Nicholas is a journalist and communications specialist with a background in international development. He managed all aspects of the Citizenship DRC's commmunication strategy. He is currently completing a PhD at in the Media and Communications Department at the London School of Economics.

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  Blurring the Boundaries: Citizen Action Across States and Societies

  Benequista, N

  Summary of Findings from a Decade of Collaborative Research on Citizen Engagement, Brighton: Citizenship DRC
  This document is intended as a summary of and reference guide to the Citizenship DRC’s work. Though it is not compreh...
  This document is intended as a summary of and reference guide to the Citizenship DRC’s work. Though it is not comprehensive, the aim of the document is to highlight the major findings whilst signposting the original research. For readers who wish to reference these ideas in future publications, it is preferable, where possible, to cite the original Citizenship DRC research. In instances where this document must be cited directly, please list the author as the Citizenship DRC. The document has been compiled by Nicholas Benequista with major contributions by John Gaventa.
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  Broadening Spaces for Citizens in Violent Contexts

  Benequista, N, Barrett, G. & L, McLean-Hilker

  Citizenship DRC Policy Briefing
  Violence and everyday insecurity are amongst the root causes of poverty: a simple and true statement that has at last...
  Violence and everyday insecurity are amongst the root causes of poverty: a simple and true statement that has at last been acknowledged in several international agreements, including the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence (2008) and Dili Declaration (2010). Several new funding mechanisms have even been established to support efforts to reduce violence, including those that address the special security needs of excluded groups, women, youth and children. What recent policies have failed to adequately consider, however, is that poor and dispossessed people often perceive the state as a perpetrator or accomplice - whether by active complicity or passive omission – in the violence visited upon them. For policymakers and practitioners eager to move beyond top-down approaches to reducing insecurity and violence, this policy briefing offers insights into how local residents can be directly involved in finding solutions for their security and livelihood needs. Research from a range of contexts characterised by violence and everyday insecurity suggests that external actors can help to broaden spaces where citizens can take action in non-violent, socially legitimate ways, but that success depends on gaining a locally nuanced understanding of the complex relationship between violent and non-violent actors, and between forms of everyday violence and political violence.
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  Translators, Teachers and Technicians: Research Communication and S...

  Benequista, N & J, Wheeler

  IDS Working Paper
  Forthcoming
  Forthcoming
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  Putting citizens at the Centre: Linking States and Societies for Re...

  Benequista, N

  Conference Paper, The Politics of Poverty, Elites, Citizens and States. 21st-23st June 2010, London
  This summary note provides a guide to key findings, especially those that link to contemporary policy debates on how ...
  This summary note provides a guide to key findings, especially those that link to contemporary policy debates on how citizen participation and engagement can contribute to development, strengthen democratic and responsive states, and help to realise human rights. For each message, reference is made to key documents that support these findings and articulate them in more detail.
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  Outrage and Social Organising in Kenya's Tenements

  Benequista, N

  Backed by Popular Demand: Citizen Actions for Accountability, Citizenship DRC Case Study Series
  This two-page document summarises research into the strategies taken by tenement housing residents to claim their rig...
  This two-page document summarises research into the strategies taken by tenement housing residents to claim their rights.
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  Taking a Seat on Brazil's Health Councils

  Benequista, N & G, McGregor

  Sick of Waiting: Citizen Prescriptions for Better Health Policy, Citizenship DRC Case Study Series

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  Keeping the Corporation Honest in Visakhapatnam, India

  Benequista, N

  Backed by Popular Demand: Citizen Actions for Accountability: Citizenship DRC Case Study Series
  This two-page document summarises how non-governmental organisations used multi-stakeholder accountability dialogues ...
  This two-page document summarises how non-governmental organisations used multi-stakeholder accountability dialogues to help protect the rights of people living in communities affected by the construction of a power plant.
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  The Fabric of Accountability in Bangladesh's Garment Industry

  Benequista, N

  Backed by Popular Demand: Citizen Actions for Accountability, Citizenship DRC Case Study Series
  This two-page document summarises research into the Bangladesh garment export sector, showing that a context where co...
  This two-page document summarises research into the Bangladesh garment export sector, showing that a context where companies adhere to codes of conduct is not the same as a culture of accountability where citizens mobilise to hold their employers and other companies to account.
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  Crossing the Line: UK Activists Team-up with Health Officials

