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16COMMUNICATION BETWEEN THE REPRESENTATIVES OF VOLUNTEER
MOVEMENT AND THE STATE: THE NATURE OF THE SUBJECT-OBJECT RELATIONS
S .N. Ganuschyn,
a postgraduate student of Organizations Management Department Lviv Regional Institute of Public Administration National Academy of Public Administration of President of Ukraine
ABSTRACT
The essence of volunteer movement and its relations with the state system of Ukraine have been examined in the article. The definitions of concepts such as "state", "voluntary actions" and "volunteer movement" have been analyzed. The general effect of volunteer movement on the state government has been defined.
The problem issues in the nature of the subject-object relations between volunteers and the state have been specified. A likely risk of dispersion of human potential accumulated in the volunteer movement in case of inefficient state policy towards cooperation with volunteers has been emphasized.
The article provides conclusions and proposals to improve the efficiency of cooperation between the volunteer movement and the
Key words: state, public organizations, volunteering, volunteer movement, volunteers, communications.
General Problem Stating. Since the independence of Ukraine very important transformation changes have taken place within the society that gave impetus to the emergence of a new European state based on the principles of national identity, freedom of speech, the primacy of state building through the development of democracy and equality. According to the experience of the developed countries, the establishment of a developed state is impossible without an active participation of the most dynamic component of any society - the youth. Organizing in community organizations, young people are able to influence government formation processes significantly as it has been observed in recent years. The multimillion nation protests against the policies of the previous president and the government started with a small night meeting of a group of young people, who showed that the selected vector of authorities to ignore the policy towards European integration was not acceptable for the majority of the Ukrainians. The youth became a driving force of the explosion of civil disobedience to the ruling regime, which was transformed into "Euromaidan." Of course, any protest needs material and resource supplies. And that caused restoration of charity traditions inherent to us and left by our ancestors in our genotype, and along with the resumption of large-scale philanthropy as an integral component of it, the volunteer movement began to develop actively.
The aim of the article is to study the nature of the subject-object relations between the volunteer movement and the state and a possibility to ensure effective communication, notion definitions of «state», «volunteer actions» and «volunteer movement,» the role and functions of the state in the development of the volunteer movement in Ukraine.
The analysis of recent research and publications. The peculiarities of volunteering as a social phenomenon of our time have been a research subject of a number of scientists. In particular, trends and prospects of the development of volunteering in Europe and the UK have been studied by J. Davis Smith, M.Harris, K.Rochester, R.Hedli; in the US -by S.Ellis, K.Kempbel; the problems of volunteer programs management have been studied by L.Remrayk, L.Hraff,
S.Makkarli, R.Linch, S.Vinyard, B.Staylings, K.Biderman, J.Nobl, L.Rodzhers. The sector of cooperation with volunteers has been studied by S.Makkarli, R.Linch, S.Vinyard, S.Ellis, K.Kempbel, K.Veysman, A.Veysbord, K.Noys, B.Vitich.
In the former USSR, Russian researchers were among the first ones who addressed the issues of volunteering. S.Synetskyy and M.Lvova studied a social portrait of Russian volunteers and the attitude of population and specialists of high qualification to volunteer activities, paying great attention to the problems of volunteer involvement and motivation, these issues were also studied by O.Velikanova, V.Haranina, V.Kochetkova, N.Cherepanova, H.Bodrenkova, who also compiled and analyzed a number of studies of the voluntary sector. L. Kudrynska considered the nature, functions and peculiarities of volunteer activities in the framework of labor approach. S.Shyndauletova, N. Zaveryko, S. Bondarenko, T. Lyakh analyzed the regulatory framework of a number of states and their problems of legal regulation of volunteer activities. The research of volunteer movement elements in Ukraine can be found in the works of R.Vaynol, A.Kapska, N.Komarova, O.Bezpalko, O.Karpenko, I.Zvierieva, H.Laktionova.
However, these studies are based primarily on summarizing the experience of practical implementation of volunteer projects in the field of social work with a detailed, often phased, description. Therefore, assessing the level of development of volunteering and volunteer movement problems in Ukraine, it should be mentioned that there is lack of comprehensive social research in this area.
