The role of NGO´s in the communication with public

Robert Vass,
President of the Euro - Atlantic Center,
Chairman of the Slovak Atlantic Commission




Let me start with the conclusion of the study Transatlantic Trends 2005 and the findings of analyses of the Institute for Public Affairs (Perception of NATO membership) which clearly states, that “During the past several years, the public support for Slovakia’s NATO membership has fluctuated widely from over 30% to over 60%(1) . The public support for NATO membership in April this year was 54 %, this fact can make us optimistic and satisfied may let us fall a sleep in conviction that this figure is efficient.







Graph 1
But this is in contrary – in one breath the analyzes states, that “only 48% of Slovaks say, that NATO is important to ensure our own security and that the public identification with the transatlantic community remains rather shallow and their perception may be easily influenced by international developments .The Slovaks’ perception of NATO is essentially more dramatic, polarizing and vacillating than their perception of the EU.” (2)

Before entering NATO, Slovakia set up its PRENAME program in 1999, which clarified the steps that should help Slovakia’s entry into NATO, public attitude became more inclined to the idea of membership. This program included extensive information campaign oriented towards creating a positive image of the Alliance. By the end of 2000, the ratio of opponents to supporters begun to change. In 2002 the support reached the number of 60%. After Slovakia gained the invitation for the membership, the question of NATO membership begun to be less important and with it the number of supporters has been decreasing. The PRENAME program terminated with the accession of Slovakia to NATO and no other major program supporting the public communication about the transatlantic partnership and NATO was created.

But now the communication of the security policy with the public is even more important. We can not consider the 54% support for NATO membership as a support we can rely on by the missions that Slovakia has to or wants to carry out. This support is rather shallow and can be easily influenced day by day by international development. Jan Hartl calls this as a low intensity of opinion, this opinion is usually “fragile volatile and vulnerable, it fluctuates in time, quite of ten unpredictably driven by circumstances and emotional factors. High-intensity opinion on the other hand is relatively stable and resistant to sudden changes” (3). The public has to understand the security policy and what we are doing; otherwise our policy and national interests can crash on the low support of the public. The government, state and the security community has to have a high interest on creating a permanent public discussion on the security policy and the NGO´s like Euro-Atlantic Centre and the Slovak Atlantic Commission play an indispensable role in it. If we wish to achieve a stable public opinion, we all have to work on this high-intensity opinion, so that the values promoted by the transatlantic community will be deeply embedded in the public.

The public opinion will play always more important role in the security and defence policy-making. The success of the state in the foreign policy will be more and more dependent on the support of the public. Not only the security elites, but also the public must learn how to deal with security and defence policy, it might help to intensify their opinion and might help to stabilise the political scene. In this process play the media and indispensable role. Therefore, we have to understand the public opinion in a more consistent way. We have to establish and support a permanent open public debate on security and defence issues, raise the awareness about these issues and with it the transatlantic partnership in order to intensify and stabilize the public support. Then this public opinion will be less open to outer manipulations. If we want to achieve this goal we have to use a more coordinated method – make a synergy, establish permanent debate, establish more links that support the public opinion. The programs and activities of the Slovak NGOs should not be ad hoc, but they should be properly coordinated.

I see the greatest challenge of the NGO´s concerning the public opinion in Slovakia in working more together to establish a strong and permanent public debate on security issues, educating public and bringing qualitative and comprehensible information to the public enough, which are indispensable for them to react adequately to the new security threats.

So what are the greatest challenges concerning the role of the NGOs in Slovakia? I See here two basic challenges we have to rise to:

a) Inwards into the Slovak Security Community – to strengthen the links, establish new networks and create a system of effective exchange of information and human resources between the components of the security system, especially new effective links between the government, NGOs, academics, journalists and political representation.

We have to achieve that the Slovak security community, which is now a number of individuals with occasional links, rather then a security system, in which individuals and information rotate. Now we have to understand that the security systems after our NATO accession has to be more interlinked and networked not only between the power elites, military forces, specialized institutions, but to an increasing extent also the non-governmental and non-military organizations, journalists, and academics. This means strengthening the links and ties between these components of the security system in order to build a strong security community. The security community should be the basic pillar of an effective realisation of the security policy. We can achieve these goals only by interlinking the experts from government with political representation, academics, journalists, analytics and opinion builders mainly concentrated in the NGOs.

