Civil society involvement in counteracting corruption: lessons for Ukraine
Corruption is one of the most powerful threats to national security. It is everywhere. Every society can be affected and every government can be damaged by influence of mentioned phenomenon. In spite of the absence of an effective system to combat corruption, it is able to adapt to any national conditions. In recent years, the level of corruption in Ukraine remains high and flexible to any governmental measures. Thus the review of approaches to anticorruption policy’s implementation as well as the consideration of civil society involvement to the anti-corruption activities is extremely relevant issues. The article is devoted to deal with the concept of the role of civil society as one of the elements of anti-corruption policy of Ukraine. The corruption is analyzed as a social and political phenomenon from the standpoint of political science. An important feature and one of the reasons traditionally high levels of corruption is its perception as a natural activity. The strong loyalty towards corruption is able to negate any potentially successful measures if public do not accept them. According to this, the first task of the policy on combating the impact of corruption should be to create an atmosphere of rejection of corruption by people. Author briefly analyses in retrospective field of global socio-political and philosophical thought the idea of civil society’s institutions involvement into the implementation of anticorruption policies. In article are emphasized the qualitative characteristics of an efficient and strong civil society. Such as formation bottom-up spontaneously or resulting of conversion the individuals into free citizens who have dignity and get ready to take on the responsibility. In terms of involvement of civil society in anti-corruption measures this willingness to move from consciousness to action is recognized as the most important for the result. There is considered innovative practice of involving civil society to counter corruption in foreign countries. The problems and perspectives of civil society participation in the context of ordinary citizens and their associations in anti-corruption efforts are observed. Also are traced the possible ways of participation of civil society in anti-corruption measures in Germany, Great Britain, Singapore, Lithuania, Latvia, South Korea, and Salvador etc. Some trends and patterns of interaction between civil society and the state in Ukraine at the present stage of development are identified. It is proved that involving of civil society in its development and implementation in domestic reality is the basic condition of effective anticorruption policy.