Democracy and Local Governance

Report of Evaluative Conference and Workshop

Mogilany/Krakow, Sept. 22-25, 1995

At the invitation of the Institute of Sociology, University of Warsaw, an evaluative conference and workshop were held in Mogilany near Krakow, Poland September 22-25. Attending were members of the International Steering Committee and Research teams from Armenia, Belarus, Czech Republic & Slovakia, Hungary, India, Korea, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, and the United States. (See Appendix 3)

The agenda of the conference included progress reports on the research and analysis and discussion of further plans. The workshop focused on the instruments and analysis with specific recommendations prepared by working groups. A round-table on theoretical aspects of transformations of post-communist societies also took place.

Researchers involved in the Democracy and Local Governance program decided to establish Jacob International Society for Collaborative Studies, with Betty Jacob as Honorary Chair, Sam Eldersveld as President, Jerzy Wiatr and Henry Teune as Vice-Presidents, Krzysztof Ostrowski as Secretary General and Chung-Si Ahn as Member of the Board.

After the conference a meeting of the IPSA Study Group (#35) on the Politics of Local-Global Relations was held in Krakow at the invitation of the Institute of Political Sciences, Jagiellonian University.  

Progress Reports

Representatives of research teams and the International Coordinator reported on the completion of data gathering in 1994-1995 in Armenia, Czech Republic & Slovakia, Iceland, Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine. Reports on preparations for research in Belarus, Hungary and India were also presented. According to information received by the International Coordinator, data collection has been completed in Germany and UK. Preparations have been made for field operations in Canada, Finland, Greece and Spain.

A seminar for West European research teams is planned for January at the invitation of the University of Bern.

Lack of progress in organization of the project in Japan and Latin America require new efforts and/or change of research coordinators.

The accomplishments in 1995--bringing data for the second time for six countries and data files for at least three new countries --was facilitated through grants from National Science Foundation in the United States and local resources mobilized by Polish and German teams. An important addition was the reconstruction and expansion of the sample in Russia, covering now 76 communities in all 11 regions of the Federation, including five autonomous republics.

Five Working groups were formed to report to the full meeting; the planned one on open-ended questions was postponed. (Since the meeting, Democracy and Local Governance has been invited to present its approach to a UNESCO sponsored meeting on conceptual analysis.)

Working Groups

Comparability of the Questionnaire

The general conclusions were that the questionnaire must be scrutinized from the standpoint of the concepts it contains (authority, responsibility, leaders) and the wording of specific questions. The former was seen as a continuous process of informing collaborators of different meanings and the latter as requiring some "back translations". Initiatives were left to the research teams. A special effort would be made to find some scholars to examine the translations as the questionnaire now has been translated into over 20 languages.

 Defining Democratic Leaders

Various efforts have been made to define democratic leaders and types of democratic leaders as well as other kinds of leaders. These definitions have now been presented in publications and papers. The general conclusion was that the international file would only provide raw data and delete all "transformed" variables (except simple summations). An effort would be made to establish a means of communicating about what variables have been constructed and how they have been used. (Since the meeting, a World Wide Web page has been opened where various scholars can enter their transformed variables and receive and answer queries about them.)

Comparing Countries

Since the number of countries in the study is approaching 25, it was decided to enter country characteristics as variables in the international file. These would be readily available and relevant to the research program. (See Appendix 1)

Community Characteristics

Two main types of community characteristics were discussed: political party and socio-economic. It was decided to keep the targets of socio-economic characteristics agreed to in the Minsk meeting. (See Appendix 2) Political party data, however, were gathered in the revised Minsk questionnaire and can be used to develop community characteristics.

The new variables from the new questions on political parties and their formation concern perceptions of their functions and reasons people become active in them. Because of the decision to limit the international file to "raw" questionnaire responses and preliminary analyses have demonstrated some general, cross- national dimensions in these questions, it was recommended that each research team code their responses on three dimensions in response to why people join political parties: personal. social, and political.

It was agreed that communities could be compared based on the political party configurations of their leaders and voting in elections. The categories suggested for all research teams are: 1) ruling or non-ruling party; 2) parliamentary or non- parliamentary parties (representation in the national parliament); 3) single issue party; 4) nationalist, liberal, socialist, and social democratic; and 5) left, left-center, center, right-center, and right. Communities would be scored on the percentage of local leaders of each type and of votes in the last local elections.

 Applications

 The primary activity of this group was to plan the next international publication of the research program. This will be a second volume of country reports, which will be ready for final editing at the meeting planned in January, 1996 in Bern and hosted by the Institute of Political Science, University of Bern.

