Social responsibility of politicians in the economic sphere: ukrainian context

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The role of politicians in the economic development of Ukraine

The orientation towards European integration, which is actively supported by a large part of Ukrainian society in recent years in Ukraine - the results of recent research by "Democratic Initiatives" Center show that more than half of Ukrainians (51%) would like to integrate into the European Union compared with 17% of respondents who prefer Customs Union [1] - can be transformed into specific processes not only when the corruption will be totally eradicated in all spheres of life, but also when a high level of social responsibility of political elite and society will be achieved.

It seems that the fight against corruption in the country is already beginning to take a more or less visible shape thanks to the creation of special state structures - the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), the new police and revitalization of the General Prosecutor's Office.

But the problem how to form social responsibility of the political establishment of the country remains out of the purview of modern reformers because neither new nor reformatted old state structure is able to solve it formally, at least in the near future. It is not about any specific changes or new forms of legislation and legal initiatives, but about the value-normative bases of activity of political actors and government officials, and social organizations and movements as well. As far as level of social prosperity is still determined by macroeconomic indicators - the amount of gross domestic product, per capita national income, the level of employment, so far it's a very important task to create a high level of social responsibility of politicians for the state and development of the economic sphere.

Thus, the problematic situation in the outlined field is that the measures against corruption, the development of strategic and tactical state programs of socio-economic development of the country aren't carried out effectively and fast enough. This means that the level of social responsibility of modern Ukrainian politicians and social structures is not sufficiently formed and doesn't meet European standards.

Therefore, the aim of this work is to understand what the level of social responsibility in the economic sphere the Ukrainian political establishment has. To do this, we try to find answers to the following questions: What meaning do sociologists put into the term "social responsibility" and what criteria is it determined? What is the structure and indicators of the social responsibility? What is the level of social responsibility of Ukrainian politicians in the economic sphere? Why isn't the social responsibility of modern Ukrainian politics a matter of public discussion and assessment?

How to create a necessary and sufficient level of social responsibility in Ukrainian politics and society for the normal and dynamic development of the country?

To find answers to these questions you must first find out what "responsibility" is and what meaning it has?

Philosophers interpret responsibility as a philosophical and sociological concept, which "describes the extent in which the individual, group, community, state behavior corresponds to the current requirements, current social norms, rules of social life, legal laws," i.e., as "the ratio of duties and extents of their implementation by the subject (person, group, class) "[4, c. 87].

It is obvious that the responsibility of individuals and groups is based on their understanding of social norms and principles which are recognized in their social environment, and on the desire to meet them. It is no coincidence psychologists put in this concept the "control over activity of the subject in the various spheres in terms of the accordance of accepted norms and rules" [5, c. 257].

In this context, the responsibility in society can acquire different forms according to different criteria: personal, group (class), social and political (the criterion - subjects); legal, social, political, moral, economic, political, environmental, professional, party, etc. (criterion - the sphere of activity). That is, the behavior and activity of people, no matter what niche or social position they occupy in society, are always in the area of social control and also in the realm of personal or group responsibility.

Meanwhile, whatever form of responsibility we consider, it is inherently social because it's essentially conditioned by social norms and socio-psychological attitudes of individuals to meet them and manifest their particular (adequate) action.

For example, politicians constantly use the term of political responsibility, but see it as "the institution of social responsibility of political subjects for the results of their political activity" (A.V.Grinchuk and O.D.Kutsenko) [6 , c. 59]. Obviously, this is due to the nature of the social, which is permanently, for many years, located in the area of sociological discourse.

It should be noted that Ukrainian sociologist O.Bezrukova in her monograph "Responsibility in the Modern World: Sociological Interpretations and Empirical Studios" deeply and comprehensively analyzes the meaning and content of social responsibility and points out that the adjective 'social' gives the subject 'responsibility' a fundamental importance, expands its essential content, allows to structure meaningfully its manifestations "[7, c. 125]. And then she notices that "since the original meaning of social is identified for the ages with the whole society, so the social responsibility in its entirety means the responsibility for the whole society and the responsibility of society as a whole for a certain activity" [ibid]. However, in our view, the identification of social responsibility with the society only limits its versatile subjectivity: individual, group, class, community as subjects of social relations also have a social responsibility both to the community and each other.

So, the social responsibility is the responsibility of society, group, community and individual for their behavior and their activities to other social actors, and, on the other hand, it is an accordance of their behavior and their performance to generally accepted social norms and standards.

It is know that social responsibility is a versatile phenomenon, since it includes psychological, ethical, social and other components; it is also a complex phenomenon, as the social world of a person, where he realizes his personality is rather versatile as well. Especially versatile in its social manifestations a group or organization, who appear to be the carriers and implementers of social responsibility in modern society.

