Emese Ugrin – Csaba Varga
New theory of state and democracy
2008
Published by:
Institute for Strategic Research
www.strategiakutato.hu
Co-publishers:
Translated by:
Anna Born
Cover and typography by: László Siba
© Emese Ugrin, Csaba Varga
ISBN: 978-963-87857-01
Responsible Editor:
Eva, V. Csorba
Printing house: Danube Palece Publisher, 2008
Contents
Preface 7
Introduction 10
Chapter One: The glocal world and information age 13
1.1. The new concept of globalisation: functional and substantial globalisation 13
1.2. Localisation and ’life milieu’ 15
1.3. Glocal age and the new mediation level: the nation 16
1.4. The four models of the present glocal age 17
1.5. The Information Age that comes to an end 18
1.6. The age of new technologies and artificial intelligence 19
1.7. Age of new knowledge and critical approaches to democracy 20
1.8. Information society as the next stage of glocalization 23
1.9. The history of the three basic categories and their submodels 25
1.10. A new understanding of knowledge society at the end of the information age 28
A restricted concept of knowledge in the information society 29
1.11. The expansion of network society and knowledge-based economy 31
The era of knowledge-driven economy 33
1.12. Capital resources of the information society 36
Chapter Two: Developing the relationship between state and citizen 39
2.1. Starting point in eight items 39
2.2. State and democracy – a solid first approach 40
2.3. The theory of the administrative field comprehensively embedded in the individual, political, social and the collective consciousness 42
2.4. Citizen – the theory of five prize-winning community citizen 44
2.5. The theory of the state: types of state in the new theory of the state 45
2.6. Social theory – the theory of new civil society 47
2.7. Historical analysis – the basic model of three periods 50
The model of the Industrial Age 50
The model of the Socialist Age 53
The model fo the Information Age 54
2.8. Democracy – before the new democracy is established 56
2.9. The functional theories of e-public administration 57
Chapter Three: State, governing, democracy within the concepts of liberal democracy and in practice 63
3.1. The historical formation and definition of the modern state 63
Problems with the nation-state and its birth 63
The inconsistencies of nation-state 65
3.2. Democratic deficit or the post-totalitarian system 65
3.3. Minimal democratic procedures have been emptied of their content 70
3.4. The repositioning of state after the division of politics from society 72
3.5. The possible road of change: the e-state and civilised country 74
3.6. Governance and the disfunctional government 76
3.7. The institutional and administrative nature of the state 76
3.8. The struggle of the service providing state and the weak communication 77
Chapter Four: In the current of new paradigms 81
4.1. The paradigm that looks back from the future and paradigm change 81
4.2. The accepted paradigm of sustainable development 82
The anomalies of growth trends in the industrial society 82
Globalisation vs. Localisation in the 1990s 83
The state has become a bone of contention between functional globalisation and localisation 85
4.3. Is a new „ideology” born on how to continue? 85
4.4. How does the theory of sustainable development develop? 86
Sustainable state as a new state theory 87
Chapter Five: New dimensions of general and enigmatic development 89
5.1. Space and time dimensions of changes 89
5.2. The cognitive nature of information and its consequences 90
5.3. Communication globalisation and information society 91
5.4. Does knowledge society bring about primordial model change? 92
5.5. Redefining knowledge capital and the types of pulling forces of the era 94
Personal knowlegde 94
Implicit knowledge 95
Knowledge as social capital 96
Utilized knowledge makes the world off the hinge 96
5.6. The laudation of innovation in the new era 97
Innovation in the knowledge-based economy 97
5.7. Knowledge management in the new economy 100
The economic approach – knowledge management 100
The social perspective: human resource management 101
Chapter Six: The present is already an intelligent development 102
6.1. The comprehensive goals and the directions of intelligent development 102
6.2. New approach to planning and the general alteration of the whole 103
6.3. Tangible limitations of intelligent development 104
6.4. Content management: the future branch of the age 105
6.5. The infocommunicational public service system and the business type processing model 105
Chapter Seven: The new paradigm of governance – the service providing state 114
7.1. The service providing state and its various interpretations 114
The economic perspective 114
New social perspective 118
7.2. Differences between virtual space and cyber space 119
7.3. Cyber-space is the scene of collective intelligence 124
The virtual community 124
Chapter Eight: The new state as virtual community 126
8.1. The institutionalisation of virtual space in the horisontally organised state 126
8.2. The problem of control – order and chaos 128
8.3. E-governance and e-public administration without popular fallacies 130
8.4. The historic development and global trends in e-governance 130
8.5. The hypotheses of various e-governance models 131
8.6. E-governance with the continuously developing tools of ICT 133
8.7. The four players of e-public administration, or is this the new model? 134