“If the security system in the democratic world is not to lose strength, efficiency and capability needs to be properly coordinated and has to seek a political support through the political representation and through the public opinion” (4). This coordinating platform may be embodied in a non governmental organization, which will have the capabilities to support this process and which will have the proper means to help to create such system by networking people and establishing ways for exchanging information.

I see here a great challenge of the Slovak Atlantic Commission (5) (SAC), which may and can play here an indispensable role. Slovak Atlantic Commission in the near future aims to create a platform for coordination, networking, exchanging of information, communication. This is our strategy, this is our mission, the Slovak Atlantic Commission may represent a NGO, which will be at disposal to support such activities. This position does not mean that the SAC is building its position on limitation of the activities of other NGO, on contrary – it will help to increase the efficiency of those programs and create a coordinated system at the NGO field and to achieve, that the permanent discussion will be always alive. This can be not achieved by one organisation; this requires more cooperation among the NGO focused on the security policy, which can not be built at once, but at least it will help in the process of building of such system. Quarterly – Euro-Atlantic Quarterly is one of the projects, which does not want to stay a quarterly of one NGO but has the ambition to be a project of the whole Slovak Security Community. This quarterly shall provide to the security community a platform for exchanging information and expressing various and different opinions. On the other hand this shall provide to the successor generation and the target group sufficient comprehensible information. The security policy has to be communicated with the public.

Another project, closely connected with the first one is to develop a central web portal focused on the security and defence policy. This web page will provide with all the information concerning the security policy. It has the ambition to concentrate and bring together all the security studies and articles issued in the Slovakia and the most relevant from the abroad and publish at one web page. This web page should provide with information on all the upcoming events, projects and activities touching the appropriate topic in Slovakia.

I think there is a need to have a first contact point, on which to turn if there is a new project, new program or required activity. It will also help to find human resources if needed for a lecture, conference or other activities.

b) Outwards to the Public – There are several very good NGOs in SLovakia, which are dealing with security issues, let me mention just few Centre for Security Studies CSS, Center on European and North-Atlantic Affairs CENAA, Centre for European Policy CEP, Institute for Public Affairs IVO, Slovak Foreign Policy Association SFPA, Euro-Atlantic Center EAC which are making an excellent and extraordinary job, but the weakness of the Slovak NGO field is that the target groups of these organisations and think-tanks just rarely exceed the limited group of the security community. None of the NGOs really deeply touches the wide public, mainly there are small discussions which do not really spread the ideas to the public and the public stays unaware. During the PRENAME programme these activities were coordinated and extensively supported to reach wide public, and the results were good. Without such a program it is really difficult to achieve those results. None of the NGO has an educational program, a program which would reach out far beyond the limits of the security community and educate the public about the transatlantic partnership, security policy. Here I see the very challenge of the Slovak NGO, in creating and focusing also on educational programs, young – successor generation and the wide public. We have to also develop an effective communication strategy on security and defence policies. In this process, the cooperation of NGOs and the government plays an indispensable role.

The Slovak Atlantic Commission has the ambition to create programs which would coordinate the efforts of the Slovak NGO in communicating within the Security Community and beyond to the public. These programs are oriented to establish ways to streamline the communication. The task of it is to boost the discussion, to point on various questions of the security and defence policy, to provide sufficient comprehensive information and to assure a permanent discussion on those topics.

I stop here at this point and exceeding you this message of calling for more cooperation and joining the mentioned projects. We have to streamline our efforts to communicate with public and to strengthen the links in the security community. This is a great challenge for all of us sitting in this room. Thank you for your attention.

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(1)Gyárfášová O., Bútorová Z., Velšic M; Perception of NATO Membership, http://www.globsec.sk/page.php?doc=53", in: SLOVAKIA´S EURO-ATLANTIC INTEGRATION – A YEAR AFTER. Working paper, Institute for Public Affairs, Bratislava, 2005.

(2)Gyárfášová O., Bútorová Z., Velšic M; Perception of NATO Membership, http://www.globsec.sk/page.php?doc=53">

(3)Jan Hartl: The Importance of Public Opinion in Security and Defence Policy-Making http://www.dcaf.ch/milsoc/ev_prague_02_vlachova_hartl.pdf

(4)Jan Hartl: The Importance of Public Opinion in Security and Defence Policy-Making http://www.dcaf.ch/milsoc/ev_prague_02_vlachova_hartl.pdf

(5)Slovak Atlantic Commission is a non-governmental organization established in 1993 to support the membership of Slovakia in NATO. It is a member of the Atlantic Treaty Association.