Recenzija, Prikaz slučaja
Leonce Bekemans et al., eds: Intercultural Dialogue and Citizenship: Translating Values into Actions A Common Project for Europeans Band Their Partners, Marsilio Editori, Venice, 2007.
Deana Gulišija
Sažetak
The book is an outcome of the project ‘The Role of Intercultural Dialogue for the Development of a New (Plural, Democratic) Citizenship’ which has been coordinated by the Interdepartmental Centre on Human Rights and the Rights of Peoples from the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence (University of Padua). European Institute in Lodz, the ECSA Greece-Panteion University of Athens and the Jean Monnet European Centre of Excellence of the University of Malta took part in realisation of this project. The project has been co-financed by the European Commission, the DG Education and Culture and by the Region of Veneto. The book is edited by Antonio Papisca, coordinator of transnational research project, Maria Karasinka-Fendler, Constantine A. Stephanou, Peter G. Xuereb, and Marco Mascia. The project was launched on 24-25 March 2006 at the University of Padua with a starting conference on ‘Intercultural Dialogue and Human Rights: Inclusive Cities in Inclusive Europe’. The research results were presented in a final public conference at the University of Padua on 1-4 March 2007. According to contributions of the researchers, in ongoing debates on future construction of European integration, the current status of intercultural dialogue has been treated as a rather isolated issue. Since multicultural situations and processes have become a crucial governance issue at local, national, regional and international levels, the subject needs to be changed by connecting international law, international relations, political science and economics. The contributions to the book led to the conclusion that the last enlargement (2004 and 2007) made a stronger pressure on the question of internal coherence and convergence of the EU by intensifying the existing cultural diversity within the EU. According to Leonce Bekemans from the Polonia University in Czestochowa, the future of the EU very much depends on the building up of a sustainable democratic public sphere based on increased civic participation, solidarity and inclusiveness. That goal can be achieved through increased openness and transparency of EU action and by civil dialogue and debate. It can be concluded that democracy needs the intercultural dialogue as much as intercultural dialogue needs democracy. In this perspective it is important how to improve local democracy, how to promote awareness of shared responsibility, how to build up a new citizenship. General guidelines of an EU strategy in the field of intercultural dialogue should connect international institutions with state and civil society actors. This book is a good basis for further analysis of all those researchers and specialists who are interested in this issue, not only due to innovative research approach in the relation between intercultural dialogue and citizenship, but through opening new horizons of deliberative democracy at all levels, either local, national, European and international level.
Ključne riječi
Intercultural dialogue; development; democracy; citizenship; Europe
Hrčak ID:
58784
URI
Datum izdavanja:
15.3.2009.
Posjeta: 465 *