicians’ communication and image formation in blogs and analyses different administration levels, i.e. the blogs of the politicians representing citizens’ interests in the European Parliament, the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania and local municipal institutions. The goal of the analysis is to test the two main hypotheses enunciated in the paper – 1) Lithuanian politicians communicate passively and embody a personalised politician’s image in their blogs; 2) the environment of a politician’s activity preconditions the nature of the politician’s blog – communication and image formation strategies of politicians representing citizens in the European Parliament, the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania and local municipal institutions differ. The analysis consists of several stages. The first stage is an investigation of how actively politicians communicate in their blogs. This stage contains a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the blogs of six politicians. The goal of this research is to determine the communication and image formation strategies dominating in the politicians’ blogs. The data of the content analysis is further analysed based on the five half-structured qualitative interviews with the politicians representing citizens on various administration levels whose communication and image formation strategies are not clearly defined; the experts, a scientist analysing the specifics of the electronic and political... [to full text]

In order to combat the potential threats of climate change, effective policy setting and implementation is crucial. A variable which has been shown to have significant explanatory power on the success of different public policy areas is social capital; a multidimensional concept encompassing social relationships and norms ability to mobilize and facilitate common goals. In the context of climate change related research, the relationship between social capital or some of its components to environmental variables typically is studied in a vacuum. This using factor analysis or SEM, at times in combination with other statistical techniques. In this study a more extensive SEM is investigated, examining the potential effect of social capital on environmental policy attitudes, with the mediating component climate change beliefs. The relationship between all three concepts were found to be significant, with the proportion of the total effect which is due to the indirect effect being 23%. This present study contributes to the literature by introducing the use of more extensive models, taking the complex relationships in the area into account to a higher degree, in order for more efficient policy making.

As fully online course offerings continue to grow at colleges and universities around the country, we are faced with the challenge of preserving what we value in first-year writing while making the affordances of online environments work for our students. This dissertation explores how the online writing instructor, guided by feminist pedagogy and civic rhetoric, can begin to shift the center of power within the course, allowing students to become co-teachers and promoting the social construction of knowledge central to first-year writing. Facilitated by computer-mediated communication technologies, this approach relies on online activities that invite ongoing contributions from students, promote interactivity within the course, and facilitate a collaborative learning environment that can foster student success in online distance learning. Having studied the effects of these feminist moves on two sections of online first-year research and writing courses, I examine in this text their impact on the development of community, students’ impressions of their place within the community, and the decentering of the virtual learning space. Specifically, I explore how students can write to shape and to change our online community and how students tie their work within the course to their development as writers and critical thinkers. Ultimately, in combining the goals of feminist pedagogy, first-year writing, and civic rhetoric in our design and delivery of online writing courses, we can begin to fulfill our vision for significant learning experiences for our students that will be as good as or better than their experiences in the traditional classroom.

公民參與可謂是當代民主政治的核心概念，它並非是一句空泛的口號或名詞，而是真切、實在地遍佈在人們的日常生活之中，舉凡社區關懷、集會遊行、陳情抗議、選舉投票等皆屬之。而公民參與的重要性，可歸納有四：提供政府治理的正當性、更加順遂推動公共政策、促成公共利益的形成，以及促進社會的安定與和諧。隨著民主政治的蓬勃發展，國人對公共利益的追求與實踐，公民參與課題將愈發重要。 新移民是臺灣新興的一類族群，大多以婚姻關係進入我國社會，並且以女性居多。長久以來，民眾對於新移民的議題，只著重在生活適應、子女教育等議題上，對於公民參與課題的關注，相對較少。本研究以臺北市女性新移民為研究對象，採以文獻分析法、深度訪談法，以公民參與概念建構臺灣社會與新移民的關係，探討臺北市女性新移民的公民參與情形，並期能提供可行的具體建議。 / Civic participation is the core concept of contemporary democratic politics. It is not a vague slogan or noun, but something real and all over people’s daily life, such as community care, assembly and parade, petitions and protests, elections. The importance of civic participation generalize to four factors which are offering legitimacy of government govermance, promoting public interests and promoting social stability and harmony. Because democratic politics is flourishing and people chase and practice public interests, the subjective of civic participation is more and more important. New immigrant is an emerging group. Most of them join our society through marriage and most of them are female. People focus on life adaption and children education more than civic participation for a long time. The object of this study is female new immigrants in Taipei city. Using document analysis and in-depth interview construct the relationship with Taiwan society and new immigrants by the concept of civic participation and research the circumstance of female new immigrants’ civic participation in Taipei. Hope to provide concrete and feasible recommendations.

