PUBLIC OPINION IN THE POLITICAL AND LEGAL SPHERE OF SOCIETY

Author(s):  
Dmitry Voitenko ◽  

Public opinion formed in the conditions of the political regime and determined by political and legal processes, the activity of their subjects, the media, the impact of globalization on the information openness of the state, legal unification, and legal and cultural dynamics. Opinion manifests and forms consciousness and acts as an element of the institutions of society. Its mechanism manifested in the behavior of subjects, motivated by changes in the content of their judgments. Public opinion contains emotional and mental judgments and carry out evaluative, analytical, regulatory functions. Political and legal judgments formed in the channels of communication between the public and the authorities, objectified in the form of analytical comments by experts and the media. Public opinion is a collective value judgment, has a communicative nature, is formed in the context of changes in the technologies of social dialogue, and opinion becomes a factor of public administration. The peculiarity of interaction between public opinion and government reflects the relationship between the state, law and society and gives rise to political and legal regimes of interaction between government and public opinion. Their originality depends on the type of attitude of the state power towards it. Especially in the context of a democratic transition for societies with an unstable hybrid form of political regime, which are delimited depending on the democracy of electoral laws, consideration of opinions in laws, forms of discussions with the authorities and forms of expression of opinions. In the methodology of public opinion research, factor analysis is advisable since it significantly directed by laws and is a significant factor in influencing the dynamics of legislation - the legal basis of government institutions and the private sphere of society. Information technologies are a resource of power and turn public opinion into an object of influence. It reveals the risks of the impact of hidden, latent public opinion and the purposeful formation of artificial, pseudo-public opinion by the authorities as result of the use of methods of manipulating power resources in the legal sphere. This preserves the ability for the authorities to change the markers of public opinion and artificially create the appearance of legitimate grounds to lobby for the content of legal policy, the drafting of laws, and law enforcement decisions, which is desirable for public authorities.

Author(s):  
Tamar Hermann

In Israel, as in many other countries, the impact of public opinion on national policymaking has increased dramatically over the last few decades. In fact, public opinion has practically developed into one of the prime political inputs in Israel. This chapter argues that this increased impact, which could have contributed to improving the Israeli democracy, is in fact often undermined by the increasing overlapping of the main cleavages within Israel: between the political Right and Left, between Jews and Arabs, and between religious and secular Israelis. This extreme overlapping has severely eroded the national consensus and accelerated the emergence of deep disagreements in public opinion over strategic issues, such as the nature of the state (Jewish? Democratic?), the main challenges facing the nation (including the best way of dealing with the protracted Israeli–Palestinian conflict), and the desired collective future.


Author(s):  
Tamar Hermann

In Israel, as in many other countries, the impact of public opinion on national policymaking has increased dramatically over the last few decades. In fact, public opinion has practically developed into one of the prime political inputs in Israel. This chapter argues that this increased impact, which could have contributed to improving the Israeli democracy, is in fact often undermined by the increasing overlapping of the main cleavages within Israel: between the political Right and Left, between Jews and Arabs, and between religious and secular Israelis. This extreme overlapping has severely eroded the national consensus and accelerated the emergence of deep disagreements in public opinion over strategic issues, such as the nature of the state (Jewish? Democratic?), the main challenges facing the nation (including the best way of dealing with the protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict), and the desired collective future.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 84-90
Author(s):  
Balaklytskyi A.

