Accountability of the National University of Costa Rica (UNA). Methodology: Dynamics of Triangles Applied to the Citizen Movement That Builds Safe Spaces

Abstract

This graduation work, under the directed practice modality, is carried out in UNA´s “Vicerrectoría de Extensión” (Vice Presidency for University Extension). It makes visible the gestation of a citizen movement that enforces the current constitutional principles of the Republic of Costa Rica; these principles empower the citizen as “The Sovereign”, and, therefore, as the owner and depositary of everyday power–with the relevant attributes, something for which citizenship has not been prepared. Because of that, the movement deals with the institutionality born in the context of a representative republic with strict delegated power; in this republic are established vices and customs of the authoritarianism and a culture of impunity and corruption. This paper highlights the efforts of dialogical citizenship that, with its own methodology, daily constructs its worldview with great effort and with the woman`s soul, reassuming that delegated power as a key part in the decision-making process. From a qualitative approach are considered discussions, theoretical approaches that support the directed practice, and the rich wisdom and knowledge that emanate from everyday life, as well as from the methodical action of those who take part in this movement, those who, having appropriated the methodology and its innovative procedures, contribute to an effective accountability culture and measurement of impacts―positive and negative ones. For the UNA, this experience is especially important, since in its latest statutory reform the issue of accountability to its own community and “society” became one of the most relevant changes, although, without foreseeing a mechanism to make it possible in relation to the accountability to society and the communities with which the UNA works.