RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS
Through identification of the problem towards its solution - strengthening public institutions capacities for the prevention of potential conflicts
The aim of the project is strengthening the capacities of democratic institutions and organizations for the prevention of potential social and political conflicts. The aim will be achieved through the identification of public opinion attitudes and values that may be the cause for conflicts and through giving recommendations on the ways for overcoming these causes.
Activities within the project are:
- Quantitative and qualitative public opinion research; the research will be the basic tool for the identification of Serbian citizens’ attitudes and values that are potentially conflicting and undemocratic and could be the problem for the consolidation of democracy
- Research analysis and giving recommendations
- Findings and recommendations presentations; in this way the main public opinion creators (political parties’ representatives, state institutions, civil sector representatives…) will be helped with their work on overcoming undemocratic attitudes and values.
In the first half of 2007, Serbia faced numerous challenges both on the interior plane and on the plane of international integrations. The new government, which has recently been formed, will face the greatest challenges since 2000. Some of them are: Kosovo’s final status solution, cooperation with the Hague Tribunal, Euroatlantic integrations, as well as the continuation of the reform processes in the domain of economy. All these challenges may represent potential causes for instability and pose a threat to the stabilization of Serbian democracy.
The researches, carried out by CeSID in the previous period, show that public opinion has very contradictory attitudes towards the abovementioned issues. These attitudes and values, which are frequently exclusive and intolerant, can seriously, jeopardize the capacities and credibility of the institutions and organizations that should deal with these issues. Undemocratic attitudes, which are usually formed due to different factors, represent potential causes for conflicts, instability, and giving “wings” to undemocratic political options. For that reason, it is necessary to help institutions and pro-democratic organizations (political parties and civil society organizations) through the identification of undemocratic values and attitudes and giving recommendations on how to influence their change. Public opinion creators must have an insight into public opinion mood, so that they can find better solutions for numerous problems and challenges and the solutions that will not cause turbulences and jeopardize the functioning of a still fragile democracy in Serbia.
The need for a detailed analysis of public opinion attitudes and behaviour, as well as developing strategies for “coping with” them, appears as a constant need for all those who perform public functions. In researches carried by CeSID in the previous period, there are some worrying findings about the existence of certain retrograde attitudes
And values, such as, for example: low democratic capacity of public opinion ( reflected in an attitude towards democracy as towards a system, according to which only 40% of Serbian citizens consider democracy as the best way of rule); contradictory attitude towards the solution Kosovo’s problem (as many as 60% of the citizens want Kosovo to remain within Serbia, but at the same time they do not believe it will really happen), confusing and unclear attitudes towards international integrations ( a large number of undecided and uninformed citizens may be the object of manipulations), negative attitude towards the International Tribunal in the Hague (more than the half of the number of citizens considers this institution as political and partial), negative attitude towards civil society (indicated through not accepting the role of non-governmental organizations…), high level of autocracy, ethnical stereotypes and prejudices.
These abovementioned points represent just one part of the findings we have obtained and they need further analysis and study. According to the analysis it is necessary to develop strategies and recommendations on how public opinion creators should exert an influence in order to overcome these attitudes or at least neutralize them. Good will of democratically oriented political parties and other organizations for the implementation of reforms is not enough if public opinion can seriously jeopardize these processes through its attitude and behaviour. For that reason we are planning to carry out a comprehensive research at two levels: quantitative research (through which we obtain the extent and intensity of certain attitudes) and qualitative (through which we obtain the causes and motives for these attitudes). Following the research we intend to point to potential difficulties that public life subjects can encounter within the realization of certain policies and to the ways in which they can overcome these difficulties.
The project “Through the identification of the problem towards its solution- strenghthening public institutions for the prevention of potential conflicts” is being carried out in cycles, and 4 cycles of researches and presentations have been planned.
The project lasts from 1 June, 2007 to 1 June, 2008, and its realization is supported by the Embassy of Great Britain in Belgrade. |
