NCJ Number
128276
Date Published
1990
Length
4 pages
Annotation
Every community action project has political and ethical implications, and this is especially true of planned community actions in the field of public health and social welfare where actions involve questions of lifestyle and interpersonal relations.
Abstract
Community action programs for reducing alcohol consumption can be considered from the perspectives of democracy and ethics. During the 1980's, discussion has surfaced on the issue of how to reduce bureaucratic structures while increasing citizen participation in community development. Some perspectives of Marxism include the view of individuals as active products of society. Actualization results through democratic participation, not just voting in yearly elections, within the larger social structure. In modern social research, the ability to participate in the public arena has been systematically researched. Johansson has developed the idea of political resources, referring to the possibility of making the political voice of each individual heard. Rokkan divides the political development of human rights into three stages: formal realization, mobilization, and activation. In Sweden, the issue of what Ross calls the "extensivity" of democracy arises in connection with a drastic reduction in the number of more locally responsive politicians in a politically-centralized society. This centralization has weakened some attempts to recognize local community institutions. Community action projects are characterized by built-in dilemmas such as professionalism versus amateurism, expert knowledge versus general public opinion, central versus peripheral power, pyramid versus bottom-to-top power structures, population as object versus subject, and unidirectional versus reciprocal communication. 6 references