Model solutions fostering citizens' engagement and cooperation on local level
Jerzy Regulski Foundation in Support of Local Democracy ·Poland
About this project
<p>The project’s aim is to explain causes and analyse mechanisms separating self-government from the local community in order to answer the main question: how to activate and strengthen democratic culture and civic awareness, so that local communities can regain power in a sustainable way?<br> <strong>The main outputs are:</strong><br> • diagnosis of local democracy in Poland demonstrating the most important mechanisms blocking and/or enhancing civic participation in local decision-making;<br> • development of a model solutions for increased civic engagement and elaboration of policy guidelines and recommendations for policy makers at local government level<br> • dissemination and up-scaling of policy guidelines and policy proposals civil society participatory mechanisms and social capital building on local level.<br> <strong>The main activities are:</strong><br> • integration of existing diagnoses of decentralization and civic participation in the EU <br> • development of a genuine research methodology and strategy for building stakeholders’ engagement for increased civic participation and democratization of local elites<br> • diagnosis of democratic culture and civic awareness based on all documents available (reports, statements, audio recordings or protocols of council meetings, local press etc.).<br> • ethnographic research conducted by a team, deliberately assembled to observe, lead individual and group interviews as well as gather materials in selected local communities<br> • individual interviews with actors important from the socioeconomic point of view<br> • two surveys involving representative population samples from the selected regions.</p>