The diploma thesis investigates somewhat overlooked development of the West European societies and attitudes of citizens and political parties towards direct democracy. In the Western Europe (and not only there), we observe substantial questioning of the delegation of power principle, thereupon large part of citizenry is asking for more decision-making powers, most often direct democracy instruments. The support for direct democracy could be coming from the educated and politically active (cognitive mobilization hypothesis) as well as the alienated and politically disaffected (political disaffection hypothesis) citizens. The diploma thesis presupposes that this popular demand is reflected mostly by the novel parties which try to weaken the standings of the traditional parties - i. e. the novel parties support and offer the implementation of the direct democracy mechanisms more than the traditional ones. The breakthrough of the direct democracy techniques would empower the voters - the judges in the Schumpeterian/Popperian conception of democracy - in the face of the political subjects, while this empowerement would carry along far- reaching consequences for the central research areas of the political science, namely the study of the organizational development of political parties. In this thesis,...

Det finns ett behov och ett ökat intresse att tillåta civilsamhället vara delaktiga i byggprocessen. Medborgardeltagande och medborgardialog är metoder som används för att visa på att invånare är med och bestämmer om sin närmiljö. I teorin framställs det som att metoder likt dessa hjälper till i skapandet av ett demokratiskt samhälle. I praktiken ställer sig invånarna fortfarande frågande till vilken stadsutveckling som sker i deras närmiljö. I den här uppsatsen har vi undersökt alternativa metoder för medborgardeltagande. Vi har utgått från litteratur som tar upp olika metoder för deltagande, så som temporär användning och transformativt deltagande. Syftet för oss har varit att se till hur konstprojekt kan användas som en alternativ metod för deltagande och dialog. För att göra det har vi gjort en fallstudie över konst- projektet Mitt framför näsan i Jordbro kultur- och föreningshus, vilket var del av Statens konstråds satsning Konst händer. Genom att undersöka Mitt framför näsan ville vi se om projektet även har påverkat planeringsprocessen för det nya kulturhuset som ska byggas i Jordbro och vad de involverade aktörernas avsikt var. Utifrån vår kartläggning av Jordbro kultur- och föreningshus samt Mitt framför näsan undersöker vi om konstprojekt kan användas för att skapa delaktighet i stadsutveckling. Resultatet av vårt undersökande visar en större svårighet att engagera medborgare än vad vi först trodde. Där byråkratiska frågor och bristande kommunikation försvårar arbetet. Och även om vi inte fått konkreta svar på våra frågor så ställer vi oss positiva till konstprojekt som metod för delaktighet. / There is a need and interest to let the citizens be part of city planning. Civic participation and civil dialogue are methods which are used to show that citizens can participate in the decision making of their neighbourhood. In theory these methods seem to help the making of a democratic society. In practice people ask themselves what kind of urban renewal happens in their neighbourhood.In this thesis, we have examined alternative methods for civic participation. We have looked at literature concerning different methods of participation, such as temporary use and transformative participation. The purpose, for us, has been to look into how art projects can be used as a way of creating participation and dialogue. To do this, we have done a case study of the art project Mitt framför näsan in Jordbro cultural and social housing, which was part of the project Konst händer, produced by Statens konstråd. By looking into Mitt framför näsan, we wanted to discover if the project have affected the urban planning concerning the new cultural and social housing, and what the purpose was, for the actors involved in the project. By mapping Jordbro cultural and social housing, we examine if art projects can be used as a way to create participation in urban planning. The result shows that it is more difficult to involve citizens in civic participation, than what we first thought. Where bureaucratic questions and the lack of communication makes it complicated. Even if we do not have a concrete answer to our questions, we are positive about using art project as a method for civic participation.

Democracy depends on the civic and political engagement of individuals. Despite a growing body of research analyzing political engagement in the United States, little attention has been paid to the relationship between information and communication technologies (ICTs) and perceptions of citizens concerning civic participation. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationship between ICTs, perceptions of citizenship, and participatory preferences for 18- to 35-year-olds in the United States. Applying Olson's theory of collective action, the goal of the study was to understand how ICT use influenced changes in perceptions of citizenship between 2004 and 2014. A repeated cross-sectional design, pooling secondary data retrieved from the U.S. General Social Survey database, was used to answer the research questions on the effect of ICT use on perceptions and actions concerning citizenship and participation. The hypotheses were tested using multiple linear regression analysis. Study findings suggested that ICT use had no notable effect on changes in perceptions of citizenship. More specifically, results indicated that changes in perceptions and actions between 2004 and 2014 were not the result of ICTs, despite increasing ICT usage over the period. These findings indicate that ICTs are just tools, rather than agents of change. Acknowledging ICT use as a form of expression permits practitioners to deploy ICTs as tools to support civic engagement. Benefits from leveraging them as tools are likely to accrue individuals, society, and practitioners alike. The resulting implications for positive social change include increased participation as well as the adoption of democratic practices reflective of modern participatory demands and behaviors.