Problems of transition to civil society and its levels of development

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Problems of transition to civil society and its levels of development

Kirgizbayev M.

Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor, Head of the Department of Social Sciences, University of Journalism and Mass Communications of Uzbekistan

Abstract

civil society human rights

The article analyzes the problems that arise in the process of formation of civil society in postSoviet countries, in particular in Uzbekistan, and their solutions. It was also noted that over the past three years, reforms to build civil society in Uzbekistan are yielding results, and the elements of civil society are rapidly being formed. At the same time, the article includes indexes to determine the level of formation of civil society and analysis of their improvement.

Keywords: civil society, non-governmental organizations, mass media, indicator, index, political parties, Civil society development index, human development, civic activism, political activism, socialization, administrative reform.

As a result of the disintegration and disappearance of the USSR on the world map, a number of independent states were formed on its territory in the early 1990s. Now they are called "CIS countries". Among them, the country in the middle of Central Asia - the Republic of Uzbekistan - has implemented a number of reforms to build civil society during its 28 years of independence.

The experience of the past has shown that civil society, like countries in the new and old world of Europe, needs to go through the stages of building a civil society, which will be a much more difficult and arduous transition period. In particular, it should be noted that in the history of the Central Asian region, the experience of a market economy and capitalist relations, the lack of a single national market economy in each of the countries in the region hinders the rapid development of civil society reform. In addition, the lack of awareness of "civic activism" or the initiatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as a result of the fact that the national mentality, culture, spirituality, the spirit of the nation is not yet ready to embrace democratic values also has a negative impact on transitional reforms.

At the same time, it has become clear that the economic backbone of civil society, the underdeveloped middle class, which is the main economic and political force in the transition to civil society, does not allow the development of civil society. The slowness of the socio-political activity of the social strata in society has led to the inability of political parties to operate on the basis of democratic principles. These conditions in society have now begun to require that the path of development of civil society in each country be different and on different criteria. Experiences such as North America and Europe building industrial societies before civil society, high levels of industry and technology, and private ownership becoming the backbone of the economy are also emerging in Central Asian societies.

One of the major problems of the transition period is the fact that the political and legal culture of the population is not completely free of previous traditions, human rights and freedoms and democratic values are reflected in the worldview of citizens.

Also, the main social stratum, which has a strong interest in the development of civil society and is in strong need of such a society - small business owners - has not yet reached the level of the US and European countries where civil society operates (see Table 1).

Table 1 The scale of development of small businesses in developed countries and Uzbekistan [1]

The need to further deepen the reforms of civil society building in the Republic of Uzbekistan, which began the path of rapid development in Central Asia in 2017, puts on the agenda a broader study of foreign experience. The main problems in building civil society in Central Asia, especially in Uzbekistan, are as follows:

• in these countries the process of abandoning national traditions in governing society and the state is still slow;

• in proportion to the socio-economic situation in society, social strata are passive in financing the nongovernmental non-profit organizations (NGOs) in which they participate;

• as the country is going through a transition period, the population has not yet fully mastered the experience of satisfying their interests through NGOs;

• the demographic processes in the country are going strong. This process hinders the development of the economic and financial potential of the state. For example, in Uzbekistan, the population is growing by 1.44.5% annually, while GDP is growing by 5-6%;

• the legal and political culture of citizens inherent in democratic principles has now begun its stage of development.

At present, the number of NGOs in Uzbekistan has increased from 200 in 1991 to 9,200 in 2018. The country used to be ruled by one party, but now there are four political parties. Trade unions in 16 major sectors are trying to meet the social interests of citizens. There are about 10,000 self-governing bodies and 1,500 mass media (most of them private and independent).

The development of civil society in Uzbekistan began in 2017. At the end of 2016, with the election of Sh.M.Mirziyoev as the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, changes took place in the field of civil society building, which lasted for several decades. Initially, an obstacle to the development of civil society was the reform of the executive branch of government on the basis of the rule of law. Indeed, civil society can only develop in a state that operates on democratic principles.

