Members Of Civil Society Research Articles

An agency mapping of marginalized communities and aid providers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia

Background:Given the urgent need for help amongst vulnerable populations throughout the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, civil society organizations (CSOs) and members have stepped up to provide support for impacted communities. The process of responding to these urgent needs reflects the agency and resilience of civil society members in accessing or providing resources. There is still a lack of understanding of how is human agency exercised in the context of power imbalances. Such an understanding is important not only for creating an effective and inclusive aid delivery mechanisms but also improving preparedness for future public health and economic crises.Methods:This study utilizes Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory to comprehensively map the agency landscape of aid providers and marginalized populations during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia. Assuming that these populations’ main goals are access to aid while providers’ main goals are to provide aid, this study categorizes the different modes of agency involved and highlights environmental facilitators and constraints for each of these groups in achieving their goals. Data was collected through in-depth interviews with 34 participants. Using a hermeneutic content analysis based on a sample of 824 textual excerpts from the interviews, we explore the relationship between each component of the agency landscape to understand the relationships between them.Results:We find that marginalized populations are often unable to achieve their goals despite clear intentions to survive. Additionally, we find that proxy agency is problematic for marginalized populations and characterize why this is the case.Conclusions:Finally, we present policy recommendations which prioritise marginalized populations and their needs, while removing barriers to accessing aid.

Experience of living with type 1 diabetes in a low-income country: a qualitative study from Liberia

IntroductionWhile epidemiological data for type 1 diabetes (T1D) in low/middle-income countries, and particularly low-income countries (LICs) including Liberia is lacking, prevalence in LICs is thought to be increasing. T1D care...

TOWARDS CIVIC PARTICIPATION IN THE DATAFIED SOCIETY: CAN CITIZEN ASSEMBLIES DEMOCRATIZE ALGORITHMIC GOVERNANCE?

Citizens are increasingly assessed, profiled, categorized and scored according to data analytics, their future behavior is predicted, and services are allocated accordingly. State-citizen relations become quasi-automated and dependent on algorithmic decision-making, yet (largely) without people’s knowledge and without avenues to meaningfully engage and intervene. This raises significant challenges for democratic processes and active citizenship. How do we participate as citizens in a society in which we are constantly rated and categorized in ways that we do not understand? How do we affect the development and management of the very data systems that increasingly organize society? How do we develop new democratic practices to ensure participation and accountability? This paper explores emerging opportunities for participatory and deliberative forms of governing the implementation of data analytics, particularly in the public sector. It investigates how models of engagement and deliberation – from citizen juries and citizen assemblies to deliberative polls and public dialogues – can advance civic participation in the roll-out and implementation of data analytics and thus democratize algorithmic governance. It assesses the suitability of these practices by evaluating, e.g., the level of participation, policy impcts, and institutional challenges and obstacles, bringing together insights from the fields of critical data studies and democratic innovation. The paper draws on findings from 15 expert interviews conducted between 2019 and 2021 with members of government and civil society as well as a fact-finding workshop that form part of a two-year project investigating the practices, structures and constraints of citizen engagement with datafied governance.

The Rohingya Refugee Crisis: A Threat to Peace and Security in South Asia

The persecution and brutality against the Rohingya people could as well be regarded as the biggest injustice in the history of human civilisation. This article explores the possible threats to peace and security in Asia and the South Asian regions resulting from the settlement of the Rohingya people in Bangladesh. It examines qualitative data obtained from the Rohingya refugees and various stakeholders, including security personnel, administrators, civil society members, representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and international NGOs (INGOs) and residents in the host community. It has been discovered in this study that human rights violations against the Rohingya refugees are not just a threat to peace and security in Bangladesh but also a threat at the regional level. The study recommends that neighbouring countries and regional and international associations take more proactive roles in resolving the Rohingya crisis by negotiating and mounting international pressure on the Myanmar government. These findings add new knowledge and provide guidelines for policymakers to design a roadmap for resolving the Rohingya crisis.