Emphasizing the aspects of the general problem unsolved before implies the fact that despite the presence of reliable knowledge on the reasons for participating in volunteer activities, volunteer recruitment mechanisms and principles of management of volunteer programs, there is no conceptual understanding of the features of institutionalization of volunteering as a social movement.
The objective of the article is to study the nature of communication and the subject-object relations between the volunteer movement and the state, define the concepts such as «state», «volunteer», «volunteer movement», as well as to
highlight the role and functions of the state in the development of volunteer movement in Ukraine.
The main material research presentation. The state is the most important institution of the political system of any society. Its importance is determined by the maximum concentration of resources in its hands, which allows the state to influence on social changes. In the present situation there is no adequate substitute of the state, and probably it will not be found in the nearer future. [1]
The definition of the concept «state», its functions and role in the society are studied through various theories, including theological, patriarchal, psychological, contracting theories or the theory of the social compact. T.Hobbes, being fond of the last one, thought: «The state is a single person and the responsibility for the actions came from a mutual agreement between a large number of people to provide the possibility for this person to use that power and all their abundance as it is necessary for their peace and common defense «[2, p.196]. H.Hehel was convinced that the state becomes regulated and very strong itself, if the private interest of citizens is combined with its overall objective [3, p.158].
The dictionary «Public Administration» defines the concept of the state as a main tool of the political system of the society which manages, provides protection of its economic and social structure, organization and regulation of social heterogeneous society and ensures its integrity and security. [4]
Based on the mentioned above information, it would seem enough to give a definition of «state», its basic features are stated, and in general, the basic approaches to the interpretation of its social nature, values, social purposes and so on are clear to understand. However, in terms of undivided opinion, the only correct scientific definition of the concept «state» is a super difficult task to complete.
The interpretation of all the aspects related to the state is mostly unclear. As it is not clear which state attributes are optional, and the presence of which are minimally sufficient to ensure the fact that a certain social formation could be called a state.
The concept of «state» in the context of the multiplicity of spheres of its manifestation is a particular difficulty in the process of the definition of the term. Therefore, with the aim to study the multifaceted nature of the concept of «state» the state-theories were differentiated, which are divided into three groups in terms of understanding the social nature of the state.
The first group includes strata theories. The main thesis of this theory in state studies implies that the nature of the state is always exploitative, so the state (and law, after all) cannot be transformed, but should be destroyed in the course of social revolution. This will ensure the removal of obstacles to fulfill immanent mechanisms of society based on principles of mutual aid and justice, which will inevitably lead to the emergence of a communist society.
A well-known representative of anarchic communists P.A.Kropotkin believed that the state is an institution of social exploitation of wide sections of population by «a group of exploiters.» Everything, with no exception, done by the state damages the society. Besides that, the state prevents the formation and functioning of public institutions of self-organization which are intrinsic for society.
The second group includes the theories of liberal and social-democratic orientation, which justify the general social nature of the state, that can be summarized into the following fundamental statements: the state must act in the interests of all the members of society with no exception; the state has no right to interfere in public affairs except the cases of offenses; the state cannot implement any economic and social functions; state institutions have both qualitative and quantitative restrictions in their activities.
The third group includes dualistic theories of understanding the essence of the state. These theories attribute the Marxist theory of the state, based on the dialectical materialism. It is often called the historical-materialist or class state theory in the scientific literature. According to the views of Marx and Engels, the state emerges as a result of the society division into classes, which, in turn, is a consequence of the emergence and development of private property. The state is considered to be a political institution of economically dominant class. However, from the standpoint of Marx and Engels, the state performs both class and general social functions. At the same time, if a conflict emerges in the activity of the state between a class and social interests, this conflict, as it was considered by the founders of Marxism, would be solved in favor of an economic (and therefore, political) ruling class.
Taking into consideration the world order, the theory of pluralistic democracy in all its various forms, to my mind, gives an opportunity to approach closer to the understanding of versatility of the definition of the concept "state". The most common varieties of it are the theories of power diffusion, the theory of interested pressure groups, which are based on a dogma that the division into classes does not exist in the modern world any more. Thus, the state power has lost its class division.
