Civic Political Participation Research Articles

The COVID-19 Pandemic Through the Environmental Discourse: the State, Civil Society, the Problems of Development

This paper examines the response of political communities to the COVID-19 pandemic. Using methodological approaches such as political globalism, world-system and structural-functional analysis, the author examines the political conditions of nation-states for coping with the pandemic and its consequences. Within this framework, the problem of the systemic crisis of the modern state, the effectiveness of public administration and decision-making systems was also addressed. The focus was on issues of political development, considered in the context of the evolution of democracy, civic political participation, the role of non-governmental organisations and elites, and the relationship between values and goals in the global and national political agenda. The article also touches upon the problem of “infodemics.” The paper concludes with recommendations for adding an environmental component to the concept of national security.

Social Media and Democratic Governance in Akwa Ibom State (2015-2023)

The study focused on Social Media and Democratic Governance in Akwa Ibom State (2015- 2023). Democratic governance has been identified as a need owing to its necessity in human development. In the 21st Century, social media has become a mainstay in enhancing democracy as it serves as a platform for expressing public opinion, civic political participation, and ensuring the protection of human rights. However, the same social media has become threatening to democracy as it is used to misrepresent realities and in political blackmail. Hence, the study is generally aimed at examining the role of social media in democratic governance in Akwa Ibom State from 2015-2023. The specific objectives of the study include ascertaining whether social media has significantly promoted the protection of human rights in Akwa Ibom State from 2015-2023 and determining the extent to which social media has improved civic political engagements in Akwa Ibom State from 2015-2023. The Media Dependency Theory was adopted for the study. The research methodology adopted for the study was both qualitative and quantitative, while the research design was the descriptive survey. The sources of data were both primary and secondary. The primary data source was the questionnaire. The secondary sources of data included textbooks, journal publications, social media posts, internet sources, etc. Questionnaires were distributed to 400 sample sizes gotten from the Taro Yamane formula (N) in the 3 Senatorial Districts of Akwa Ibom State. Data were analyzed using the simple linear regression analysis through the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). It was discovered in the study that Social media has significantly promoted the protection of human rights in Akwa Ibom State from 2015-2023. It was also discovered that the extent to which social media has improved civic political engagements in Akwa Ibom State from 2015-2023 is high. It was recommended that a special human rights protection board should be established by the Akwa Ibom State Government and vested with the responsibility of receiving and investigating human rights violations reported via online platforms.

Conflict mobilization communities in social media as a soft power tool: problematization environmental risks

The object of the study is the protest communication practices of conflict mobilization in 2012-2021 by environmental communities in Russian-language social networks. Civil society is a significant actor in environmental policy. Social media as a soft power tool plays an important role today in informing, educating society about the environment and shaping a protesting regional environmental agenda. The system-communicative approach explores the patterns of discursive problematisation of environmental risks within the framework of civic political participation. Authors describe the types of publications constituting the content of environmental mobilization communities; analyse thematic dominants to identify frequent environmental threats constructed by the addressants of the publications; identify and systematise the strategies, tactics and relevant language tools used to problematise fragments of environmental reality; examine regular means of creating and maintaining online solidarity in environmental communities of conflict mobilization.

Subactivismo feminista y repertorios de acción colectiva digitales: prácticas ciberfeministas en Twitter

The Network is an emerging space for political and feminist activism. Sub-activist practices, less institutionalized and more connected with subjective experiences, find in digital technology new ways of connecting latent politics and civic political participation with conventional activism. We try to define profiles and practices of use from 12 in-depth interviews with activists who have a long history in the feminist movement and who use social networks intensively, in particular Twitter, for their policy initiatives. As a conclusion this article shows how digital collective repertoires of action establish a continuum between real life and online militancy as well as amplify, empower, and democratize feminist popularization. In turn, social networks are configured as inbred spaces and not fully conquered by feminist groups, so it is necessary to create novel scenarios of their own and to promote proposals and discourses with transformative political capacity.

Do psychosocial attributes of well-being drive intensive Facebook use?

Prior extensive literature on Social Networking Sites (SNSs) has linked their use with psychosocial well-being. Facebook use has also been associated with different attributes of psychosocial well-being. However, the extant literature is inconclusive regarding the nature of the relationship shared by the different attributes of psychosocial well-being and Intensity of Facebook Use (IFU). Furthermore, the prior literature has also revealed inconsistent findings concerning this relationship. To address this gap, this study investigated the significant role of different attributes of psychosocial well-being associated with Facebook use, namely civic-political participation, satisfaction of life, bridging and bonding of social capital, and online sociability on IFU. A total of four cross-sectional surveys were undertaken with adolescent and young-adult Facebook users from India over a period of one year. The results suggest that online sociability was the strongest, and life satisfaction was a non-significant predictor of IFU of both adolescents and young adults across all four studies. The bonding and bridging of social capital was a significant predictor of the IFU of high social economic condition (SES) adolescents, unlike young adults. Furthermore, bridging was, but bonding of social capital was not, a significant predictor of the IFU of low SES adolescents.

The Democratic Legitimacy of Urban Planning Procedures: Public Private Partnerships in Turin and Zurich

Many European cities are faced with the task of transforming former industrial zones into new residential and commercial neighbourhoods. Such urban planning processes frequently include both public and private sector actors in decision making. Furthermore, they often give way to controversial public debates about the design and uses of the urban environment as well as the planning procedures. My paper examines democratic legitimacy of decision making in urban planning processes since the 1990s. Its aim is to contribute to the research on governance and democracy at the municipal level. The study consists of a qualitative comparison of two recent conversions of former industrial sites into new urban neighbourhoods in Zurich (Switzerland) and Turin (Italy). The theoretical approaches used in the study derive from fields of urban governance (e.g. Rhodes 1996, Stoker 1998) and democratic legitimisation of decision processes (Scharpf 1999, Sorensen and Torfing 2005, Skelcher 1998). The two cases of so-called public private partnerships show similarities in the decision making processes, notwithstanding different institutional contexts. The phases of planning and construction included citizen participation and deliberative instruments. However, neither the democratic legitimacy of the decision making processes nor of the actors involved was always assured. Consequently, non-classical means of civic political participation (petitions, lobbying) were applied to influence planning decisions, especially where no institutional means for citizen involvement in urban planning such as local referendums were possible. The paper shows that the increase in civic participation and the problems with democratic legitimacy in governance processes are not only typical of this rather common problem in urban policy making; the two phenomena are connected to a more general change in many fields of local policy making which involves the participation of private companies as well as citizens.