Overview of the Impacts of Pesticides on Human Health in Municipalities with high use and consumption in SPst - Brazil

BACKGROUND AND AIM: The research and activities developed by the São Paulo Forum to Combat Impacts on Pesticides and Transgenics, involve municipalities with higher levels of aerial spraying and where the mortality rate is different. The Forum is composed of members of civil society and public institutions. OBJECTIVE in this symposium: To analyze intoxications, congenital malfomation and the profile of cancer mortality in municipalities where high levels of pesticides were found in water for human consumption. METHODS: Descriptive cross-sectional study based on data from the Ministry of Health/DATASUS on deaths and poisoning by pesticides, domestic use, use in public health and rodenticides in municipalities in the State of São Paulo. RESULTS:Between 2010 and 2019, 113,245 intoxications were reported in Brazil, 60,025 of which were attempted suicides and 39,255 of accidental and habitual use. Of the intoxications in Brazil, 78% were unrelated to work and 3,513 evolved to deaths.In SP state congenital malformations are the third leading cause of child and adolescent deaths (2.41 deaths/1000 inhab) and neoplasms, the fifth leading cause (1.92 deaths/1,000 inhabitants). In 11 municipalities where there is aerial spraying, the rate of neoplasms is 3.49 /100 thousand inhabitants and the second cause of congenital malformation in 5 of these municipalities. The 113,245 cases of poisoning in Brazil, 74.6% of the victims lived in urban areas. In relation to the São Paulo st, 86% lived in urban. Regarding color/race, in Brazil 43.1% were black. Most are between 20 and 39 yo and 26.8% were children under 1 year and 19 yo. CONCLUSIONS:When analyzing the data on the commercialization of pesticides in Brazil, comparing with the incidences of notification of poisoning by pesticides (for agricultural, domestic, public health and rodenticide), a proportional growth is observed, as each product is consumed.We conclude that information is fundamental for society to seek public policies. KEYWORDS: Pesticides,Occupational exposures,Mortality,Toxicology,Water quality

FREEDOM, LAW, LEGAL ACTIVITY OF PERSONALITY

ANNOTATION: Introduction. The article emphasizes that in a mature democracy, members of civil society are given the opportunity to maximize the value potential of freedom and rights. The ratio of the values of freedom and law, allows a free individual to achieve the realization of priority rights and freedoms, to strengthen its legal status, to ensure a dignified existence. The analysis of features of a parity of freedom, values of the right and legal actions of the free person is given. It is concluded that the restriction of individual freedom and the isolation of the values of law from the state of freedom is inadmissible. Conclusions. In a mature democracy, the development of the foundations of civil society and the rule of law, the relationship between freedom and the values of law becomes an important channel for the individual to strengthen its status. Legal laws, the value content of other normative legal acts, should be aimed at the development of a free individual who will be able to strengthen their own legal activity, to achieve on this basis the priority goals of life through lawful behavioral actions. The existence of freedom is a prerequisite for the manifestation of the true values of law, a factor influencing the desire of members of civil society to maximize the potential of law in order to acquire their dignified existence. Freedom and law within a civilized, democratic social system have a valuable influence on each other. Outside of freedom, the law loses many of its qualities, the format for expressing freedom and serving the priority vital interests of members of society decreases. Freedom outside the values of law loses its practical purpose, becomes a value abstraction, because the individual is deprived of the opportunity to enjoy natural and inalienable rights and freedoms. Only a truly free individual, who finds a real opportunity to use valuable legal opportunities, on the basis of his high level of legal awareness and with the help of proper legal activity, can master all the leading spheres of social and legal reality.

The right and role of critiquing the contemporary patchwork of protection

The right and role of critiquing the contemporary patchwork of protection

Modern vectors of social and pedagogical partnership in the educational process of general secondary education

The article reveals the directions of social and pedagogical partnership as a special sphere of social and public life, one of the factors of effective interaction between school and community of problems education of civil subjects society of Ukraine in the educational process, first of all, as a member of civil society, based on historical roots and socio-political and pedagogical traditions. The modern stage of development of Ukraine, as an independent state, requires the institutions of socialization to take into account a number of general pedagogical factors in the formation of patriotic personality of the student. It is a question of updating of approaches to the purpose, the content and structure of formation of social competences by establishments of general secondary education of Ukraine on the basis of social and pedagogical partnership of pedagogy of partnership.
 The objective factors are outlined as social, economic, legal, cultural, and we consider that the school can already make a significant contribution to education in this direction.
 The article notes that at the modern stage of socio-economic development of our society has radically changed the requirements for the education of the younger generation, which is entering an independent life. How to organize the process of educating students? What content to fill it with? How to form the principles and ideals of a citizen of Ukraine? Such issues are embarrassed teachers - practitioners, educators, scientists, education leaders who try to build a Ukrainian national school. The life requires a modern educational institution to form a person who would be able to build a decent life in a decent society, the formation of a modern worldview, ideas, views and beliefs based on key achievements of national and world culture, principles of humanism, democracy, family unity and schools, and succession of generations.

