News and Events
The Citizenship DRC has released the first of a series of short case studies that capture some of the citizen strategies documented over the last ten years of reearch. The first two sets of case studies look at citizen actions in the realms of accountability and health.
A recent event in Cape Town uniquely brought together more than 30 councillors, officials and civil society leaders who are on the front line of democracy. The Pioneers of Participation event, jointly hosted by The Isandla Institute and the African Centre for Citizenship and Democracy, carried on the tradition set by the Champions of Participation events held in 2007 and 2008 in the UK. Pioneers from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Botswana, Congo-Kinshasa, Uganda and Kenya met for a week to discuss common challenges and to share innovative solutions, and at the end of the week communicated their lessons to a panel of policy-makers including MP Stone Sizani ,Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Rural Development.
A Global Campaign with Local Roots?
The Make Poverty History campaign, which was criticised for losing touch with people in developing countries, is being followed by a new mega-campaign, complete with the ballyhoo of international football celebrities. Yet unlike Make Poverty History, which emerged opportunistically, 1 GOAL builds on the strength of the Global Campaign for Education (GCE), which began nearly a decade ago and is distinguished by its democratic approach to involving southern partners. Research by the Citizenship DRC points to the lessons from this extraordinarily successful campaign. Read more…
In the midst of violent clashes between the police and drug traffickers in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, some residents are trying to reassert control over their lives and neighbourhoods though community organising. Research by the Development Research Centre on Citizenship, Participation and Accountability looked at these grassroots efforts to counter the violence in Rio, and recently hosted politicians, government officials and civil society leaders in public debates in four favelas to encourage new policies to support the many, though inchoate, initiatives to build peace through consensus-building. Read more…
Nigeria's House of Representatives is considering a possible electoral reform that some say could deliver the country's first free and fair vote since the end of military rule a decade ago. As civil society actors unite to weigh in on the policy debate, the Citizenship DRC’s partners in Nigeria have been informing the movement at every level with lessons from their research into the state of citizenship in Nigeria. Read more…
Importing Democracy to the US
John Gaventa, the director of the Citizenship DRC, spoke to a group of more than 100 activists and experts representing different streams of democratic thought in the U.S., including five officers from President Barack Obama's administration. Speaking at the Strengthening Our Nation's Democracy conference in Washington D.C. in August, Gaventa described the innovations in democratic techniques that have emerged around the world in the past 15 years, and stressed the lessons these hold for the movement to deepen democracy in the US. The presentation was received so well that it inspired one of the gathering's final action point: to host a conference that highlights these international lessons for a US audience.
Local Workshops in Angola
Researchers in Angola have spent the recent months presenting their results at national and provincial events. In the town of Dombe Grande, where Citizenship DRC researchers have investigated the bourgeoning of a new civil society at the grassroots, representatives of local civic organisations and public institutions and traditional authorities created a photographic exhibition to recap the research process and reflect on the lessons learned. Researchers also presented their work to about 40 members of civil society groups in the province of Cuanza Sul, and at national events in Benguela and Luanda.
Building Citizenship in Bangladesh
In July, the Deepening Democracy, Building Citizenship and Promoting Participation research group at BRAC Development Institute, BRAC University, held a national dissemination seminar at the BRAC Auditorium on "Building Citizenship from Below." The seminar was attended by 270 participants, including policymakers, civil society representatives, international NGO staff, members of the donor community, researchers, activists and the media. Researchers emphasized how the distinct forms of mobilisation used by NGOs in Bangladesh lead to different kinds of outcomes for the poor.
Engaging Latin American Scholars
After presenting on various panels at the Latin American Studies Association's 2009 Congress in Rio de Janeiro, researchers from CEBRAP hosted their own seminar on the sidelines of the gathering. The seminar provided an opportunity to debate and evaluate the mechanisms of social participation that have been implemented in Latin America over the last fifteen years. Presenters drew upon results from across the Citizenship DRC's work on the challenges of democratizing politics from a citizen-centred perspective.
