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CIVIL NEWS
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority It is time to sit back and reflect.
What Civil Society Russia Is Building
A popular wisdom says if a force could not be fought, it should be led. There is an impression that this is the way Russia chose to shape a civil society.
So, the general course of the Third NGO Congress organized by the INGO Conference of the Council of Europe on December 4-7, 2008 in Penza, the Russian Federation, served as yet another illustration for the Russian government concept of "guided" or "imitating" democracy. The first two congresses were held in Warsaw and Kyiv (2007).
By the way, the first Congress in Warsaw was co-organized by the Casimir Pulaski Foundation and the Polish Forum of Young Diplomats. The second congress Kyiv was co-held by the Laboratory for Legislative Initiatives and the International Renaissance Foundation. The Third NGO Congress in Russia was held in conjunction with the Council of the Federation Commission on Civil Society Development Institutes Affairs. As a matter of fact, the important action held under the aegis of the Council of Europe was led by the government institution.
The respective format of involving power as a main "public" institution can symbolically demonstrate not only problems of the civil society development as regards the Congress holding but also the state of democracy in Russia and on the post-Soviet space on the
whole. In this sense, politics directly deals with us, actually suggesting quasi-initiatives, or rather an imitation of a dialogue of power with society. The observation of the course of the Congress, in which some 250 NGO representatives from the post-Soviet states and European neighboring countries took part, suggests about the role of civil society in this region and a frontier in relations with power, which would not be the Rubicon for civil society institutions.
Full article «What Civil Society Russia Is Building» by Ihor Zhdanov (Open Policy Analytical Center), Halyna Usatenko (Europe XXI Foundation) and Yulia Tyshchenko (Ukrainian Center for Independent Political Research) read here: http://nopenza.cs-nis.org/en/what-civil-society-russia-building