Suicide with Very Close Shot Wounds, A Case Report

Background: Currently victims of gunshot wound violence are very often found because more and more members of civil society have firearms, both for self-defense and for other purposes. In principle, examination of gunshot wound victims is the same as examination of wounds in other traumas, but there is one specific thing, namely, doctors must know and understand about firearms, ammunition and bullets. Without understanding this, it will be difficult to provide adequate assistance, because injury to the body is ultimately based on these three elements. In gunshot wounds, there are two types of wounds, including incoming gunshot wounds and exit gunshot wounds. incoming gunshot wounds consist of: contact wound, close gunshot wound (near wound), and distant gunshot wound (distant wound). This case report aims to determine the cause of death of the victim, which was found through forensic and histopathological examination, whether the victim died due to suicide, murder or accident. The case that occurred in Serdang Bedagai on October 6, 2019 at 07:30 WIB, the victim was a 44 years old male, the victim was found dead in his house. On external examination, he found one incoming gunshot wound to the right side of the head and one exit gunshot wound to the left head. On internal examination, there was blood absorption in the brain and its layers. There was a penetrating wound that entered the right scalp and a penetrating wound on the left side of the scalp. From the results of forensic and histopathological examinations on a male victim aged 44 years, especially the internal examination of the corpse, it can be concluded that the cause of death of the victim is the destruction of brain tissue which causes loss of function of body organs due to very close gunshot wounds. And the victim allegedly committed suicide.

Water for food, water for birds: How to manage conflicting rural-natural interfaces? Deepening on the socio-ecological system of El Hondo Natural Park (Alicante, Spain)

As socio-ecological systems, coastal wetlands constitute great economic, cultural, recreational and environmental value. However, due to rapid urbanisation and intensification of agricultural activities, these hybrid systems are continuously degraded, generating several ecological and social problems. This paper aims to deepen how agriculture-nature interactions and actor behaviour affect coastal wetlands' management while conditioning decision-making processes. El Hondo Natural Park (Alicante, Spain) is the selected case study in which 15 key stakeholders from the public administration, the rural community, and the civil society are selected. Data were collected between April and June 2018 through semi-structured interviews and analysed following the Grounded Theory principles and by computer-assisted qualitative and mixed methods data software, MAXQDA®. Results revealed how the rural community and civil society members agree on El Hondo Natural Park's cultural function, conceived as a mechanism to preserve local identity, protecting traditional agricultural practices and rural heritage. However, El Hondo Natural Park's origin and management generated discussion, including topics such as the natural park’ declaration, public investment, and participation in decision-making processes (especially due to the lack of transparency and information). Furthermore, main challenges have been identified: farmers' survival, water scarcity and water quality standards, and social recognition and promotion of the natural park. Researchers and relevant authorities can use obtained results to customize their interventions based on previous and well-structured knowledge of how socio-ecological systems are perceived and which past or new conflicts generate frustration among confronted stakeholders' demands.

Regional migration and the local multicultural imaginary: the uneasy governance of cultural difference in regional Australia

ABSTRACT This article examines the role of a politics of diversity in local strategies to respond to economic and demographic stagnation in regional Australia. In a context of a market-driven migration agenda, local councils increasingly ‘compete’ as desirable places for mobile populations to settle by evoking a local multicultural imaginary. Internationally, there has been some suggestion that devolving power to the local level can help resolve economic and social problems that are argued to be at the root of populist politics and be productive of new forms of local solidarity and collective action. Yet, our account of the local multicultural politics at work in the regional town of Shepparton, sees deeply structural problems left unresolved. Drawing on interviews with members of government and civil society, and an analysis of council policy, we show how, at a local level, multiculturalism is mobilised as a depoliticised and deracialised form of community relations. Such articulations may support metrics that measure ‘success’ and attract funding from central governments, but limit opportunities for mobilising the tension and ambivalence of cultural difference in ways productive of new kinds of solidarities and representative forms of imagining.

