Deepening Democracy in States and Localities
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| Zapatista sign: 'You are in rebel Zapatista territory. Here the people command and the government obeys', Chiapas, Mexico, March 2005 |
Perhaps no theme is as hotly debated in today's world as that of how democracies are created and revitalised. In response to this democratic crisis, contemporary development policy offers a package of one-size-fits-all solutions to the challenge of making states more responsive to the needs of the poor. This research programme seeks to go beyond and challenge this 'one-size-fits-all' understanding of democracy, by asking questions of how various types of democracies and citizenships are developed and institutionalized across different contexts.
This research programme is convened by Vera Schattan P. Coelho and Bettina von Lieres and involves partners from Angola, Brazil, Bangladesh, India, Nigeria, South Africa and the UK.
Key questions
- How do contesting conceptions of democracy and its institutions and practices challenge or inform dominant assumptions about the design and effectiveness of democratic institutions that serve the interests of the poor? And how do diverse conceptions of democracy shape mobilizing and mediating practices?
- What are the most effective channels and mechanisms through which citizens deepen their democratic engagement with and claim their rights in state-initiated and non-state spaces? How and where are these mobilizations and mediations producing reconstituted meanings of democracy, as well as a range of other outcomes (material changes, changed identities, changed political cultures, alienation, and relationships with the state)?
- How can we understand and measure the outcomes and concrete effects of new forms of citizen engagement?
Latest Publications
Andrea Cornwall and Vera Schattan Coelho (eds), (2004), IDS Bulletin, 35 (2), Brighton: IDS
This issue brings together a range of case studies that engage with questions about representation, inclusion and voice, about the political efficacy of citizen engagement as well as the viability of these new arenas as political institutions.
Forthcoming
Spaces for change? Participation, inclusion and voice
Andrea Cornwall and Vera Schattan Coelho (eds), London: Zed Books
News and Events
Citizenship DRC Planning Workshop, 30 November-1 December 2005, University of Sussex, Brighton
This two day workshop was for researchers who presented a proposal for the next round. The aim of this meeting was to discuss and elaborate the future research themes of the Citizenship DRC and to plan the work plan for the next two years.
