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Coelho, VSP, Thompson, L & R, Mohanty
IDS Working Paper, Number 359
Democracy is considered the common ‘currency’ of state and civil society interaction in middle-economic-power states ...
Democracy is considered the common ‘currency’ of state and civil society interaction in middle-economic-power states such as India, Brazil and South Africa. In fact the IBSA (India, Brazil, South Africa) link, as it is understood in international relations, is premised upon certain political and economic similarities between these three states in the South, not least their democratic political foundations.1 In this paper we are looking at the IBSA states from a citizen-centric point of view, embarking upon a comparative analysis of how states deal with citizens’ demands from within. Given the broad similarities of democratic political structures, the emerging economies that make the three states middle-income and the persistent socioeconomic inequalities in these countries, such an analysis of society-state relationships in the IBSA countries will have value for understanding how democracies can be deepened in order to make states responsive to citizens’ demands. This paper consolidates and synthesises the insights from an international research project that has investigated citizen participation and the deepening of democratic processes in the southern countries, including the IBSA countries. The aim of this synthesis paper is to revisit the research findings from this project to explore the interaction between mobilisation and the state as they continue to respond, influence and reconstitute each other in the three formal democracies under study in India, Brazil and South Africa.
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Thompson, L, Mehta, L & N, Nleya
In L Thompson & C Tapscott (eds) Citizenship and Social Movements: Perspectives from the Global South. London: Zed
Due to copyright restrictions, we can only share the first three pages of this chapter online. The book can be ordere...
Due to copyright restrictions, we can only share the first three pages of this chapter online. The book can be ordered from Zed Books at www.zedbooks.co.uk/citizenship or purchased at the IDS bookstore.
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Thompson, L & C, Tapscott
In L Thompson & C Tapscott (eds) Citizenship and Social Movements: Perspectives from the Global South. London: Zed
The latter half of the twentieth century witnessed an upsurge in mobilization and collective action in states of the ...
The latter half of the twentieth century witnessed an upsurge in mobilization and collective action in states of the global South, which has continued to this day. While this mobilization in its early phases comprised part of either ongoing anti-colonial struggles for national in dependence or struggles against despotic rule (especially in Latin America), the forms of social movement to which this has given rise have mutated over the years and they now reflect a broad array of social, political and economic concerns differentially expressed at local, national and global levels.
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Thompson, L
From the Pioneers of Participation Workshop, November 2009, Cape Town: Islandla Institute
The Pioneers of Participation workshop highlighted the importance of recognising country context. Yet international e...
The Pioneers of Participation workshop highlighted the importance of recognising country context. Yet international experiences shared by participants also highlight the gains of recognising and adapting Public Participation Best Practice. Om Prakash from PRIA in India, Tricia Zipfel from the UK and Nina Best from Polis in Brazil emphasised how both the state and civil society ‘learn’ effective participatory strategies through ongoing engagement and the adaptation of legislation and policies. This emphasises a recurring theme of the workshop: innovation is as important as legislation, and legislation needs to be flexible enough to allow adaptation.
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Mohanty, R, Coelho, VSP, Thompson, L, Pant, M, Shankland, A, Favareto, A, Tapscott, C & L , Piper
African Centre for Citizenship and Democracy: Cape Town
Democracy is considered the common ‘currency’ of state and civil society interaction in middle-economic-power states ...
Democracy is considered the common ‘currency’ of state and civil society interaction in middle-economic-power states such as India, Brazil and South Africa. In fact the IBSA (India, Brazil, South Africa) link, as it is understood in international relations, is premised upon certain political and economic similarities between these three states in the South, not least their democratic political foundations.1 In this paper we are looking at the IBSA states from a citizen-centric point of view, embarking upon a comparative analysis of how states deal with citizens’ demands from within...
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Thompson, L & N, Nleya
In VSP Coelho & B von Lieres (eds) Mobilizing for Democracy: Citizen Action and the Politics of Public Participation. London: Zed
Due to copyright restrictions, we can only share the first three pages of this chapter online. The book can be ordere...
Due to copyright restrictions, we can only share the first three pages of this chapter online. The book can be ordered from Zed Books at www.zedbooks.co.uk/citizenship or purchased at the IDS bookstore.
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Thompson, L & N, Nleya
Africanus, 38(2): 115-26.
The main area of investigation in the article is the link between poverty alleviation and the Millenium Development G...
