Future projects

THE PROJECT – NEW PROFESSIONALS FOR NEW DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY

1.1 Title of the project:
"New Professionals for New Democratic Society"

1.2 Target region:
Serbia, Montenegro and Croatia

1.3 Target group/beneficiaries of the project:
This project is aimed at further education and creation of the new political elites capable of significant contribution to the changing societies in transition and new democratic climate: postgraduate students, youth members of political parties, junior staff in the state administration, public service and NGOs.

1.4 Total project duration:
The total duration of this project is 12 months.

1.5 Summary
The main aim of this project is to educate future political elites; civil servants, academics, politicians who are working or will be working in public sector. CEDET together with its partners will conduct serial of two workshops and two seminars, with total of 30 participants and 15 lecturers from Serbia, Croatia and Montenegro.

Regular "virtual workshops" on internet will be organised between workshops and seminars so that participants can work on the final paper which will be selection of recommendations and result of common work of participants and lecturers on the issues of human and minority rights, implementation in the societies in transition, proposal for new project to be implemented in state services. This final paper will be printed in circulation of 500 copies.

The book Human Rights and Political Culture will be published upon ending of the seminars and workshops.

1.6 The main objectives of this project:

• These young professionals, participants of the project, will get theoretical as well as practical-political knowledge on the issues of political culture, human and minority rights

• They will get a chance to accept gender perspective as well as values of equal opportunity for all citizens (especially concerning ethnic groups and national minorities)

• They will improve awareness about an importance of human rights respect and protection as well as about necessity that all inhabitants of their countries who had committed atrocities and violations of human rights during the bloody wars should be punished.

• They will produce recommendation paper which will identify problems and propose further work on the issues through common project

• Establishment of closer relations between young professionals from FRY and Croatia

1.7 Justification

In the country that suffered 10 years of dictatorship words lost meaning, politicians lost responsibility for "public word", candidates are going in to the campaign without basic knowledge of election system and laws etc.

It is essential for every person involved in public sector, professional, political or public services no matter from which profession she/he is coming from to have the bases of political culture. It is especially important for the young people who are in the beginning of the career. These are people who are going to take leading role in society. Seminars and workshops will help them to widen and deepen their knowledge, to develop multidisciplinary and comparative approach, and capacity for critical way of thinking. This generation was raised in the atmosphere of war, intolerance and hatred. They will work together on overcoming nationalist and schouvinist sentiments – through deepening mutual friendship and through public antinationalist activity in their own countries. They will promote through these seminars and workshops values of tolerance and mutual respect, of peace building, of preventing hate speech and behaviour, and they will promote these values in the public domain of their own countries and daily communication with clients, colleagues, customers, voters etc.

CEDET is planning to organise 2 workshops and 2 seminars in the course of one year on the following topics:

POLITICAL CULTURE

• Basic Types of Political Culture in the explored countries

• How to learn political culture of tolerance, eliminating the hate speech, stimulating antinationalism, political correctness, understanding of `the other`

• Ethnic conflicts and reconciliation; What should successful negotiator have; Understanding "the other side"; "Creative listening"; Understanding the problem; Defining solutions; Confidence building

• How to face the wars` experience, war memories and to stimulate normalization of social, political, personal relations

• Truth and reconciliation

• Correspondence between desirable institutional changes (constitutional, electoral, in the field of political systems) and existent political cultures in the explored countries

• Presentation of desirable institutional changes

• Parties and various party systems in Europe
• How the party should be organised; What kinds of systems exist; Party discipline; Structure; International organisations
• Electoral systems - existing systems in the world, electoral laws; Voting procedure; Candidates – rights and responsibilities

• How to stimulate through institutional framework as well as through media, civic initiatives the development of political culture of tolerance

• Civil society and civic initiatives

• Everyday life and civil society – comparative analyses

• Quality of everyday life and its influence on the political culture development

HUMAN RIGHTS

• Human rights and the history of human and minority rights

• International Human Rights standards - an implementation of international documents in national law

• Constitutional, legal, administrative provisions of human rights in FRY and Croatia

• Actual Practice of respect and enjoyment of human rights

• Attitudes of citizens towards their own rights and the rights of their compatriots

• Minority rights – actual situation, institutional protection, ways of protection and implementation, the role of media and civic initiatives in minority rights improvement

• Substantive changes in the situation of human rights in institutional, socio-economic field, and the field of political culture – comparative analysis

• Lecturers will be well-known professors and researchers from FRY and Croatia.

Virtual workshop will be regular way of communication between participants and lecturers in the period between workshops and seminars. This way of communication will enable constant communication, preparation for the next seminar and workshop, work on common recommendation paper and after the completion of the project will remain a way for the participants and lecturers to stay in contact and further deepen co-operation and exchange.

Participants of workshops and seminars will be given task to build up through meetings, exchange of ideas, common work in the virtual workshop and individual researches to prepare the paper which will be a new project for the future regional co-operation and improvements in the issues covered by the project.

Also, we will publish the book as a final result of our work on an issue of Political Culture and Human Rights.