Verheißungen der Zivilgesellschaft

The European integration process mainly consists of the development of a European Single Market. Its political regulation is contradictory and conflicting as it is managed by a committee of the governments which - on a different level - operate against each other as representatives of competing nations. Beyond market and states the national citizens expect a culture of consent-orientated acknowledgement from a European civil society. This expectation has been very distinct in those countries which joined the European Union in 2004. In this contribution results are reported from a survey on representatives of Middle and East European networks of social work. They had been questioned about their experiences with aspects of the eastward expansion of the EU. It becomes apparent that the promises of the civil society are overdone and that it comes down to a balance of civil liberty, welfare state and the self-regulation of the civil society.

Organisational and methodical aspects of drug and addiction prevention among young people. Developments in the Ukraine, in Germany, Spain and Russia (Project Description)

From october 2000 to march 2003 the project has been coordinated by the institute of social work and welfare studies of the TU Dresden and financed by the European Commission (INCO-COPERNICUS-Programme). It was an international cooperation between the TU Dresden (Germany), the University of Internal Affairs and the National Technical University in Kharkiv (Ukraine), the research institute AREA in Valenciá (Spain) and the Belgorod Juridical Institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (Russia) which was established for improving the knowledge base of drug prevention activities by the East European partners. The overall aim of the project was the analysis and elaboration of approaches to drug and addiction prevention. Under consideration of the specific conditions within the East-European countries this work should contribute to the development of pluralistic approaches towards health promotion which are embedded into an intercultural, European horizon.