Parama demokratijai ir piliečių dalyvavimas Lietuvoje

LTMonografijoje gilinamasi į paramos demokratijai ir piliečių dalyvavimo vaidmenį demokratiniame valdymo procese, atskleidžiami paramos demokratijai ir politinio dalyvavimo sampratos sunkumai, pristatoma politinio dalyvavimo samprata, formos. Analizuojamas faktinės politikos žinių lygis, informacijos apie nacionalinės ir vietinės valdžios institucijų veiklą šaltiniai, žiniasklaidos poveikis paramai demokratijai ir politiniam dalyvavimui, aiškinamasi, koks yra nelygybės, ekonominių požiūrių ir procedūrinio teisingumo pažeidimų poveikis paramai demokratijai ir politiniam dalyvavimui Lietuvoje. [anotacija knygoje]Reikšminiai žodžiai: Demokratija; Vidaus politika; Politinis aktyvumas; Piliečių dalyvavimas; Democracy; Political participation; Citizens participation.

ENThis book provides an analysis of the functioning of democracy in Lithuania, which is limited to the support for democracy and political participation. The book examines the relation between support to democracy and everyday political activities in different groups of citizens with reference to trends of political behaviour in other countries. With the help of triangulation of quantitative and qualitative methods it is aimed to analyse the relation between support for democracy and citizens participation in political activities. The book is based on data of four representative surveys conducted in 1999, 2001, 2006, 2010 in Lithuania and 80 semi-structured interviews with the Lithuanian citizens which were carried out in 2011. The book employs the broad concept of participation in political actions. According to classical studies on political participation, participation in political actions may be understood as regular and everyday activities (contacting politicians and public officials, work in political parties, organizations and local initiative groups, participation in campaigns, protest actions). This study is distinguished by comparative analysis of the groups of citizens. Based on theories of stable democracy, analytical criteria (support for democracy and participation in political actions) were specified and Lithuanian citizens are divided into separate groups by means of cluster analysis. Ideal types such as “traditional active citizen” and “monitorial citizen” are used in order to compare empirically identified groups of citizens as well as to identify and analyse statistically significant differences among the groups of citizens. [...] The study is new and distinguished from other studies conducted in Lithuania and abroad by its subject matter and methods. [...].An analysis of survey data has shown that the perception of the concept of democracy and of a citizen is partly different in the citizens’ types. Trustful optimists is the youngest group of citizens, the majority of this group resides in Kaunas or Vilnius. The level of education in this group is similar to that of the group with distrustful active respondents, the level of income for each family member is the highest. Since the income for each family member among trustful optimist is the highest, it may be argued that their living standard is the highest compared to the other groups. Usually, the consequence of being educated is the ability to deal with bureaucratic matters, organise various events and so on. Educated individuals have a stronger sense of civic duty and identity of a supporter, feel more politically effective and more interested in the results of political actions. An analysis of the impact of political knowledge to support for democracy and citizen participation in Lithuania demonstrates that factual knowledge of international and domestic politics has limited or no impact on individual dimensions of support for democracy. In contrast, institutional and legal assistance knowledge influences the level of support for democracy and citizen participation. Respondents having more knowledge on legal assistance are more proud of the Lithuanian citizenship, better evaluate the existing and future political systems [...]. Perceptions of democracy are strongly related to economic attitudes. The results of factor analysis reveals that evaluations of democracy, trust ot political institutions and economic evaluations are components of the same scale. Income has no direct impact on support for democracy, but it may have an indirect impact because of influence on citizens interpretations related to economy and the fault of the government.Perceptions of the country‘s economy have higher impact on support of democracy in comparison with perceptions of the family‘s economic situation or income. If income is higher, it increases sense of one‘s own life control and it enhance higher evaluations of family‘s economic situation and country‘s economy as well as pride of being Lithuanian citizen. If the sense of one‘s own life control is higher, it enhances interpersonal trust and optimism concerning future. The higher sense of one‘s own life control, the worse evalution of the communist system. Contrary to evalutions of democracy, income and family‘s economic situation has impact on evalutions of the communist system. All citizens attempt to maximise their self-interest in relations to public sector. In case the public sector does not satisfy their needs, they violate legal rules in order to get it. Most people against present for doctors and nurses or traffic policemen, but they give presents for public services in real life. People with lower education were more ready to justify illegal presents. People mostly were negative concerning presents, but, therefore they indicate that it is useful to pay for a traffic policeman instead of being fined. [...] Trustful optimistic citizens mostly conform to this ideal type, because they are interested in politics, has the highest level of efficacy and participate in associations. [...] Distrusful citizens are the most intereted in politics, have almost the same level of internal efficacy as trustful optimistic people and are the most active in political acts. [...] Distrustful pesimistic citizens are rather problematic in terms of democraticy as well. They are at least interested in politics, have the least internal efficacy and are the most passive in comparison with other groups of citizens. [From the publication]