Modern society is formed by various characteristics of social group aggregation so-called strata and every person can be a part of different strata simultaneously. So, that is the way how political, public and other organizations emerge and take part actively or passively in state policy making. Due to this fact, the management of public processes is carried out not only by the current state apparatus, but also a number of nongovernmental public entities, which, in turn, ensures that the state serves as an institution which acts in the interests of the society. The prominent representatives of these theories are H. Lusky, M. Lyuverzhe, R. Dahrendorf, R.Dal and others.
We shall also mentionl a theory of elites, the main thesis of which is that the masses cannot run the state and, therefore, its management should be undertaken by the highest strata of society - the elite. In fact, many monarchical theories could apply to this theory. The bright representatives are Plato with his social concepts, Moski, D.Dontsov.
Based on the above material we can see that it is difficult to give an unambiguous definition of the concept «state» as it is not clear which features are optional and which of them are enough to call a certain social formation a state. The main features have been mentioned in this article, the comprehensible basic approaches to the interpretation of its social nature, values, social purpose and so on have been distinguished.
To understand the subject - object relations between the state and the volunteer movement better, we shall find out the
nature of volunteering. As a social movement volunteering arose in the West, and the first volunteers were the Samaritans who provided assistance to all who needed it. However, the clear emergence of the phenomenon of volunteering appeared in the mid- XIX century. 1859 is the year of the emergence of volunteer movement in the world [5]. During this period, Henri Duran, a famous French writer and journalist, struck by the consequences of the bloody Battle of Solferino, proposed the creation of the Red Cross, an organization that would work on a volunteer basis and provided first aid to the wounded and prisoners. The principles set out by Henri Duran became guidelines for volunteer organizations all over the world.
Volunteering is a charitable activity undertaken by individuals on the basis of non-profit activities, without salary, promotion, for the welfare and prosperity of communities and society as a whole; it is a humanistic activity aimed at social assistance to certain groups of the population, development and prosperity of the society [6].
Volunteering is defined as an active participation of people in public life, including a participation in the social life of public organizations and government agencies, which contributes to improvement of the quality of life in general, personal growth and extending sense of solidarity; the realization of basic human needs in the way of building a more just society; economic and social development, creation of new job vacancies and new professions and is usually shown in joint activities within various associations [7, p. 3].
The Law of Ukraine «On volunteer movement» (on 19 April 2011) determines that a volunteer is an individual who voluntarily provides charitable and non-profit motivated activities that have socially useful character [8].
Taking into consideration the existing views on the concept of «volunteer movement,» a generalized definition may be proposed that characterizes volunteer movements which are different in terms of nature. Thus, the volunteer movement is a component of a social and political system, which is represented in some way by organized public authorities (including political forces) and they understand their specificity to some extent, peculiarities of their role in the development of public society as a whole and ensure some of their needs, carry out activities aimed at implementing achievements of the desired results of their activities.
A socially heterogeneous society is characterized by the presence of different social groups and strata of population pursuing their interests and goals and having different social, cultural, spiritual and material needs. These groups are united in public and political organizations. An important leader of the interests of all segments of the society is a volunteer movement, which is a mass organized social and political activity aimed at achieving specific goals of the state and its citizens that need to be reached at some certain time.
One of the forms of social activity where people can realize themselves as a personality is volunteering. It is carried out in different areas of public life, and may have different motives. In the literature it is often described as an altruistic desire to help others, but besides that there is a need for communication, self-development, acquisition of professional knowledge and skills, and the encouragement from the organization is also a powerful stimulus to inspire a person to have an active attitude
to volunteer activities [9, p. 350]. For instance, according to the National Center of Voluntary Work in the UK, the main reason to participate in the volunteer movement is the activity itself that integrates volunteers into the community, creating a certain unity with it (32% corresponds to a need for a sense of unity with other people) [10, p. 13].