Initially, it carried out reforms to transform the system of state executive power, which was the main obstacle to building civil society, not only as a governing body, but also as a body that provides public services to citizens. Reforms in this area are based on the principle that "the government agencies should serve our people, not people". 2017 has been declared the Year of Dialogue with the People and Human Interests. On December 28, 2016, the Decree of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan "On measures to radically improve the system of dealing with appeals of individuals and legal entities" was issued. In accordance with it, the People's Reception of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan and virtual receptions of the President of the Republic of Karakalpakstan, regions and the city of Tashkent, as well as in each district and city (except for cities subordinate to the district). Based on the results of the work of the receptions, citizens were faced with bureaucratic obstacles in various areas, the abolition of many illegal departmental instructions, the allocation of optimal bank loans, the elimination of illegal business inspections, a radical change in law enforcement [2]. In one year, the public receptions received more than 1.5 million applications.

It began on September 8, 2017 with the adoption of the Decree of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan "On approval of the Concept of Administrative Reform in the Republic of Uzbekistan." The "Concept of Administrative Reforms in the Republic of Uzbekistan" combines the legal framework and strategic concept of modernization of the executive branch in the country. Of course, the transformation of the system of executive power into a governing body based on the interests and needs of the people - this began to mean the formation of features and characteristics inherent in civil society and the rule of law in the country. This decree approved the "Concept of Administrative Reform in the Republic of Uzbekistan." The decree detailed not only the tasks of administrative reforms, but also the complications of the old methods of governance, which hindered the development of these reforms, and how and under what conditions they do not allow to modernize public administration.

The essence of the concept and the tasks set in it are in line with the experience of modernizing the system of public administration in developed countries, national traditions. In accordance with this concept, on December 12, 2017, the Decree of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan "On measures to radically reform the national system of public services" was adopted. It is known that in a short period of time, the country has taken comprehensive measures to improve the quality of public services, to create favorable conditions and conveniences for businesses to provide public services on a "single window" basis. In particular, the transfer of single centers for the provision of public services to businesses from the structure of district and city khokimiyats to the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Uzbekistan from February 1, 2017 is an important step in the development of this sector. As a result, the number of public services provided by these centers has increased to 100.

The Decree of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan dated April 11, 2018 "On additional measures to accelerate the development of public services" has launched a new phase of modernization of the executive power and its local structures. The decree, first of all, announced the tasks of reforms to adapt the executive branch and its local structures to the provision of public services to the population. It envisages the formation of a kind of "people's monitoring", which will quickly provide information on the activities of public authorities, appeals to public service agencies, reports of their abuse of power. As a result, not only public control over the activities of the executive branch, but also citizen control was exercised.

In short, one of the goals of administrative reform in Uzbekistan is the formation of civil society on the basis of decentralization. Civil society can develop only in the conditions of not only horizontal but also vertical division of powers, i.e the balance of elected state bodies.

In the current period of reforms in the country, a new urgent task of gaining theoretical views and practical insights into civil society is on the agenda. In particular, indicators such as the stages of development, signs, factors, level of development of civil society play an important role in determining the prospects for countries experiencing transition, setting new tasks, comparing their level of development with other countries in the world. From this point of view, to have knowledge of the development indices of civil society in the present is to understand one's own period.

One of the important aspects of civil society research is to measure the stages and levels of its development. For this purpose, many different indicators and indices are used in modern social sciences and humanities. They consist of indices that allow to classify the level of civil society in countries or individual regions, as well as indicators of criteria for their democratization.

An indicator is a piece of information (about a complex system) that allows you to think about the state of an entire system. The growth or change of any indicator requires interpretation and understanding. In addition, at a glance, it is natural that the need for indicators to assess the situation is high.

The indices allow to assess various aspects of civil society: quality of life, self-esteem, level of freedom, level of political influence, measure of civic confidence in key political institutions, activity of the social sector, level of political and civic participation, etc.

The ambiguity and unconventional nature of many of the results obtained does not allow for broad generalizations and forward-looking conclusions based on them; but, at the same time, these results obtained may reveal social and political changes, allowing for a comparative analysis of a particular country or region.

Often, the empirical basis for the calculation of indices consists of data collected from the population through periodic surveys on representative collection and selection (taking into account gender, age, education and contribution or share in regional zoning). We think about some of the indicators and indices of the development of civil society and its levels of democratization, which are more important in this.

Civil Society Index (CIVICUS Civil Society Index). Since 2005, in some CIS countries, the CIVICUS Civil Society Index has been based on a project of the World Union for Civil Participation. The project focused on researching civil society organizations and encouraging civic activism. The index reflected the state of civil society structures, the external environment in which they live and work, the values that civil society organizations adhere to and protect, and the impact of these organizations.