Decentralised Autonomous Organisations as a New Form of Doing Business in the Digital Economy

In the context of world globalisation, the dominant ideology of capitalism, labour automation, democratization and urbanisation of society, decentralised autonomous organisations are seen as one of the most advanced forms of joint business in the age of information technology. Employees of companies, being at the same time members of civil society, are interested in developing corporate values and social ones. Civil control is beginning to be applied to the state and individual companies, and therefore the relationship between business, government, and society require rethinking.

We are not the president’s ‘yes’ men and women: how legislative budget scrutiny improved in Uganda

ABSTRACT This paper seeks to identify the factors that explain how members of parliament improved budget scrutiny using unique empirical data collected in Uganda. Two instances are studied that mark the improvements. First, the 2001 Budget Act that established the Parliamentary Budget Committee with large competencies for African standards. Second, the change in the 2012 Health Budget, a rare instance when parliament made significant budget amendments. The analysis reveals that political entrepreneurs used a window of opportunity to build a coalition for change. The window of opportunity opened at an event organised by civil society. The process that followed improved legislative budget scrutiny in a country with strong executive systems and strong patronage. Two factors have proven influential that are understudied in the current literature, civil society and female members of parliament.

DIGITAL SOCIALIZATION, TAG THINKING AND THE MODERN EDUCATIONAL PROCESS IN THE STATE LEGAL DIMENSION OF RUSSIA

The development of digital technologies at the end of the 20th century has led to the emergence of a new generation of human civilization – Generation Z. The members of the former possess a number of peculiarities that influence the development of a learner’s personal potential. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a rapid transition towards distance learning, the widespread use of digital education and the spread of artificial intelligence technologies. The task of the teaching staff is to level the negative features of new generations of students and, above all, clip (tag) thinking. Purpose: based on the analysis of the cognitive abilities of the Generation Z, the author proposes didactics and methodology of the interactive system of legal education that can take into account students’ analytical abilities associated with the development of clip thinking. Methods: the author uses empirical methods of comparison, description, interpretation as well as theoretical methods of formal and dialectical logic. Special scientific methods such as comparative-legal and legal-dogmatic are used. Results: on the basis of a comparative legal analysis of scientific literature, the author defines the concept and features of a new educational virtual communication system for legal education with a view to forming a worthy member of civil society at the current stage of the development of the rule-of-law state in Russia.

Political Participation of Youth in Turkey: Social Media as a Motivation

The literature mainly underlines that young people are apathetic; they are not interested in politics, and they only give attention to the matters that directly affect their lifestyles. However, these assumptions miscalculate the changing patterns of political participation and the complexity of the channels that young people can reach in this time. The Internet has opened new ways of political participation by lowering the cost and providing the opportunity to access information from all over the world, enhancing the spectrum of political participation. Young people may not be members of political parties, but they are active in civil society groups; they may not hold general elections, but they do comment on certain issues. This situation provides new opportunities for young people to become politically active and mobilized. The main aim of this study is to see the impact of internet/ social media on the political participation of youth in Turkey, and to analyze the social media as a motivation of political participation among the young members of political parties and civil society. The main argument is that social media motivates young people to participate in political parties by seeing and reading about their activities while motivating young people to participate in civil society by encouraging civic duties. To investigate this, we made an interview with 30 executive members (10 from each organization), from AK Party, CHP, and GoFor (Gençlik Örgütleri Forumu) and analyze the content via MaxQda software. The finding of the study is that young people who tend to care about political issues and the ones who read, research, and become engaged in politics are also the ones reading, researching, and engaging in political issues in the online arena in Turkey.