A volunteer movement can be an organized one (legalized in volunteer public organizations) and an informal volunteer movement (volunteer initiatives which are not registered legally and can be long-term or sporadic ones). Although, according to experts, there are far more individuals in informal volunteer movements than in the organized ones, it should be noted that the experience gained by the Ukrainians for the last two years, shows that organized public volunteer organizations perform tasks within the competence of the state and local government more effectively and less costly in terms of money. The work of volunteer organizations in areas such as social assistance, furnishing of free information and providing legal services, organization of sports, cultural and other events started in Ukraine since its independence and has since acquired a number of features that contribute to its development in the future as a social institution in the independent European state. In Ukraine there is unprecedented army support conducted by volunteers who accomplish «turnkey» military orders. It means that it all starts with raising money to provide further purchases of necessary equipment for the military and finishes with personal delivery of all purchased items directly to the location of military personnel. Such actions are often accompanied by risk to life and health of volunteers but, despite this mortal danger, the volunteer movement is developing and is getting to a different, qualitatively higher level. Researchers of volunteering aspects believe that it will exist as long as: government agencies fail to meet the social needs of citizens; there are categories of people who need help and those willing to provide the assistance; methodological and practical development in the field of volunteering are available. The formation and development of the volunteer movement in Ukraine today is taking place due to internal (revival of the tradition of voluntary assistance), external resources (introduced from abroad by the international volunteering foundations) and total mobilization of the Ukrainians as a result of the military aggression of the neighboring state. Such support of the Army provided by people could not have been predicted even by the most respected military strategists, not only from CIS countries but also world-class ones.
And now the task of the state is to keep this manifestation of human potential by supporting and establishing fruitful cooperation between bodies of the state authorities and the volunteer movement. Nowadays, in Ukraine there are four types of organizations which cooperate with volunteers: government agencies, public organizations, mutual assistance groups and the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The differences between them depend on the formalization of relations between the organization, volunteers and clients, sources of resource involvement, the level of structural organization and the level of activities of the association.
In the process of institutionalization of the volunteer movement in Ukraine the motivational aspects of volunteering are being outlined, the formation of value-normative, semantic
and symbolic, status and role structures of social control and transfer of knowledge to the next generation are being formed, as well as legitimization and legalization of voluntary activity. However, there is no consolidation of volunteer centers into a single structure: at the national level they are centered on the activities of the State Social Service on Family, Children and Youth Issues, at the public level - on the activities of the Volunteer Centre «Good Will» and the Resource Center of Public Organizations Support «Hurt» (means "group" in English). Such institutional features as legality, legitimacy and institutional infrastructure affirm institutionalization of volunteering, but people are not appointed to this activity, which hinders its final professionalization [9, p.351]. .
Unfortunately, due to lack of accurate statistics on the number of volunteers and volunteer centers, qualitative and quantitative indicators of their activities, the financial equivalent of volunteer work the available research data of volunteering in Ukraine are presented fragmentary.
In those countries where there is a strong tradition of volunteering - in Britain and Germany, in particular -voluntary activities and volunteers themselves are protected by law. The countries of Central and Eastern Europe also made successful efforts from an official recognition of volunteering to creation a legal framework that promotes the development of volunteering. The laws which regulate voluntary activity have been accepted in Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain and others [11].
The analysis of the status of volunteers worldwide shows that the legal regulation of volunteering is needed in order to ensure protection of volunteers and to distinguish them from hired employees. In Ukraine, the issue of legislative regulation of volunteering is not resolved properly. Until 2014 the central executive body of the government, which patronizes young people and cooperates with voluntary organizations was the Ministry of Ukraine on Family, Youth and Sports Issues and the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine. Since the end of 2014 voluntary organizations have been cooperating actively with the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, the Ministry of Information Policy of Ukraine, parliamentary committees of Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, some of their representatives have been acting advisors of the representatives of the entire power vertical starting from President of Ukraine to the heads of regional and district state administrations and heads of local government administrations.
In 2004 the Law of Ukraine «On Social Services» came into force and it refers volunteering in two articles. Article 1 of this law presents the definition of key terms, including «volunteer» and it is specified in Article 17 that volunteers can be involved into provision of social services and their activity is governed by the relevant regulation approved by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.