The main area of investigation in the article is the link between poverty alleviation and the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs). The fieldwork-based research focuses on the ways in which the achievement of targets on water service delivery help to improve the quality of life of poor communities in the township setting of Khayelitsha, Western Cape. The authors argue that, based on qualitative and quantitative survey research conducted in Khayelitsha between 2005 and 2007, it is clear that the achievement of MDG goals in South Africa in the area of water service delivery have not led to de facto satisfactory service delivery in the eyes of many communities. In many instances communities have negative perceptions of government water service provision policies and their participatory role in service delivery generally. The authors conclude that the MDG goals may obscure aspects of chronic poverty relating to services by hiding the realities of ill-conceived and implemented water and sanitation policies on the ground behind a front of deceptively packaged water and sanitation provision statistics.
This document is not currently available
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Thompson, L
Transformation, 68: 1-27
This paper examines the participatory processes which led to the building of the Berg River Dam in South Africa's Wes...
This paper examines the participatory processes which led to the building of the Berg River Dam in South Africa's Western Cape province. The government-led formal participatory processes stand in contrast to the mobilisation of environmental activists against the building of the dam. In this case, the creation of formal participatory forums both subverted and neutralised resistance of the environmental movement and civil society against the building of the dam, largely through the mobilisation of policy discourses on water scarcity.
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Thompson, L
DVD
This document is not currently available
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Thompson, L, Williams, JJ, Robins, S & B, von Lieres
African Centre for Citizenship and Democracy
The aim of this monograph is to present in distilled form some of the major findings of research undertaken by a Sout...
The aim of this monograph is to present in distilled form some of the major findings of research undertaken by a South African team based at the School of Government at the University of the Western Cape from 2000 to 2005. The research was initially undertaken with an academic audience in mind, but has been rewritten to bring the policy issues to the fore for NGOs and those in the policymaking sphere of governance.
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Thompson, L
IDS Working Paper 254
This 47-page research paper on water resource management focuses on the attempt by some countries to neutralise criti...
This 47-page research paper on water resource management focuses on the attempt by some countries to neutralise criticism of their water management policies by creating formal spaces for public consultation and participation. This study looks at the participatory processes (specifically, how local people were consulted and involved) in the building of the Berg River Dam, Berg Water Project (BWP), in South Africa’s Western Cape province. The author analyses the consultations that led to the approval of the dam and concludes that the creation of formal participatory spaces both subverted and neutralised resistance, on the part of the environmental movement, as well as civil society, to the building of the dam.
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Thompson, L & T, Matheza
Occasional Paper, No. 2
This paper follows on from the work of Sinclair and Meintjies on internal migration in South Africa and its political...
This paper follows on from the work of Sinclair and Meintjies on internal migration in South Africa and its political, social and economic implications, both in terms of the social realities of migrants and the broader political context within which internal migrants are located. Over the last ten years internal migration in South Africa has been characterised by a steady influx of former ‘bantustan’ residents into urban contexts in the former ‘white South Africa’, particularly those cities which are seen as holding potential for employment opportunities. Thus Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, Bloemfontein and Cape Town have had the largest influx of...
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Thompson, L
UWC Working Paper, Citizenship, Participation, and Accountability Series No. 2
This document is not currently available
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Thompson, L
UWC Working Paper, No. 1, Citizenship, Participation and Accountability series
This paper continues research on citizenship, science and risk, examining the nexus between ‘developmental expertise’...
This paper continues research on citizenship, science and risk, examining the nexus between ‘developmental expertise’ on water management and technological innovation, and the recent developmental stress on local participation. It examines the ways in which water as a scarce resource has featured in global and national policy discourses, with particular attention to the question of the governance of water and stakeholder participation. Water as a scarce resource in international relations (IR) literature, it is argued, tends to conflate notions of community participation around regional and global resources with the management of natural resources by governments on behalf of the people. Where participation does take place it tends towards nominal representation, the principal goal seeming to be achieving parity of representation in terms of relevant ‘stakeholder’ criteria.
The paper draws on case study material collated on participatory water resources management in Zimbabwe, where catchments councils have ostensibly aimed at ‘managing water’ through participatory approaches that also recognise the transboundary nature of this resource, as well as the ways in which ‘community’ identity may be more ecologically than geographically determined.
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Leach, M, Scoones, I & L, Thompson
IDS Bulletin 33(2)
Shifting relationships between science and society, and responses to science-related risk and uncertainty, are centra...
Shifting relationships between science and society, and responses to science-related risk and uncertainty, are central to practices of citizenship and their expression and to questions around the subject of participation. This article reports on the preliminary phase and inception workshop of a Development Research Centre (DRC) project to explore the dynamics of citizenship, science and risk across a range of issues and settings. It reflects on the potential for cross-learning between analytical traditions that have focused respectively on northern and southern settings, and on questions of participation in scientific and technological processes, and the notions of citizenship that they imply. It then considers how the internationalisation of science and governance are shaping both the generation and regulation of technology and risks, and patterns of engagement between citizens and experts. It outlines a notion of knowledge rights in scientific decision-making which could in turn help create and consolidate other forms of citizenship rights.