O. Bezrukova, who studies scientific approaches of defining structure and indicators of social responsibility, pays close attention to the works in this direction of not only well-known philosophers E. Fromm, E. Levinas, H. Jonas and K.-O. Apel, but also of modern Ukrainian researchers J. Osokina, I. Savchenko, N. Ogrenich, J. Yaremenko and others. [7, c. 78-120]. As a result she comes to the conclusion that social responsibility can be classified through its humanitarian dimension, which is aimed at a person and its interest and needs. On this basis, in its structure the researcher distinguishes the following constituents: informational, which consists in its meaningful content; organizational, which is expressed in its ordered and purposeful influence; material, as a substantial manifestation of responsibility in certain activity aimed on realization of responsible attitude and communicative, as a demonstration of responsibility in a process of social interaction in situations “person-person” [7, c.128].

Evidently, such structure of social responsibility is appropriate for social organization, in context of which O. Bezrukova views it.

But when speaking of social responsibility of a person, it is necessary to see into such constituents as: cognitive, affective and practical. These components form attitudes in consciousness - subjective orientations (settings) of individuals as members of a group (or society) on certain values, which dictate them specific socially accepted behaviors. (W.Thomas, F.Znaniecki) [5, с.419]. It is clear that social responsibility is a predisposition and readiness of people to perform their activity purposefully, according to social norms which are viewed as social values, it is a realization of a sense of civic and professional duty, foreseeing of consequences of your actions and their critical evaluation.

Based on such understanding of social responsibility for its empirical fixation we suggest to distinguish such its integrated indicators:

- people's recognition and enforcement of moral norms and principals;

- conscientious fulfillment of one's civic and professional duties;

- humanism in relationships with others;

- self-awareness, self-evaluation and self-criticism of one's actions;

- desire for self-realization by means of legal and legitimate methods;

- willingness to take responsibility for one's words and actions;

- ability to predict the consequences of one's actions for oneself and for society.

We believe that measuring social responsibility with the help of the above mentioned indicators will allow to elicit its level, which can be a zero (a complete irresponsibility), extremely low, medium, high enough and high.

The economic sphere is a basic sphere of society in which and thanks to which material, financial, technological and work resources are formed, i.e. it creates national wealth of a country.

Politicians rather than economists decide on what the economy of the country will look like. Economists rather perform a function of analysts, critics and prognostics. It is not by chance that Lenin's expression “Politics is concentrated economics” became rather popular in scientific vocabulary. It means that politics is based on economics. That is why in the economic sphere politicians, government officials of the presidential and governmental apparatus, leaders of political parties actualize themselves, and they directly (legislatively and bureaucratically) determine the strategy and tactics of the state's developments, which means they bear social responsibility for its economy as well.

As the economic experts of VoxUkraine state, the period from 2005 to 2015 for Ukrainian economy can be considered as a lost decade. During that time GDP (in dollar equivalent) almost hasn't changed (2005 - 86,1 billion dollars, 2015 - 89 billion dollars). Quite painful Ukrainian raw materials economics took a prolonged drop in price for raw materials. As a result, a loss of 18% of GDP, 66% devaluation of hryvnia and almost two-fold fall in household income (in dollar equivalent). Since 2008 an overall national debt of Ukraine in hryvnia equivalent increased by almost 20 times [8].

Despite the fact that the deterioration of macroeconomic indicators can be explained by numerous troubles, which Ukrainian economy has faced in recent few years (occupation of its territories, where more than 15% of its industry was concentrated; trade blockade imposed by Russia, which used to be its key trade partner), the experts think, that structural problems of Ukrainian economy are largely due to an excessively large share of government expenses in relation to GDP (about 50%) and fiscal irresponsibility of a chain of Ukrainian governments [8].

It is obvious that irresponsibility of Ukrainian politicians during the last decade, which the experts also called irresponsible, manifested itself in strengthening of oligarchic tendencies in economy, ongoing corruption, export of finances to offshore zones, ignorant credit policy, shady privatization of enterprises and land, tariff impact on the population. All of it led to a sharp decrease of living standards of the majority of population of the country. The rich became richer, the poor became poorer.

Conclusions

Social responsibility is an attitude of social subjects towards abidance of generally accepted social norms and values as a personal or group duty towards society. It appears in moral self-control and self-regulation of a person and is characterized by a conscionable implementation of one's professional duties, human attitude towards others, capability to harmonize one's promises with one's powers, ability to stand for your words and actions.

As a personal and group quality, social responsibility plays a significant role in politicum, all “actors” of which to some extent must be responsible for the country's faith, and first of all for its level of economic development and the level of people's welfare.

Ukrainian economy in recent decade stands in a prolonged and deep crisis, which indicates to a very low level of social responsibility of politicians. Specificity of political activity is that every member of governing structures sooner or later has to face their words and actions, no matter how hard they try to avoid it. That is why it is obvious the decline of social responsibility of politicians causes aggravation of socio-economic condition of the country, therefore it also causes intensification of protest moods in society, which inevitably lead to a change in power elites.

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