Is dialog possible in transition society: steps toward civil society.

Baltic States experience

Kaja Tampere, PhDUniversity of Jyväskylä, Finland

keywords

• Conflict between different worldviews• Trauma because of change• Cultural heritage: memories from past...• ...and dreams about future• Cultural lessons: what it means to live in

democracy? And... What is democracy? How we define it? And... What is civil society?

• And What were solutions for Estonia?

• Democracy is a system of government in which either the actual governing is carried out by the people governed (direct democracy), or the power to do so is granted by them (as in representative democracy).

• Even though there is no specific, universally accepted definition of democracy there are two principles that any definition of democracy includes, equality and freedom.

• The role of dialog in society? How to practice dialog, if you have not enough experience for dialog...

• How to lean to be free and how to accept equality?

• How to learn to live in new type of society, to follow new ideology, different philosophies?

• Not only post communist countries are not in trouble with change. Same is in old democratic world... Time of turbulence and time of changes...

• Role of PR in the changing world?• ...To teach, to integrate... To learn to do new

things (dialog, for example)

Estonia meets civil society: 1. dialog in society

• Examples:• Portal TOM (Today I make decisions) in the

beginning. Now it is called: let’s make it together (government collect citizens feedback and ideas)

• https://www.osale.ee/

2. Less hierarchy and bureaucracy

• Easy access to every-days’ life:• different state institution: state portal eesti.ee:

http://www.eesti.ee/est/• E- government• E- elections• E- law (internal communication between

different state institutions to make laws and regulations)

• Etc.

3. Human face to state

• Use of social media in relationship building process, for example – Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs

(http://www.vm.ee/?q=et/node/5468) is in the twitter, facebook, second life, flickr,

youtube, and also blogging (http://estonianmfa.blogspot.com/) • And Ministries’ PR department is available via Skype

4. Freedom

• Estonia generally (according Freedom House report 2009)– Political Rights Score: 1Civil Liberties Score: 1

Status: Free

http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=475&year=2009

5. FREEDOM OF THE PRESS 2008 Table of Global Press Freedom Rankings

• Finland, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Sweden, Luxembourg, Andorra, Netherlands, New Zealand, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Palau, Ireland, Jamaica, Estonia...

• http://www.freedomhouse.org/uploads/fop08/FOTP2008_WorldRankings.pdf

How to obtain this?• Well educated PR stuff, voice of PR professionals’

is loud • dreams will come true, if you have enough

courage to dream• Internal wish to transform positively (state slogan

was “Positively transforming country”)• Inspiration to test new things: curiosity• Awareness toward change: wish to learn• Strong ambitions