SUMMARY
Almugheed I. M. M. Political change agents as factors in the democratic public sphere institutionalization. – Qualifying scientific work as manuscript.
Dissertation for the Doctor of Philosophy degree on a specialty 052 «Political science». Oles Honchar Dnipro National University, Dnipro, 2021.
Agents of political change in the contemporary world are factors in strengthening efforts to open the democratic process at the micro level, ensuring the sustainability of public political representation, increasing attention to the issue of modernization and democratization on the political agenda. The relationship between political actors and political change agents is an intermediate element that provides a link between the stages of democratic transformation and the specifics of the democratic political identity formation and liberal approaches to explaining the modern content of citizenship.
Thus, the need to study the change agents in the institutionalization of the public sphere is caused with the needs of political science and the peculiarities of modern political practice. The search for an answer to the question of the institutionalization of the democratic public sphere in post-transformation states determines the subjectivity of the sphere of activity of change agents. It acquires a new perspective: in particular, it states the participatory democracy social base expanding, new segments of the population in decision-making involving, better absorption of social innovations, timely monitoring and diagnosing socio-political conflicts, and making adequate social demands at the political level.
For the first time in the domestic political science tradition, the essence and significance of the activity of agents of political change as factors of institutionalization of the democratic public sphere, which are in different phases of democratic transit, are revealed in the work. For the first time, the definition of political change agents is proposed, which consists in systematic activities to deepen democratic reforms, disseminate democratic practices at the social level, and bring the functioning of transitional political systems closer to the standards of sustainable democracy. The types of political change agents are established: according to the principle of origin – sectoral and inter-sectoral; by institutional affiliation – formal and informal; by forms of activity: intensive and extensive; by forms of cooperation – affiliated and conflicting, by the effectiveness of coverage in the public media – hidden and open.
Approaches to identifying technologies for agency network forming have been further developed, including: «aggressive engagement» (consists on a targeted communication campaign), strategy of the «grass roots» feeding (consists on public political change agents activities` dissemination at the micropolitical level), «institutional adjustment» technology (when political change agents appear within the existing institutional structure), «agency recruitment» technology (which is consist on individuals` and groups` engagement in the political change agents` activities, who were previously outside the political and social sphere). The main stages of democratic political transformations are specified, taking into account the activities of agents of political change. These include: 1) public problem setting of changes, 2) public aggregation of changes, 3) public promotion of changes to the agenda, 4) public decision-making to change the implementation of changes, 5) public correction of the results of changes.
The dissertation also clarifies the interpretation of the goal of democratic political transformation, which is to analyze and predict the results of political change and their consequences for the most important parameters of the transformation society. The anti-crisis interpretation of the importance of agents of political change has been further developed, which consists in blocking regressive phenomena in the development of democratic political relations, consistently defending the democratic nature of the public sphere, protecting human rights, democratic representation and political governance, ensuring public resolution of conflict and public formation of anti-crisis strategy. The substantiation of the specifics of the activity of agents of political change in modern Ukraine was presented, which consists in voluntary and self-organized activity on initiation and constant reproduction of democratic practices of public political activity, localization of agents of political change around public government institutions, within the public expert community, self-governing communities, specific settlements, social strata and age groups.
Key words: political change agents, public sphere, civil society, political transformation, democratization, political transit, consolidated democracy.
