Civil Society and Political Parties in the Period of Transition

The major aim of Mr. Marada's project was to investigate the role of political parties on the one hand, and various institutional forms of civil society on the other, in the process of establishing mechanisms of political decision-making and policy-formation in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic, after November 1989. Mr. Marada wanted to examine what consequences the interplay and tensions between political parties and institutions of civil society had on the status and practical understanding of citizenship and civil society. At the beginning of his research Mr. Marada found that, while the sphere of the political was relatively clearly defined, the phenomenon of civil society required a conceptual clarification. He devoted a great deal of time to analysing the emergence, development, and disintegration of Civic Forum as the major agent of the regime change and subsequent political reforms. Alongside this analysis is a commentary on Czech society in general, drawing on established research to show how, as yet, a kind of civic incompetence reigns within the country, and how this situation has its roots in the belief, promoted by politicians themselves, that politics is an activity for experts only. The final outcome of his research took the form of a series of articles, in English, totalling 40 pages.

Scientific Institutions in a Society of Transition: Strategies of Modernisation

Kristina Petkova (Group Leader), Tzocho Boyadgiev, Galin Gornev, Ivan Tcholakov (Bulgaria), Martin Bauer (Switzerland). Scientific Institutions in a Society of Transition: Strategies of Modernisation. Ms. Petkova is involved in teaching and research in the Institute of Sociology of the Bulgarian Academy of Science and led this project, which was carried out between July 1995 and June 1997. The aims of this project were a) to outline the main adaptive strategies of scientific institutions in a situation of social transition, and b) to analyse the opportunities for mobilising public opinion in support scientific work. The group began from the assumption that the social representation of science reflects the historical development of society as a whole. They developed a theoretical model describing the position of science in the three main types of society in the world today (modern, post-modern, totalitarian) and carried out three types of investigation: a representative survey of the public understanding of scientific institutions in Bulgaria; an in-depth cross-national investigation (Bulgarian - Great Britain); and a content analysis of how science is represented in two national newspapers, the "Rabotnichesko Delo" and the "Daily Telegraph". The results showed that Bulgarian public opinion has a more standard view of science and a more optimistic vision of scientific development than do the British, but that there is a certain insensitivity to the risks of scientific results, etc. The group conclude that in order to survive, scientific institutions in Bulgaria should change their passive attitude and adopt active strategies in both their relationships with the state, and in their contacts with private business and with the institutions of civil society.

A Comparative Study of Central and Eastern European Social Policy Concernig Mental Disability

The main goal of this project was to identity whether an imported system of social policy can be suitable for a host country, and if not why not. Romanian social policy concerning the mentally disabled represents a paradoxical situation in that while social policy is designed to ensure both an institutional structure and a juridical environment, in practice it is far from successful. The central question which Ms. Ciumageanu asked therefore was whether this failure was due to systemic factors, or whether the problem lay in reworking an imported social policy system to meet local needs. She took a comparative approach, also considering both the Scandinavian model of social policy, particularly the Danish model which has been adopted in Romania, and the Hungarian system, which has inherited a similar universal welfare system and perpetuated it to some extent. In order to verify her hypothesis, she also studied the transformation of the welfare system in Great Britain, which meant a shift from state responsibility towards community care. In all these she concentrated on two major aspects: the structural design within the different countries and, at a micro level, the societal response. Following her analyses of the various in the other countries concerned, Ms. Ciumageanu concluded that the major differences lie first in the difference between the stages of policy design. Here Denmark is the most advanced and Romania the most backwards. Denmark has a fairly elaborate infrastructure, Britain a system with may gaps to bridge, and Hungary and Romania are struggling with severe difficulties owing both to the inherited structure and the limits imposed by an inadequate GDP. While in Denmark and Britain, mental patients are integrated into an elaborate system of care, designed and administered by the state (in Denmark) or communities (in Britain), in Hungary and Romania, the state designs and fails to implement the policy and community support is minimal, partly due to the lack of a fully developed civil society. At the micro level the differences are similar. While in Denmark and Britain there is a consensus about the roles of the state and of civil societies (although at different levels in the two countries, with the state being more supportive in Denmark), in Romania and to a considerable extent in Hungary, civil society tends to expect too much from the state, which in its turn is withdrawing faster from its social roles than from its economic ones, generating a gap between the welfare state and the market economy and disadvantaging the expected transition from a welfare state to a welfare society and, implicitly, the societal response towards those mentally disabled persons in it. On an intermediate level, the factors influencing social policy as a whole were much the same for Hungary and Romania. Economic factors include the accumulated economic resources of both state and citizens, and the inherited pattern of redistribution, as well as the infrastructure; institutional resources include the role of the state and the efficiency of the state bureaucracy, the strength and efficiency of the state apparatus, political stability and the complexity of political democratisation, the introduction of market institutions, the strength of civil society and civic sector institutions. From the standpoint of the societal response, some factors were common to all countries, particularly the historical context, the collective and institutional memories and established patterns of behaviour. In the specific case of Romania, general structural and environmental factors - industrialisation and forced urbanisation - have had a definite influence on family structure, values and behavioural patterns. The analysis of Romanian social policy revealed several causes for failure to date. The first was the instability of the policy and the failure to consider the structural network involved in developing it, rather than just the results obtained. The second was the failure to take into account the relationship between the individual and the group in all its aspects, followed by the lack of active assistance for prevention, re-socialisation or professional integration of persons with mental disabilities. Finally, the state fails to recognise its inability to support an expensive psychiatric enterprise and does not provide any incentive to the private sector. This creates tremendous social costs for both the state and the individual. NGOs working in the field in Romania have been somewhat more successful but are still limited by their lack of funding and personnel and the idea of a combined system is as yet utopian in the circumstances in the country.