Organizations that engage volunteers use a decree №204 of the Ministry of Ukraine on Family, Youth and Sports Issues on 30.01.2006 «On approval of model regulations on Volunteer School of the Center of Social Services on Families, Children and Youth Issues» and a decree of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine on 10.12.2003 №1895 «On Approval of Voluntary Activities in Social Services»
Until 2001, the Ukrainian legislation concealed volunteering issues. However, even now there is no state support for volunteers, as they cannot be sent on a business trip, they have no labor contracts and their employment history is not recorded. Then, the following decisions of the Parliament were adopted to ensure volunteer activity such as the Law of Ukraine on 19.04.2010 №3236-VI «On Voluntary Activity» [8] and the Law of Ukraine on 13.04.2010 №2118-VI «On Volunteer Movement" [12].
The state is interested in supporting volunteer initiatives, many of which now aim to meet the needs of the Ukrainian army. Besides that, the efforts of some volunteers are aimed at solving the problems of HIV / AIDS, drug addiction, alcoholism, assisting families with many children and poor families, promotion of healthy lifestyle and others.
A number of volunteer programs are aimed at the development of creative endeavors of youth, their leadership qualities and skills with their further participation in public life of the country. European integration of Ukraine with the direct participation of youth organizations in general and volunteer organizations in particular should be seen as an important step in the formation of a strong state, accelerating system reforms, its decisions, a chance to be heard and influence the political processes in the country. In any case, we must not allow volunteers to be considered as a source of problems, but as an equal partner in the process of solving them.
An important regulatory and legal act concerning promotion of development of institutions of public society, which includes volunteering, is a decree of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine on 21.11.2007, «On Approval of Concept on Executive Agencies Promoting the Development of Public Society» [13]. The concept defines the main principles of executive bodies that are aimed at creating favorable conditions for the culture development of public society, including the spotting an active citizenship attitude to participate in the formation and implementation of public policy, awareness of the positive cooperation between public authorities and public society.
The scientific and practical conferences, round tables, meetings, political talk-shows and other meeting formats have become quite habitual. They give the government representatives and volunteers an opportunity to discuss and talk on different issues.
The conclusions on the study. Based on the analysis we can conclude that volunteer organizations in the country have a significant impact on social development and the formation of public society. Nowadays, there is a rapid increase in demand for volunteer services. The participation in the voluntary movement has no religious, racial, age, gender and even political boundaries. Numerous international volunteer organization networks engage millions of people into their projects and programs every year. Many efforts are made to promote volunteer activity not only by charitable and voluntary organizations, but also by government agencies. In the world practice, the most important feature of volunteering is that a person spends a part of their free time, efforts, energy, knowledge and experience voluntarily, with no coercion and instructions above to implement some useful things for individuals or society in general. Moreover, it should be
mentioned that a large number of organizations are united into the global volunteer movement, and this activity is supported by the international community. For further development of Ukrainian volunteering the national regulations should be improved in this area.
Many international programs and documents prove undoubted benefits of voluntary activities. The International Volunteer Day (5 December) was founded in 1985. At that time the UN General Assembly called on governments to spread information on volunteer work to engage in volunteering more and more people from different areas. And the year 2001 was declared to be the International Year of Volunteers. According to the international studies conducted in the framework with this initiative, the UN Organization recommended in its resolutions to all the states to anticipate volunteering in the national strategies for socio-economic development, and find and remove all barriers in their laws that directly or indirectly prevent people conducting volunteer activity, reduce the tax burden, which put volunteers at short end. In addition, the UN called on the international community to provide volunteers with a legal status and adequate social protection, respecting their independence.
Based on the conducted analysis we conclude that volunteering can be considered as a subject and as an object of social changes in the implementation of state-building processes within the country. As conscientious citizens try to unite into public organizations with the aim to participate in making important public decisions. The government should be a guarantee of quality development of volunteering, as it is a task of the government to create necessary social, economic and political, legal, and organizational conditions and guarantees for the social formation and development of every individual and society as a whole
Therefore, one way to address the pressing problems of volunteer movement is the regulation of voluntary activities at the legislative level, the further active participation of voluntary organizations in the state building process and management of the state. The authorities are to facilitate effectively their participation and provide the necessary regulatory and legal support. Thus, considering the relations between the volunteer movement and the state, we can conclude that they have a subject - object character.
LITERATURE
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