The article on the theoretical level explores the peculiarities of the transformation of the nation state in conditions of globalization in the context of contemporary realities. It is emphasized that globalization with varying strengths and intensities, that is, has uneven effects on the state and its components. In particular, if we take the form of the state, which includes the form of government, the form of state administrative-and-territorial system and political regime, then, given the empirical material of recent decades, we can conclude that globalization has a significant impact primarily on a political regime that is increasingly transformed towards the democratization and liberalization of public life. At the same time, globalization exerts less influence on such constituent forms of the state as the form of state government and the form of state administrative-and-territorial system, which is conditioned, among other things, by the specific nature of the latter. In particular, in the conditions of globalization, the form of state government of a modern state is transformed primarily in the context of the dynamics of the functioning of the system of higher power institutions in the state, and not in the context of a specific way of existence and expression of the system of supreme bodies of state power. At the same time, globalization affects on the development of democratic foundations of the organization and functioning of the system of public authorities, contributing to ensuring the practical implementation of the rule of law, regardless of the specific model of government (monarchy or republic), whose presence in the state is associated with a certain historical tradition of its development and level of its perception in the mass consciousness in society. Influencing on the form of state administrative-and-territorial system, globalization facilitates processes of regionalization as a complex process of redistribution of administrative powers between the state and its administrative-territorial units, as a result of which new governmental and institutional forms are gradually being formed, corresponding to the new role of regional state formations in the decision-making process at national and supranational levels. In addition, in the context of globalization, the democratic model of the political regime acquires special features related to the formation and functioning of supranational institutions and associations, within which the political domination of nation-states gradually moves to a new level, the ultimate stage of which is global governance. Also, globalization not only causes the corresponding transformations of the content of the traditional functions of the state, in particular, economic, political, social, etc., but also creates the appropriate prerequisites for the rapid development of new functions, the content of which previously had no independent meaning and was considered mainly as an integral part of some other function of the state (for example, the environmental and information functions of the modern state). Thus, it is concluded that the transformation of the state in the conditions of globalization is systemic and, at the same time, contradictory, because, on the one hand, it manifests itself both at the level of all its constituent elements of its form and at the level of the dynamics of its concrete activity within certain temporal and spatial limits (functions of the state), and on the other – it intensifies the multi-vector processes and even the tendencies of development of both individual constituents of the form of the state (for example, the form of the state administrative-and-territorial system) and the functions of the state, in particular, economic and social. Keywords: state, globalization, form of the state, functions of the state, political regime, democracy, state power


Author(s):  
Jack Hayward

This chapter argues that the pervasive sense of national decline among French public opinion can only be appreciated if it is judged against the elevated height of state self-esteem over previous centuries. Since the stabilization of the political regime in the second half of the twentieth century, the state has regressed as the overarching and unifying political framework, reversing its traditional standing. Now, many of the traditional state culture’s assumptions are no longer valid, creating a disjunction between expectations about what the state should do and what it can do. While those who speak on behalf of the state endeavor to sustain the myth of its sovereignty, their credibility has become increasingly implausible as the long process of state-building has been unwinding. Thus, France remains exceptional in terms of its norms and ideas about the state, even if it is no longer exceptional in terms of the behavior of the state.


2002 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 185-240
Author(s):  
Byung-Kook Kim

This article analyzes the impact of political regime and state bureaucracy on policy responses to the 1997 financial crisis in Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand. The political regime type — classified broadly into democracy and authoritarianism — is found to shape the direction of policy responses by influencing the political elites' understanding on causes, processes, and consequences of the crisis, whereas the state bureaucracy — classified into hybrid and Weberian types — decides the implementation of reform plans by determining the power of big business to resist policy change, as well as the state's organizational capacity to counter that resistance. The article argues that only when the political regime is democratic and the state Weberian will comprehensive — as opposed to partial — reform succeed.


Author(s):  
Г. А. Лавриненко

The article includes multivariate approaches to the interpretation of definitions identification and identity. Differentiation these concepts based on the conclusion that identity is understood as a certain state of the end result of self-identification. And by identification is meant the process that leads to identity as a state and is an identification of oneself with another person. Also we clarified the definition of political identification as a process of becoming an individual’s perception of himself and his place in the world. The study characterized the significance of the manifestation of a two-stage identity and antinomy structure in the process of political identification of society. In addition, the research assessed the impact of the political regime on identification capabilities. For example, in a democracy identification is translational, in an authoritarianism identification can be restricted by the state or imposed by leadership and influence groups. Under totalitarianism the state empowers itself to exercise a decisive collective choice in matters of political identification of the population without receiving their official consent and disregarding their preference. Moreover, the investigation considered in detail the process of forming a Soviet society based on the creation of a new historical community of the «Soviet people» as a supranational construct. The advantage of research is in detection of number of measures which used by the Soviet authorities concerning identify the «Soviet people» for the consolidation and unification of the population of the country (creation of a new format of Soviet schools and public movements characterized by ideological indoctrination and fostering devotion to the Soviet state, the restoration of symbiosis in a heterogeneous society through the territorial distribution of young professionals and men for military service, the formation of centers of interethnic contacts, relaying of unifying discourse through the media, creating «single national farms»). In the context of the study of the causes of the collapse of the USSR, we found that ignoring differences and forced identification, which was imposed by the ideological top of the USSR, only delayed the confrontation process both within society and with the political leadership of the country. Also, we have characterized causal relationship between compulsory identification and the collapse of the USSR. To sum up we can say that universalism in the approach to the formation of new supranational constructs without taking into account the universal system-forming factors of the nation has shown its non-viability in the long-term development of society and the state. As a result the historical community artificially created, which was based on forced collectivization and on proclaimed «cult of the people», and later on propagation didn`t become a viable social formation, which gave rise to a further crisis of identification, which provoked the growth of national-democratic tendencies.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Omer Solodoch

