FORMATION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE STATE-PUBLIC COMMUNICATION IN THE FIELD OF CONSUMER PROTECTION

Abstract

The article substantiates the peculiarities of functioning of the state-public communication in the sphere of the consumer rights protection and providing practical recommendations on their implementation in the practice of democratic governance in Ukraine. Special attention is paid to the analysis of the concept of the state policy in the field of consumer rights protection, as well as the directions of improving the interaction of the state and civil society in the protection of the consumer rights. It is determined that in contrast to the usual practice of the public administration that relies on the hierarchy and provides for unconditional execution of orders and commands, the main parameters of the public-communication sphere (public policy, public administration, public communication) are consent and agreement. The traditional administrative activity pays mostly attention to law and regulations, the public — communication to norms, collective recommendations, values, proposals, moral agreements.

To change the existing pyramid of power: to make it responsible for managing the public affairs and not to be the manager of the property of the citizens, their lives, national resources is a modern way of organizing power, a real mechanism for its democratization, control of the society and true self-government. It has been found that the key to success in achieving high standards of quality of life is the cooperation of the government agencies, public organizations and consumers. Consumer culture should be used to educate children from a young age, because the right quality of goods and services is not only safety for life and health, but also respect for the human dignity.

It is proved that the modern model of relations between the state and the citizens should be built not on the traditional principle of subject-object relations (control-managed), but on the mechanisms of “communicative behaviour”, that is, subject-subject relations, on the principles of definition of equality of both the public and the “private” people, which envisages as the main democratic procedure the “dialog communication” of the state authorities and the “free public”. The main “difference of the dialog model is that it assumes a kind of “horizontal equality ”of the participants in the information exchange, as opposed to the “vertical” principle of “leadership-subordination” inherent in the “broadcasting” model.