An
assignment in progress...
Module
Five Essay Assignment;
“Inclusive
institutions and civic engagement in contemporary Russia:
deliberation or imitation?”
1)
“What are inclusive institutions in contemporary Russia?”
2)
“What are examples of civic engagement?”
3)
“In what cases we can see the real deliberation in contemporary
Russia? What are the key factors?”
4)
“What cases are just the imitation of inclusion and deliberation?
Why?”
Answers:
1)
“What are inclusive
institutions in contemporary Russia?”
Human social organizations that are
open to membership could be regarded as inclusive. I was influenced
in defining organizational inclusiveness from Jean Paul Sartre’s
Critique of
Dialectical Reason. Within
Sartre’s organizational paradigm there is a phenomenal or
existential element for an organization. Inherently an organization
has the capacity for ad hoc change and reform. Therefore the set of
organizations that exist in Russia today that are inclusive should
not be narrowly defined. I would like to include business
organizations as inclusive as well as government and
quasi-governmental agencies that interact positively with the general
public.
Urban areas have more organizations
than rural because there are more people in urban areas. Governing
powers coordination centers are located in urban areas generally, as
well as the people, financial centers are located in urban areas too
so that is where organizations seek access to government monetary
resources develop too.
Fortunately this course is structured
for beginners in the subject of governance in Russia. I haven’t
been to Russia- Helsinki was as close as I have been, so research
into the topic of Russian organizations that exist and are inclusive
in Russia brought me to several obvious Internet sites providing,
indirectly, information about the state of Russia development since
the end of the Cold War and in particular since the year 2000.
Humans
can organize to help themselves and to improve their living
conditions unless it is legally outlawed. Business is one of the more
efficient ways to do so. Business models are malleable and adaptive
regarding membership and may include ownership co-ops, joint
partnerships and incorporation. The may be dedicated to virtually any
purpose, and especially as corporations may be for-profit or
non-profit. The
Council on Foundations appears
to be an inclusive venue for forming sundry forms of organizations
and interactive deliberative structures including non-profits.
The website above lists five
most-common kinds of existing organization in Russia that
international grant makers encounter:
Public
organizations;
1.
Foundations;
2.
Institutions;
3.
Autonomous non-commercial organizations; and
4.
Associations (unions).
seems
to be a good point to find numerous services for citizens in Russia.
It is “an official Internet portal for government services” and
appears to have quite a substantive on-line listing of useful urls.
Some of the services, for example, obtaining documents or information
regarding water, may require a fee.
Following I will make a list of
several Internet indexed sites that are relevant to the topic of
inclusive social organizations in Russia including business sites.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Russian_websites
https://www.ned.org/region/
Russian 2017 budget including citizen initiative support
2)
“Examples of Civic
Engagement”
One
may define civic engagement in numerous ways. If one specifically
chooses for the term to mean how the government engages with citizens
instead of being somewhat insular and aloof, then the range of
possible answers might exclude numerous examples of citizen
self-organizing. The sovereign governmental power of a nation is what
is challenged historically from within and without. Those in a
position to run a government as authorities sometimes repress
dissent. Russia has opposition parties such as The
Other Russia. For
observers from afar t may be difficult to identify the actual
identity of the players for opposition parties that probably are
composed of people with diverse political interests while,
alternatively, President Putin is mostly interested in keeping
opposition parties within the boundaries of certain general political
criteria that would include basic agreement with principles of
democracy, private property, and several other traditional western
civilization values.
3)
“In
what cases we can see the real deliberation in contemporary Russia?
What are the key factors?”
4)
“Just
the imitation of inclusion and deliberation? Why?”
Opposition
parties today have certain attack methods and social media and
traditional organizational means that belie the real goals of the
constituency of the parties, in some cases one might infer. If
communist comprise a continuing substantial portion of the population
of Russia the goals may be fundamentally in conflict with those of
the principles of western democracy, as would fascism, and for that
matter, corporatism and socialism. Therefore one requires a degree of
skepticism about political leaders in opposition parties actually
expressing the true opinions of their followers.
Garry
Kasparov and Alexei Navalny are two political leaders from
opposition parties that would seem prima facie to be moderate
reform-minded candidates for the Presidency of Russia that were
interfered with by the Putin Administration and its supporters from
running for the job. That would be an example of fake deliberation or
opportunity to run for the office of President. It may be that
President Putin has had to act as a kind of Platonic Philosopher-King
for some time to Shepard the developing Russian state and to keep it
within certain rational boundaries for development.
The
appearance of the philosopher-king in the unexpected person of former
President Boris Yeltsin was a remarkable historical occurrence.
Apparently the philosopher-king may be a necessary tool for
developing a government that involves the redistribution of a broken
up government within an already existing society that has
transitioned to a degree into chaos. Maybe it is comparable to
military governors such as Douglas MacArthur in post-war Japan who
provided much input on reform the Japanese government. It is probably
at best a temporary role that the successful n of what coincide with
the vacating of the special powers subsumed within an emerging stable
democratic platform.
Yet
the question arises; is President Putin the sole politician capable
of serving in the Presidential philosopher-king role, and wouldn’t
it at some point be better for public credibility if opposition party
candidates that could continue a program of free enterprise and
ecologically reasonable economic policies and security concerns be
allowed to actually run and get elected, if the people chose to elect
one?
