Civic rights and civic engagement: a case study regarding citizens' involvement in politics

摘要

Nowadays, maybe more than ever, the community's life is influenced by politics. There is a necessity to build community solidarity. All citizens should become aware upon their rights, they should be well informed about these rights and about how to use them, in order to become more responsible for their fate. Starting from these hypotheses we performed a small research in order to identify the level of Romanian citizens' political knowledge, more precisely people's mentality regarding civic rights and how to use them, civic engagement, active citizenship and political involvement and behaviour. This paper presents the results of our research, obtained by applying a questionnaire to one hundred citizens, both men and women, from rural and urban areas, students, employees and retired persons (two age categories: under forty and over forty years). The survey was performed in Arges. County (Southern Romania), during October-December 2012, before the parliamentary elections on 9th of December 2012. The results emphasized that there is a need of civic engagement and active citizenship in politics on behalf of ordinary citizens, because building a strong community requires more than creating or identifying leaders. Community building requires political education and training on how to act, how to behave.