The measurement of these structures includes the activity of the non-governmental social sector in the country and its measurement, its components, procedures of interaction, resources owned by civil society institutions. The measurement of the external environment is based on the following dimensions: the values, norms and attitudes promoted and expressed by civil society institutions, the consensus and discord between them.

The measurement of values concerns the legal, political and socio-cultural conditions of the functioning and development of civil society, its interaction with government, business and international non-governmental organizations. Impact measurement is concerned with assessing the net impact of civil society on finding solutions to socio-economic and political problems. Separate indicators have been developed for each of these dimensions. Some of them are universal in nature, while others are used to measure specific social and cultural changes [3].

The Civil Society Development Index is a new international program that provides countries with opportunities to constantly compare civil society with international standards, on the basis of which ways to develop it will be developed. Ultimately, this index also serves as a tool for developing and evaluating goals and programs for the development and strengthening of civil society.

Another indicator of the development of civil society is the NGO Tolerance Index. This index was developed by Freedom House and reflects the level of development of non-governmental or non-profit organizations in the country under study. The NGO Tolerance Index is a tool for comparative assessment of the level of development of civil society, which includes seven groups: organizational capacity, financial capacity, law enforcement activities, and the ability to represent social interests, service delivery, infrastructure and public image. They are measured on a scale of 1 to 7 (1 - good value, 7 - bad value). A score of 1 to 3 indicates that the NGO is resilient, 4 is moderate, and 5 to 7 indicates that there are barriers to the development and resilience of the NGO [4].

In recent decades, theoretical views on the criteria (indicators) of the maturity of civil society and its level of impact on human development have been developing [5]. Scientists define the following indicators of social participation as one of the criteria for the maturity of civil society and its ability to influence human development:

• total number of NGOs;

• number of active NGOs;

• population involved in NGO activities;

• activities and projects implemented with the participation of NGOs;

• the extent to which individual NGOs and the media are recognized by the public;

• the level of implementation of public decisions made on the basis of public participation;

• the amount of funding from NGOs based on funds from various sources;

• volume of services provided with the participation of NGOs;

• the contribution of NGOs to GDP;

• the contribution of NGOs to the success of national programs.

However, in our opinion, the following should be added to the list of these indicators:

• development of special indicators for countries that are going through a period of transition (transformation) and are on the path of building civil society;

• indicators of the extent to which NGOs represent the various interests of the individual, the extent to which they are expressed in government decisions;

• an indicator of how many proposals and recommendations of NGOs based on the interests of social strata are reflected in national legislation;

• an indicator of the extent to which NGOs participate in the activities of public authorities;

• an indicator of the degree to which NGOs are able to operate independently (de facto) from public authorities in public life;

In general, in our opinion, in countries that have begun their period of independence and are forming a civil society, it creates the conditions for the development of the following factors of human selfdevelopment:

• man increases the experience of expressing and defending his interests;

• the protection of human interests by NGOs becomes their main goal, they mediate between the state and citizens;

• NGOs are directly involved in law-making processes that are able to guarantee human development;

• decentralization of public administration as the role of civil society institutions in the management of society and the state;

• as a result of participation in the activities of civil society institutions, the level of human socialization increases.

References

civil society human rights

1 In Uzbekistan, the share of small business in GDP decreased from 60.9 to 57.2 percent // https: //dividends.nuz.uz/2019/10/26/dolja-malogo-biznesa- v-vvp-uzbekistana-snizilas-s -60-9-do-57-2-procenta /

2 MirziyoevSh.M. Ensuring the rule of law and ensuring the interests of the people - a guarantee of development of the country and the well-being of the people: Speech at the ceremony dedicated to the 24th anniversary of the Constitution of the Republic of Uzbekistan (December 7, 2016) // We will resolutely continue our path of national development and raise it to a new level. - T.: Uzbekistan, 2017. - P.114--115.

3 Civil Society Development Indices // www.helpiks.org / 7-69318.html.

4 Mersiyanova I.V. Indices of civic activity: strength and weakness of methods.-M., 2008.-P. 3-8.

5.Danishevsky K.D., Elizarov V.V., Khananashvili N.L. Indicators of social participation // Millennium Development Goals and national projects - Russia's strategic choice. Moscow: Institute for Integrated Strategic Studies, 2006.- P.7-8

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