It is important to remember that citizens direct the State rather than vice versa. The citizen who is active both as an individual and as a member of the communities and associations of which he or she is a member is the foundation of democracy. Nevertheless, both bottom-up and top-down are necessary. The State can support active citizenship through education. It can create a favourable framework and put in place the prerequisites for citizen participation. It must likewise ensure that the structures and functions of democracy are up to date. It is obvious that actions on the part of the State are a prerequisite for both strengthening democracy and adding to social capital.

Voter turnout figures are one criterion of the state of democracy. Therefore it is important to study to what extent low polls are attributable to electoral systems, voter activation or the information provided during election campaigns. Citizens must have access to up-to-date, correct and adequate information. Voting must not involve bother. Elections must reliably reflect the views of citizens. Improvements can be made in these respects. But perhaps it would not be correct to think that higher voting percentages achieved with the aid of marketing communications would be a solution to the problem of democracy. At its worst, it could be self-deceit.

It is essential to recognise (1) the factors for change which influence democracy as well as the prerequisites for democracy, especially (2) civil society as its social basis and (3) fostering active citizenship.

The framework of democracy is experiencing big changes. For over a century, our thinking in the Nordic countries has been especially emphatically intertwined with guidance of the nation-state; one of the tasks of popular education has been to ensure that everyone has been able to participate in this. However, the problems that globalisation has engendered cannot be regulated by the nation-state alone; for that we need bigger institutions, in our case the EU and international organisations.

Supranational decision making in tandem with dwindling public resources imposes limits on the nation-state’s power of decision. The importance of local action is growing at the same time, and also in other respects efforts are being made to transfer decision making to municipalities and intermunicipal joint authorities. Here, there is a need for structural reforms in which municipal democracy is harmonised with, on the one hand, regionalisation and, on the other, a constantly advancing trend towards services being produced on the market’s terms. Whether other reforms are needed is a question that will have to be re-visited in the future.

In place of the earlier nation-state-centred thinking, we must learn to see democracy and citizenship as being multi-level in character. Citizenship of the nation-state is still the inner core, but layers of identity range across the spectrum from citizenship of immediate communities to national, European and ultimately world citizenship.

One factor of change is the knowledge society. People are becoming better-educated all the time and have new instruments at their disposal to obtain information and wield influence. It can be assumed that a new culture of decision making is coming into being. Its components are (i) representative democracy, (ii) direct influence and participation (iii) consulting citizens and (iv) communications in various forms also with the aid of information networks. Information networks are a big help, but it is unlikely that they will ever compensate for face-to-face discussion, the expression, testing and development of views as the core process of democracy.

Information on the state of civil society is to some degree contradictory. As the old bearers of responsibility recede from the scene, a large number of traditional organisations will have major difficulties in the next few years. New organisations are emerging at the same time, but some of them seem to be what Z. Bauman calls “coat-peg communities”, a way of sharing an experience or a fear, but one which lacks the strength to alter the social reality. My own view is that globalisation is encountering substantially weakened community structures. What lies ahead of us is a conscious effort to build citizenship.

One of the goals of the policy programme is to check whether the conditions in which civil society must operate are up to the demands of the time. The key points are a clearer conception of (i) what the public authorities and civil society can reasonably expect of each other, (ii) the development of activities on the part of citizens and their organisations as well as training for them, (iii) a review of the legislative provisions regulating civic activity and (iv) facilitating international activities on the part of organisations.

Teaching active and democratic citizenship is something that pedagogical philosophers have always emphasised, but which has been given quite little attention in recent decades. Indeed, the central goal of the policy programme is to bring about a change in this respect. Schools and other institutions of learning are important arenas, as are vocational bodies, the organisations of civil society and free educational work.

There is a need for a better understanding of how the growth of active citizenship can be supported. This question is a focus of attention in many countries and international organisations, including the Council of Europe. At least three questions are of central relevance from the perspective of schools: What knowledge should a school impart? How can democracy and the competences it needs be developed in the operation of schools? How can schools encourage pupils to take part in the work of associations and other voluntary activities?

Seppo Niemelä
Programme Director

Updated on January 14, 2005