Who’s Fighting for National Participation in the UK?
John Gaventa, Director of the Citizenship DRC, gives a seminar on a paradox of participation in the UK. At the local level, citizen participation is flourishing. But where are the champions for citizen participation in national politics? Examples from Brazil and India suggest that civil society organisation in the UK may need to lead the charge. Listen here.
Local-Global Literature Review
This literature review is an attempt to draw together some of the insights emerging from research on how power once held by the state is increasingly fragmented among global, transnational and local actors. The review identified six main bodies of literature and attempted to identify the relevance of these distinct theoretical perspectives to how citizens perceive and engage with global processes and in turn, what impact global processes actually have on the meanings and practices of citizenship.
The participatory approach to development may have finally found its expression in the field of conflict and security. A group of scholars including researchers from the Citizenship DRC met in Brighton in May to discuss a framework for peace-building from below. The workshop coincided with the publication of two IDS Bulletins devoted to related issues: "Transforming Security and Development in an Unequal World" (March 2009) and "Violence, Social Action and Research" (May 2009). Read more…
In an article published by Alliance Magazine, John Gaventa and Nick Benequista write about a new model for democracy promotion - one that values the innovations in democratic practices that have occurred across the globe in the last 15 years and that recognizes all nations as equal partners. Read more…
In Tribute to Augusto Boal: A Life of Theatre and Politics
Augusto Boal, the founder of the Theatre of the Oppressed who died last week, believed that drama could bring about radical change. His innovative work encouraged audience members to take to the stage to act out real-life problems and, through this, to develop strategies for personal and social change. Members of the Citizenship DRC reflect on his legacy.
From Porto Alegre to Tower Hamlets
The experience of the Citizenship DRC suggests this: if you change how people see public policy, people will see to it that public policy changes. Shazia Hussain of the London borough of Tower Hamlets demonstrates the point. Inspired by the people she met at the Citizenship DRC-organised workshop “Champions of Participation,” Shazia has convinced her council to set aside millions of pounds for an experiment in participatory budgeting. Read more…
Nigeria: The Informal Road to Formal Democracy
After three elections all marred by vote rigging, Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua inaugurated an Electoral Reform Committee to figure out how to bring an end to the fraud. But will the country’s political classes have the will to implement the radical reforms recommended by the committee? Civil society organisations and ordinary citizens are not waiting idly to find out. Jibrin Ibrahim, Director of Nigeria’s Centre for Democracy and Development, gave a seminar on civil society’s efforts to protect the vote in Nigeria through a campaign that is boldly making the case to the public: defend your vote because your life depends on it. Read more...
New Flows of Accountability in Mexico
A reconfiguration of power relations in southern Veracruz, Mexico has occurred partly as a result of a research project supported by the Development Research Centre on Citizenship, Participation and Accountability. Read more...
150 Case Studies, 400 Publications... Now What?
A few days into joining the Citizenship DRC as a research assistant, I was shown a file documenting the breadth of the team’s research – eight years, 150 case studies (and counting), almost 400 publications! Now what? Greg Barrett, the latest member of the Citizenship DRC’s coordination team, discusses the challenges of discovering the things we know. Read more...
Learning Citizenship From A Distance
The Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA) has begun offering a distance-learning course entitled International Perspectives onCitizenship, Democracy and Accountability. The course, drawing heavily from Citizenship DRC research, will be hosted by PRIA, instructed by various partners in our network and read by students from around the globe. Targeted at practitioners, adult educators, researchers, resource providers and policy makers, the three-month course will facilitate critical analysis of different debates and perspectives on the themes and encourage the development of innovative practices. For more information, visit PRIA Continuing Education.