8.8. The elementary significance of knowledge centres 135
8.9. E-local governance and e-democracy opens a door to the future 136
The topical e-local governance programme 137
E-democracy – the possibility of participatory democracy 137
Chapter Nine: Democracy theories and experiments 140
9.1. E-democracy – historical overview – visions and doubts 140
9.2. The extraordinary history of electronic democracy as an idea 140
The period of "Cybernet" 141
The age of tele-democracy 142
9.3. Tele-democracy, the age of cyber-democracy 143
9.4. Electronic democracy serving universal values 145
Chapter Ten: Participatory democracy and/or e-democracy 147
10.1. The breakthrough: participatory democracy 147
10.2. Understanding participatory democracy – the system of structured dialogue 147
10.3. Participatory democracy – road towards the direct 149
(e-)democracy ( from welfare society towards well-fare society) 149
10.4. The summary of democracy development and the new, for the time being enigmatic model? 154
10.5. The local document of participatory democracy – or the "settlement/city charta" 156
Chapter Eleven: The Aba model: development of local democracy, creation of a social contract 159
11.1. The presentation of civil representatives, analysis of their plans 161
11.2. The creation of participatory democracy in Aba and the chances of e-democracy (the history of events) 163
The official beginnings of the democracy (Village assembly, September 2004) 164
Appeal for a local social contract 164
Draft scenario of the local social contract (third version) 167
Letter to the citizens of Aba (February, 2005) 169
The programme of social contract in Aba 170
The (festive) Day of the Social Contract 172
The establishment of the forum of civil representatives (April 2005) 173
11.3. The future scenario of Aba, until 2007-2010 173
The Aba model 177
Chapter Twelve: The comprehensive vision of state, democracy and public administration 179
12.1. Rethinking the future, vision of the future, strategy of the future 180
The reinterpretation of the concepts 180
12.2. Clearing the concepts of future planning and future development 181
12.3. Long-term future image up until 2020, a comprehensive future image until 2013 182
Chapter Thirteen: Paradigm changing new recognitions in the first third of the 21st century 183
13.1. The challenging timeliness and the alternative of knowledge society 183
13.2. The unexpected post-modernisation models 184
13.3. The accepted digital state and public administration vision 185
13.4. Network state is the future, but what sort of network state? 186
13.5. The cardinal question: participatory democracy and/or e-democracy? 188
Exoteric and esoteric democracy theory 190
13.6. On a taboo matter: the e-parliament 191
13.7. The secret of the conceivable future: consciousness-guided (post)society and (post)democracy 194
Chapter Fourteen: The characteristics of conceivable future scenarios 198
14.1. The five types of complex future scenarios 199
14.2. Universal scenarios 200
14.3. Global scenarios 200
14.4. National scenarios 203
14.5. Local scenarios 208
14.6. On the chances that the scenarios are going to be realised (or left unfinished) 209
Chapter Fifteen: The combined future of the new state, new e-public administration and participatory democracy 212
15.1. What comes after new infocommunication techonologies have been introduced? 212
15.2. New public administration and office work: k-public administration 213
15.3. Is new knowledge and new consciousness unavoidalbe in public administration? 216
15.4. Intelligent civil society – and what comes after it 217
15.5. Finally, is the new state and new democracy vision born? 218
Chapter Sixteen: Diverging (and decisive?) alternatives of the near future 221
16.1. The e-state and e-democracy scenarios 221
16.2. The European Union, - the odds of an e-federal state 221
16.3. The alternatives of e-governance in Hungary until 2013-2015 222
16.4. The scenarios of Hungarian regional, small regional, settlement e-local governance and e-public administration 223
16.5. The chances of institutionalisation of e-democracy, e-election and e-referenda at the local level 224
16.6. Individual and community e-consciousness, e-realisations as the qualitative requirements of participatory e-democracy scenarios 224
Chapter Seventeen: Summary: risk factors and the future chances of creating a new world 226
17.1. The veritable long-term chances and hopes 227
17.2. Short term prognosis 231
Major publications 233
Preface
Introduction to foreign readers
This volume leans on the Hungarian and more broadely speaking, on European experiences, although the crisis of the state and democracy model is not exclusively a Hungarian, nor a European phenomenon. We wouldn’t be exaggerating even if we modestly claimed that the political-social crossroads have become global. The sociological backround of the book is based on the social crises of Hungary, Central-Europe and the totality of the European continent. For theory creation, however, this regional observation exceptionally constitutes a point of advantage. For instance, in Hungary or in the Central European states that have implemented political regime change, the uselessness of the Euro-atlantic democracy model is more clearly and sharply visible than in the Western European classical democracies and states.