Special Sessions

Two evening discussion sessions were held: "Theoretical Perspectives on Transformations in Post-Communist States" led by Henry Teune and Jerzy Wiatr and "Education and Training in Local Democracy", led by Betty Jacob.

 Appendix I: Country Characteristics

I. Aggregate National Data
  l. Demographic
     birth rate
     mortality: male, female
     infant mortality per 1000 births
  2. Economic
     GNP per capita
     unemployment, non-agricultural
     inflation rate, 1994
     industrial output as percent of GNP (1994)
     export/import ratio (1994)
     exports as percent of GNP (1994)
  3. Social
     suicide per 100,000
     secondary education, percent
     hospital beds per 100,000
     largest national group, percent
     automobiles per 1000 population
     telephones per 1000 households

II. Historical
     years, communist regime, 20th century 
     years, non-democratic, non-communist regime, 20th century   
     years, direct foreign rule, 20th century
     number of foreign wars fought in 20th century
     number of civil wars in 20th century
     first time nation-state in 20th century (0=no; 1=yes)

III. Institutional
      national system: presidential; parliamentary; mixed
      percent members of largest parliamentary faction or caucus 
      (largest house after last election)
      number of power transfers to opposition since Jan., 1990
      Observance of human rights (U.S., Dept. of State, Report)
       (0=very bad; 1=mixed; 2=good, very good)   

Appendix II: Community Characteristics

I. Elections
   turnout, voters & eligible voters (describe), last two elect. 
   votes for the first five candidates (parties), last two     
   national elections
   votes for first five candidates (parties), last two local     
   elections

II. Party Organization
    whether any of the parties has a group or organization at the 
    local level (list names and "yes" or "no")

III. Economic and Social Characteristics
     number unemployed (definition of unemployment)
     number economically active  (definition of employment)
     housing stock (rooms, houses, apartments)
     health services (hospital beds, doctors, health centers)
     educational facilities (schools, years of school completed)

IV. Social Groups
    percentage of people other than majority of a country        
    residing in locality (list names of groups and "none", if 
    none)  (if data are not available, use informer and get 
    percent of each group, less than 5%, 5%-15%, etc.

V. Local Legislation
    documents, reports, newspapers on legislation adopted locally 
    in the past six months

VI. Major Events (Last five years)
     list of major events, storms, fires, political crises, civil 
    disturbances, arrests of officials, completion of public   
    works, including highways and buildings

Appendix III: List of Participants

DEMOCRACY AND LOCAL GOVERNANCE

International Research Program

Protection of Data and Anonymity of Respondents and Communities

1. Democracy and Local Governance is an international academic
research program collecting data and information on local
communities and local leaders for the purpose of analyzing global
processes of democratization and change. 

2. The program is based on voluntary cooperation of researchers 
in various countries sponsored by national and international
institutions. 

3. The program is committed to disseminate its results and data
for public use in accordance with requirements specified by
participating scholars and their sponsors. 

4. The instruments used are developed jointly by the
collaborating researchers.  The instruments are not copyrighted,
but proper identification of the program and its participants is
encouraged whenever these instruments are referenced or used.   

5. Data files for specified countries are maintained and
disseminated in accordance with provisions set by sponsoring
institutions.

6. An international comparative file is constructed from the data
files contributed by scholars entrusted by their sponsoring
institutions.  Scholars contributing to the international data
file are members of a consortium to manage and disseminate it.

7. The following rules are in effect to protect the anonymity of
the respondents and communities in the international file:

     7.1  Data are recorded in a format that does not  identify
        individual respondents or communities.  
     7.2  Background data on the respondents (age, position,
          occupation, political affiliation, family background)
        are  grouped into few general international categories. 

     7.3  Community statistics are rounded-up or re-coded.  
          Positions of the communities on maps are given or       
          approximated in accordance with information provided by 
          the contributing scholars.

8.  The following rules apply for the access to the publicly
available international data file in data archives and computer
networks:

     8.1  The use of specific variables or parts of the data file 
     may be restricted by passwords or permission procedures.

     8.2  The log of usage of the international file will be
     maintained and analyzed on annual basis.
 
9.  Any attempt to use the data generated by the DLG program in
violation of the above rules are subject to public disclosure and
evaluation by academic associations and institutions that have
assumed responsibilities for maintaining professional, academic
standards in research.


Adopted at the International Evaluative Conference in Mogilany,
Poland, September 21-25, 1995.