Advocacy or contemporary recreating the participative democracy. Cover Image

Advocacy sau reinventarea contemporană a democraţiei participative.
Advocacy or contemporary recreating the participative democracy.

Author(s): Marcela Slusarciuc, Lucian-Sorin Stănescu
Subject(s): Law, Constitution, Jurisprudence
Published by: Editura Universităţii George Bacovia din Bacău România
Keywords: Citizens’ participation; advocacy; participative democracy; social responsibility; Constitution efficiency

Summary/Abstract: The proactive participation of the citizens in the social and political life and, especially, in the political-judicial process of decision represents the immanent attempt of the open society to recompose an ideal model of participative democracy in the complex context of the contemporary world. The need for democratic legitimacy pushes the political government to institutionalize the participation ways for mediating the relation between the ones who govern and the ones who are governed. The advocacy is the mechanism that offers the proper and transparent setting for the action of citizens’ involvement for public policies influence in the sense of reflecting the real needs of the beneficiaries. The paper aims to explain the relationship between the citizens participation in the decisional process, advocacy – as mechanism for encouraging the process of bringing together the beneficiaries and the decisional bodies – and Constitution as framework and ground for adjustment of the opposite tendencies from the society and the incentive of the participants to the social and political life. Beside its primary function as facilitator of the interaction between the citizen and the representative, the exercise of advocacy may have as effect the revaluation of the fundamental instruments of the constitutional democracy, the elective vote and the exercise of the right for the peoples’ legislative initiative. On long term, the significant assimilation of this mechanism inside the society may lead to an increase of the Constitutional efficiency, through the social responsibility of the citizens and the increase of its integrative function as support of the society members’ solidarity for the judicial order aiming the search of the common good.

  • Issue Year: I/2012
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 69-91
  • Page Count: 23
  • Language: English