Bureaucrat-Local Politician Linkages and Hierarchical Local Governance in Emerging Democracies: A Case Study of Tunisia

Despite implementing comprehensive decentralization laws, emerging democracies often achieve limited success in improving the inclusiveness of local governance. A potential factor limiting the inclusiveness is the lack of cooperation. What factors determine the inclination of mayors to cooperate, and what are their implications for transparency? I answer these questions through conductinga case study of Tunisia, where mass resignations paralyze the local governance following the implementation of the Code of Local Collectivesin 2018. I evaluate the mechanisms that produce divergent inclinations to cooperate based on a set of interview data recently collected among 39 municipalities in socio-economically divergent regionswithmayors, city council members, civil society members, and a governor. I examine their implications for transparency based on a Transparency Index developed by an independent organization for all 350 municipalities. The findings from interviews suggest that partisanship ties constitute the most substantive factor perpetuating hierarchical relations among the elected officials and the appointed bureaucrats, as they can enable mayors to focus on large scale projects at the expense of cooperative modes of governance. A mixed effect analysis on the Transparency Index of municipalities within governorates with identified partisanship ties (n=174) indicates that the transparency score is lower in instances where the mayors andthegovernorsbelong to the same ideological family.

ІННОВАЦІЇ В ОСВІТІ: НЕОБХІДНІСТЬ, СУТНІСТЬ, ЗМІСТ

Педагогічну інновацію визначаємо як процес оновлення чи вдосконалення теорії і практики освіти, що оптимізує досягнення її мети. В основу інноваційної діяльності мають бути покладені системний і компетентнісний підходи; принцип науковості; важливою ознакою освітніх інновацій є його структурованість; інновації в освіті мають бути спрямовані на гарантоване досягнення цілей освітнього процесу, складати цілісну канву навчального процесу і забезпечувати прогнозований результат.

Content, changers, community and collaboration: expanding digital media literacy initiatives

ABSTRACT Digital media literacy (DML) is critical for everyone, everywhere, in the modern era to develop, as DML skills help internet users to be not only consumers of online information but also active digital citizens. This study therefore identifies ways of expanding existing DML initiatives in Indonesia, and elements needed to create a framework that will maintain a coherent national DML policy and support grassroots DML initiatives. It analyses interviews and focus group discussions with representative stakeholders such as academics, activists, members of civil society, government officials, professionals, students, and technologists to identify four elements needed for effective DML education in Indonesia: content, changers, community, and collaboration. The findings provide insight into these critical elements and argue that the process of developing young Indonesians’ DML skills will need to involve multiple stakeholders in an extensive collaboration with proactive policymakers. Local and national changers and various communities will need to collaborate to push forward policy on the national curriculum, making it clear that they and institutions are essential to expanding DML initiatives into a sustainable national program.

RESTORING THE IMAGE OF FRANCE IN BRITAIN, 1944–1947

AbstractAt the end of the Second World War, British society's hostility and resentment towards France's military defeat and the French state's collaboration with Germany were strong. In order to deflate this enmity and thus prepare the ground to forge western European co-operation, the French and British governments co-operated and developed gendered public and media strategies within which citizens, and, in particular, former female resistance fighters, were central to the dissemination of positive images of France. This article takes seriously these strategies and adds nuance to understandings of modern foreign policy in terms of methods and actors. The article elaborates on neglected agents of diplomacy, such as female members of civil society, and the significance of rhetoric, gendered performance, and appearances that contributed to the restoration of the image of France in Britain. By doing so, the article also sheds light on the efforts of French and British authorities to construct a narrative of binational unity that disrupted the tenacious idea that Britain had fought alone during the war.

“Please god, don’t let it be Muslims”: perspectives on guiding conversations with Muslim children in a climate with prevalent Islamophobi

ABSTRACT Effective intervention in social work requires addressing the contextual challenges clients face. For Muslim communities and families in the West, the context is characterized by decades of post 9/11 scrutiny and anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiments. Internationally, with terrorist attacks across the globe, and nationally, with a highly-charged political atmosphere, Muslim communities and families in the U.S. find themselves trying to reconcile conflicting influences. While they may seek to establish themselves as positive members of civil society, they are often viewed with suspicion, merely because of their religion, and their children exposed to threats, bullying, and harassment. This manuscript draws from a practitioner-researcher model that applies a developmentally sensitive and contextually grounded perspective to analyzing themes elicited from workshops for parents and guardians in the wake of terrorist attacks. The workshops were designed to provide caregivers with tools to support their children through honest and developmentally sensitive conversations about the sociopolitical climate, including Islamophobia and other systemic issues. The manuscript concludes with suggestions for practitioners and researchers to promote the positive development and integration of Muslim ‘families’ at individual, family, and community levels.