Youth aspirtion survey in Republic of Macedonia are less convinced of it. Trust in the positive influence of NGOs seems to weaken according to the respondents' inactivity. It seems that low opportunities and qualifications, together with passivity, result in pessimism towards the attempts of individuals of the civil society to mediate interethnic relations. As regards international relations, the situation is inverted to a certain extent. The results are presented comparatively in Table 5, given below. Namely, fewer of the young people who live in urban environments consider that international organizations have a positive influence on interethnic relations, which is in correlation with the respondents who have a lower level of education. More young people who live in rural environments think that international organizations have a positive influence, which is in correlation with a higher level of education. Another factor which supports the perception of the international organisations' positive influence on the interethnic relations is the support which the young people show for Macedonia's accession to NATO and the EU. Namely, 46 to 48% of those who would vote in favour of the integration into EU or NATO think that international organisations have a positive influence. A conclusion may be drawn that the better educated young people, who already generally support the idea of membership in the Euro-Atlantic structures, think that the international organisations positively influence interethnic relations. However, the predominant factor that reveals differing views of the international organisations' role in the interethnic relations is the ethnicity of the respondents. More Albanians(65.5%) than Macedonians(36.2%) consider the influence to be positive. A quarter of the Macedonians, or 25%, consider the influence to be negative, an opinion shared by only 15% of the Albanians. In this case, the views of Macedonians and Albanians are opposed to a certain extent. As was already pointed out, it is probably due to their different perceptions regarding the international organisations' role during the crisis of 2001, but also regarding the process of the implementation of the Ohrid Agreement. There are certain coincidences, but also differences in the attitudes, as well as certain contrasts regarding the positive influences in the interethnic relations. But what about perceptions of the negative influences on the interethnic relations? According to the young people, the political parties have the greatest negative influence on the interethnic relations. This was the response given by 52% of the respondents. The second most frequent response was the media, by 38%, closely followed by the government at 36%. These scores reflect the general attitude that"citizens consider the politicians as responsible for the interethnic relations, as well as that citizens consider the media responsible for the situation of the interethnic relations". 20 Aside from the influence of the wider public, that is, the dominant political culture which helps define the attitudes of the people, there are trends according to the ethnicity of the respondents, especially when political parties are in question. On several occasions, the political parties have used the rhetoric of ethnic mobilisation in the pursuit of some of their goals. 21 But, while 53% of the Macedonians consider that the parties have a negative influence on the interethnic relations, 48% of the Albanians share that attitude. 32% of the Albanians view party influence as positive, as is the case among only 18% of the Macedonians. In sum, regarding views about the influence of the political parties on interethnic relations, there are certain differences based on the ethnicity of the respondents. Since, the proportions of Macedonians and Albanians who declared themselves as members of political parties is almost the same, the explanation should be sought in the way in which the young Macedonians and Albanians experience the political parties, as well as in the values these groups attribute to them. Putting aside the different attitudes, on the issue of certainty of the negative influence which the media and the government have on interethnic relations, the answers were similar across all strata of the respondents. It seems that the media's super saturation of this issue, the government's use of it as a prism through which coalition agreements are portrayed, as well as its use in daily political aims, greatly contributes to the perception of the young people. This serious problem, which is also reported in other analyses of the attitudes of the general public, points out that the media and the public political institutions are not performing some of their social functions sufficiently well. Namely, instead of providing a social cohesion, especially in the case of the government, they are observed as agents of negative influence on the sphere of social relations. However, the greatest part of the young people (47%) think that interethnic relations have improved when compared to one year ago, and more than one third(37%) think that they will be improved within the next year. And while 10% think that ethnic relations became worse during the last year, only 8% expect worsening during this next year. Macedonians are somewhat more pessimistic regarding interethnic relations. 11% of them, compared with 6% of the Albanians, think that interethnic relations became worse during the last year, and 10% of them expect the same to become worse during this next year, which is the case among only 4% of the Albanians. This highlights the fact that there is fear for the development of interethnic relations among a small number of the young Macedonians. However, it is not clear whether that fear is connected with personal feelings of being endangered or if it is a reaction to increased rights accorded to the ethnic communities under Positive influence NGO’s International organizations Lower education 31 40 Higher education 45 50 Average 37.7 42 Urban Rural environments environments 39 36 39 50 Table 5. Factors that show the perception for NGOs' and international organizations' positive influence on the interethnic relations (in percentages) _____________________________________________________________ 20 UNDP. Early Warning Report, Skopje, March 2006. p. 21 See in details at Daskalovski, Zhidas, Walking on the edge: Consolidating multi-ethnic Macedonia, Skopje, 2005. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung 18