Valitsusasutuse ja tema sidusrühmade vahelise kommunikatsiooni roll seadusloomeprotsessis legitiimsuse saavutamiseks
Kuupäev
2007
Autorid
Ajakirja pealkiri
Ajakirja ISSN
Köite pealkiri
Kirjastaja
Tartu Ülikool
Eesti. Sotsiaalministeerium
Eesti
õigusloome
legitiimsus
valitsusasutused
kommunikatsioon
poliitiline kommunikatsioon
magistritööd
Eesti. Sotsiaalministeerium
Eesti
õigusloome
legitiimsus
valitsusasutused
kommunikatsioon
poliitiline kommunikatsioon
magistritööd
Abstrakt
Kirjeldus
The master thesis handled the communication of a government institution and its
stakeholders in the legislation process in order to gain legitimacy. The topic is
important in Estonia at the moment because there is a general opinion that civil
servants do not listen to people’s opinions and take decisions as they wish. The task
of this practical master thesis is to take two cases of draft laws of the Ministry of
Social Affairs and to analyse the communication of the government institution and its
stakeholders in the legislation process, discover problems in practice and find
solutions.
The principles in the communication analysis were the two-way symmetrical
communication and the organisation’s internal and external unity.
Stakeholders of the Ministry of Social Affairs are very much interested in the
ministry’s information and the participation in the legislation process. By
stakeholders opinions, the availability of the information on the ministry’s draft laws
is good. The most popular information channel is the Internet, the direct
communication with civil servants is also far-spread. One of the least popular
information channel is the Public Relation Departement. One of the reasons might be
that the department is not involved in the legislation process before the first version of
the draft is ready. So it means that they don’t have as much information as the civil
servants in the main subject departments. Therefore there are two suggestions. First,
in order to coordinate better the process in the ministry and to prevent communication
problems with stakeholders, the Public Relations Department should be involved in
the legislation process from the very beginning. Second, the civil servants’ direct
communication with stakeholders takes a lot of time and is not efficient. If the
Internet possibilities would be used in cooperation with the Public Relations
Department, then it would solve problems of the communication need of stakeholders
and the time consumption of civil servants.
The influentiality of stakeholders was analysed with the theory of stakeholders and
when analysing Freeman’s map of stakeholders, it was found that some important stakeholders are not on the map. If stakeholders are not involved in the legislation
process in the early stage then communication problems might appear later.
Stakeholders can either put obstacles in reaching goals or help to gain the targets of
the government institution.
The satisfaction with the draft law and with the cooperation are important factors that
influence gaining the legitimacy. It can be said on the basis of the results of the
formalised questionnaire that generally stakeholders evaluate good the cooperation
with the Ministry of Social Affairs. When comparing the satisfaction with two draft
laws then stakeholders of labour affairs are more satisfied with the law than people in
the social affairs. One of the reasons can be stakeholders’ different expectations
comparing to the Ministry of Social Affairs. When stakeholders’ expectations and
ministry’s plans of creating new services in the labour field generally matched, then
interests of counterparts in the social field were different.
There were several meetings and seminars for stakeholders in the preparation period
of two draft laws. Civil servants of the labour and social affairs have long
communication experience with stakeholders but the involvement of stakeholders in
the social affairs seemed more regular. The decision process and negotiations seemed
open to both fields of stakeholders and they had a chance to make proposals.
However, all stakeholders didn’t get feedback regarding their proposals. The ministry
should develop the dialog with stakeholders. Gathering opinions and proposals,
learning from it and giving feedback to stakeholders about their proposals are
important components in the two-way symmetrical communication. It also seemed
problematic that civil servants had negotiations from the power position. It was
possible to make proposals but generally the ministry already had a plan how to
manage and implement changes in the beginning of negotiations. It decreased the
openness of civil servants to new ideas and inhibited a dialog between counterparts.
On relying the handled theories of the master thesis, it can be stated that factors
influencing the legitimacy of draft laws are the satisfaction of stakeholders, the
characteristic of communication, public expectations, the communication stategy and
the decision process of the ministry and the policy style. When taking account the results and conclusions, it can be said that the pattern of research results are similar
and therefore the problems are structurally similar in the Ministry of Social Affairs.
The ministry should consider solving the structural problems because otherwise
gaining the legitimacy can be inhibited.
Märksõnad
H Social Sciences (General)