Abstract In response to the political turmoil surrounding the recent refugee crisis, destination countries swiftly implemented new immigration and asylum policies. Are such countercrisis policies effective in mitigating political instability by reducing anti-immigrant backlash and support for radical-right parties? The present study exploits two surveys that were coincidentally fielded during significant policy changes, sampling respondents right before and immediately after the change. I employ a regression discontinuity design to identify the short-term causal effect of the policy change on public opinion within a narrow window of the sampling period. The findings show that both Swedish border controls and the EU–Turkey agreement significantly reduced public opposition to immigration in Sweden and Germany, respectively. In Germany, support for the AfD party also decreased following the new policy. Public opinion time trends suggest that the policy effects were short lived in Sweden but durable in Germany. These effects are similar across different levels of proximity to the border and are accompanied by increasing political trust and a sense of government control over the situation. The findings have implications for understanding the impact of border controls on international public opinion, as well as for assessing the electoral effect of policy responses to global refugee crises.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hubert Smekal ◽  
Jaroslav Benák ◽  
Monika Hanych ◽  
Ladislav Vyhnánek ◽  
Štěpán Janků

The book studies other than purely legal factors that influence the Czech Constitutional Court judges in their decision-making. The publication is inspired by foreign models of judicial decision-making and discusses their applicability in the Czech environment. More specifically, it focuses, for example, on the influence of the judge’s personality, collegiality, strategic decision-making or the impact of public opinion and the media. The book is based mainly on interviews with current constitutional judges.


Author(s):  
Alla Orlova ◽  

The article considers a set of issues related to the formation of sustainability in the state at different levels of government: national, regional and local, with an emphasis on the sustainability of territorial communities. The concept of "sustainability" is defined, the criteria of sustainability for national security and its components at the local level are analyzed, in particular, in the formation of affluent communities. Sustainability is considered in various aspects: as a component of national security and defense of the state, in relation to the concepts of "cohesion" and "national security". Financial stability is justified as an important sign of the viability of local communities. The role of civil society in shaping the sustainability of communities is revealed, as well as different views of scientists on the impact of civil society on sustainability are analyzed. The foreign experience of implementation of the basic principles of sustainability in the life of communities is studied. The most important component of sustainability is the ability of the community to consolidate to counteract harmful and dangerous external and internal influences. Open partnership of public authorities with business structures and the public should be a prerequisite for this. It is proved that in the conditions of decentralization and various internal and external challenges, civil society (active citizens and civil society institutions) can and should be a driver of community sustainability. It is assumed that the implementation of state policy to promote the development of civil society should create a solid foundation of democracy in Ukraine as a component of national sustainability. Since the systemic mechanisms for ensuring national sustainability in the Ukrainian state at both national and local levels are not yet fully formed, the development and implementation of comprehensive strategic decisions in this area requires proper scientific substantiation, which is why the author’s contribution to this topic.


Author(s):  
Svetlana Koryagina ◽  
Irina Kravchenko

The article describes the impact of the Mass Media on the formation of the worldview of the young. This impact may be positive or negative. On the one hand, the media educate young people and enhance their participation in public life. On the other hand, they may mislead or promote false values, and manipulate the young generation’s consciousness. What helps people not to get involved into the tried-and-true crowd manipulation scheme in the media landscape is critical thinking, whose lack results in inability to choose the right guidelines in the flow of false information provided by various Media. The authors emphasize the role of the state, which, regarding the needs of the society, should enculturate the young generation, as well as exercise tight control over communication in the global web and publications in the Internet Media and social networks. One of the directions of the state’s policy is expanding the geography of information and communication technologies, and the other is ensuring information security of the young in general and adolescents in particular. To provide this, the state develops organizational and legal mechanisms aimed at protecting children from harmful information in the web, and requirements for the content, its expert evidence and government control. The article demonstrates the results of a study carried out by the authors to assess the current youth Media and their influence on criminality. The key criterion for selecting participants of the focus group was young age, since the young are the most active and the least protected players in the media landscape. The sampling was made by random choice in order to ensure equal opportunities for participation in the study.


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