Getting Citizenship on the Agenda in India
Citizenship DRC collaborators have participated in a series of workshops and conferences over the past five months in India. Dr. Julie Thekkudan presented her work on corporate social responsibility at a conference at the University of Madras in Chennai. With an audience of about 120 academics and functionaries, Rajesh Tandon and Rajesh Sinha of the Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA) and Catherine McGregor, Professor of the University of Victoria, presented their work at the “Conference on Citizenship, Participation and Accountability at Andhra University in Vizag. The International Conference on Citizenship and Governance: Challenges for Social Inclusion brought Citizenship DRC collaborator Eghosa Osaghae from Igbinedion University in Nigeria to present. Rajesh Tandon and Mandakini Pant also spoke at the conference, which was aimed at sharing empirical insights and best practices to deepen and broaden social inclusion both within West Bengal and beyond.
Global Citizen Engagement Paper Series
A series of IDS Working Papers will be published over the coming months exploring how the diffusion of power and governance resulting from globalisation gives rise to new meanings and identities of citizenship and new forms of citizen action.
Upcoming Events
Learning from Brazil
Greater public participation in policy making is evident in Brazil and public officials have paid increasing attention to the process of organizing public involvement. Interest is driven by the understanding that public involvement can contribute towards the definition of more just and viable policies, which may help to overcome the “democratic” as well as the “management” and the “socio-economic deficits”. Yet, what are the necessary conditions to enable these forums and councils to carry out these intentions? This is the question that prompted the Citizenship DRC's research program and whose findings will be presented and discussed in a workshop in São Paulo hosted in September by CEBRAP.
Resisting exclusion in India
The Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA) has produced several studies for the Citizenship DRC around the roles and identities as citizens and exclusion of citizenship rights among nomads, tribals (santals), women, and multi-party accountability in industrial projects. The studies primarily explored the dimensions of exclusionary citizenship, and the means of resisting exclusion through effective participation in social, cultural, economic and political arenas and also by demanding accountability of the more powerful stakeholders. Now PRIA researchers plan to present the results from these studies to stakeholders in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh in a series of workshops scheduled for the final three months of the year.
The debate on decentralisation in Angola
Researchers from Acção para o Desenvolvimento Rural e Ambiente (ADRA) will host a national conference in Luanda on the role of local participation in the ambitious process of decentralisation underway in the country. Scheduled for October, the meeting is intended to draw attention to Decree Law 02/07, which calls for citizen participation at the local level through a mechanism knows as Social Consultation and Coordination Councils.
Synthesising the research of the Citizenship DRC
Citizenship DRC researchers will gather in Brighton in October to discuss the preliminary findings from nine projects seeking to distil cross-cutting lessons from the past eight years of research on how to make rights real for citizens around the globe. Later in October, visit www.drc-citizenship.org for an early look at some of the findings.
Pioneers of participation
The University of the Western Cape, in partnership with the Citizenship DRC, Logolink International and the Isandla Institute (the host organisation of Logolink Southern Africa) will hold a five-day event from 9-13 November 2009 in Cape Town, where some 50 practitioners from eight southern and east-African countries will gather to reflect, learn and strategise on how to advance the agenda of public participation on the sub-continent. Funding for the event comes roughly equally from two donors, GTZ (in partnership with the former national Department of Provincial and Local Government in South Africa) and DFID South Africa. The gathering will produce policy messages targeted to key South African constituencies including the national government, donors and civil society.
Citizen’s fair in Bangladesh
The concept of a Citizen's Fair (Nagorik Mela) emerged from the experience of the research in Bangladesh, which uncovered the multiple ways of understanding citizenship. The event, scheduled for December in Dhaka, will be a collective and concerted effort of various NGOs and other civil society organizations working for the rights of people, directly or indirectly. Participating organisations can showcase their ideas, programmes and products through demonstrations, talks, films or documentaries, theatre, folkloric performance, photography, or any other medium they deem most appropriate. The host, the BRAC Institute for Development Studies, hopes the gathering will provide both a platform for advocacy and a catalyst for organisations to discover new ways of collaborating.