The authors belong to those exposed intelligentsia who have been instrumental to regime change in 1989/1990. Csaba Varga was one of the opinion leaders and social scientists of the Opposition Round Table while Emese Ugrin art historian became a (Christian Democrat) MP in the Hungarian parliament after the regime change. Already at that time they warned that the post-socialist state neither then, nor subsequently should opt for the 19th century form of capitalism as their universal future perspective.
In 1989 this was scarcely understood and was accepted by even fewer people because during the euphoric times of the regime change everyone seemed to have been satisfied with the slogans that had grown into mythic proportions, namely those of market economy and democracy. Not before long, however, it became obvious that while classical capitalism based on private ownership that replaced state capitalist socialism could function merely as a valid starting point, yet it would never bring real and permanent economic and social solutions (neither) to Central Eastern Europe. And it has also become clear that the empty, formal, false socialist „democracy” won’t be redeemed by civil democracy either that is itself formal and rapidly emptying of content. The two models of the past sharply oppose each other and one could support only one of them, - yet the real solution could only be brought about by a quantum jump-like new model.
We should also note here that the Hungarian social-economic situation and climate is well suited to swiftly and spectacularly reveal the exhaustion and emptiness of the nineteenth-twentieth century market economy and world democracy model at the end of the millenium. Moreover, the Hungarian and other Central European examples of crisis also unveil at a similar speed that the classical European, even Euro-atlantic modernisation can hardly be continued. At the same time it is equally revealed (in a dramatic or perhaps pitiful fashion) that present-day leading civilisation world model has no future image and perspective. It has ended yet is it not ripe enough to be radically replaced?
The first decade after the millenium, slowly coming to an end, has only further strenghtened this experience. Hungary with its struggles and search for the future is becoming once again an example, in a double sense in fact: 1. The new political elite made up by the one-time opposition who fought for regime change and the one-time second-rate leaders of the state party that had accepted regime change are equally captive of the ideology of regime change and thus global perplexity just as the pre-1989 state party elites who directed the Soviet Empire that extended over half of the world and executed „surface” reforms were captive of their own system’s ideology and empirical practice. 2. The crises that cannot be concealed and the weakness of old or new ideological engagement make it possible that in Hungary and Central Europe the birth of radically new state and democracy theories, models, programmes take place, not obstructed at all by the fact that the current political elites are generally speaking not open to new models and solutions.
This is understandable, on the one hand, because serious opinion leader intellectuals cannot be against democracy or constitutional governance since the experience of soft dictatorship called socialism is simply too close and we cannot retreat anywhere in the past. On the other hand, in Hungary neither society nor economy is in the spiritual and mental condition to understand and support a newer second regime change and face the prospective even greater risks. One needs to protect the new, liberal democracy and plan for a new model simultaneously; and likewise, the executive „power” controlled by the parliament should duly be protected while once again it is high time that the centralising, power-centred governance model was replaced with something else.
The global (universal) crisis is clearly visible from Hungary since those interest- and value groups who urge for the concealment of the crossroads are too weak to successfully accomplish and legalise the rescue of the system. It is an inspiring situation and state of consciousness so that new thinking minds and theoretical programmes could come to light.
Emese Ugrin and Csaba Varga take advantage of the new situation and meet the new intellectual challenge. Luckily, neither wanted to be party or government politician and thus both of them have worked primarily in research from the mid-1990s onwards. Csaba Varga together with Emese Ugrin and five other eminent scholars founded the Institute for Strategic Reserch which currently comprises sixteen research groups. Initially, their joint aim was to establish a comprehensive future perspective for Hungary, yet soon after it has become evident that neither Hungary nor the post-socialist region can be understood as isolated entities but only in the framework of broader civilisation-cultural processes. This is why well before the millenium they became preoccupied with the globalisation-localisation theory or the theory of information and/or knowledge society.
This book that was written and published in Hungarian in 2007 and while is is primarily based on the Central Eastern European experience, it conceptualises a universal and new democracy and state theory which goes beyond the borders of Central Europe and even the European continent. While the book bears witness of wide knowledge on state and democracy literature, the authors do not adhere to the traditional way of thinking on demoracy research. The authors are typically the grounded actors of the new knowledge market as they represent researchers with wide intellectual horisons and in possession of transdisciplinary knowledge and who are very knowledgeable on the theories and practices of the digital state, e-public administration and electronic democracy of the information age.