  Benequista, N & A, Dunn

  Sick of Waiting: Citizen Prescriptions for Better Health
  This two-page case study summary describes how in a city in the UK with a troubled political history, residents in on...
  This two-page case study summary describes how in a city in the UK with a troubled political history, residents in one neighbourhood discovered that the Health Authority was planning to close their health centre, so they mobilised and undertook research to stop the closure.
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  Mexico's Native Communities Reverse the Flow of Accountability

  Benequista, N

  Backed by Popular Demand: Citizen Actions for Accountability, Citizenship DRC Case Study Series
  This two-page document describes an action research project that sought to restore accountability in the management o...
  This two-page document describes an action research project that sought to restore accountability in the management of water resources - through institutions that linked indigenous communities in the hills of southern Veracruz and municipal governments along the coast.
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  Getting to the Bottom of the Story with Theatre for Development

  Benequista, N

  Backed by Popular Demand: Citizen Actions for Accountability, Citizenship DRC Case Study Series
  This brief research summary describes how Researchers from the Theatre for Development Centre (TFDC) at Ahmadu Bello ...
  This brief research summary describes how Researchers from the Theatre for Development Centre (TFDC) at Ahmadu Bello University used participatory theatre as a methodology for encouraging discussion among communities of the Niger Delta on the breakdown in accountability of local and state leaders to citizens.
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  Democracy-support: From Recession to Innovation

  Benequista, N & Gaventa J

  Article on Open Democracy.net, 3 August
  The sense that democracy is in retreat worldwide has become widespread. But the emergence of citizen-centred, governa...
  The sense that democracy is in retreat worldwide has become widespread. But the emergence of citizen-centred, governance-focused and development-oriented approaches suggests that a more complex and hopeful shift is also taking place, say Nicholas Benequista & John Gaventa.
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  Reversing the Flow: A New Democratic Conversation?

  Benequista, N & Gaventa J

  Alliance Magazine, Vol. 12 (4): 56-58
  For decades the field of democracy promotion has been dominated by an approach that is contrary to this spirit, one o...
  For decades the field of democracy promotion has been dominated by an approach that is contrary to this spirit, one of telling rather than listening. Led by bilateral and multilateral aid and foreign assistance programmes, as well as private foundations, democracy promotion has been understood as the process of ‘exporting’ democracy from those who were considered to have it – largely the older and so-called ‘mature’ democracies of the global North – to those who needed it, such as the younger democracies in the global South, or the post-socialist states of Eastern Europe and southern Asia, with little attention to what could be learned from elsewhere to solve democratic deficits at home...
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  Treating AIDS with Activism in South Africa

  Benequista, N, McGregor, G & A, Dunn

  Sick of Waiting: Citizen Prescriptions for Better Health Policy, Citizenship DRC Case Study Series
  This two-page document summarises research on the Treatment Action Campaign, South Africa's most influential AIDS adv...
  This two-page document summarises research on the Treatment Action Campaign, South Africa's most influential AIDS advocacy group.
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  Canada's Designs for Aboriginal Participation

  Benequista, N & A, Dunn

  Sick of Waiting: Citizen Prescriptions for Better Health
  This two-page document summarises a study of the role of Aboriginal people in the deliberative aspects of the Romanow...
  This two-page document summarises a study of the role of Aboriginal people in the deliberative aspects of the Romanow Commission, established in April 2001 by the Canadian government to deliberate with citizens on the future of healthcare in Canada.
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  Backed by Popular Demand: Citizen Actions for Accountability

  Benequista, N

  Citizenship DRC Case Study Series
  This document combines five case studies from different countries that illustrate how citizens take action to claim a...
  This document combines five case studies from different countries that illustrate how citizens take action to claim accountability from local institutions, governments, corporations and global actors.
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  In Bangladesh Citizens Leave a Legacy in Health

  Benequista, N, McGregor, G & A, Dunn

  Sick of Waiting: Citizen Prescriptions for Better Health Policy: Citizenship DRC Case Study Series
  This two-page document summarises research into Bangladesh's attempt to enhance community participation in the public...
  This two-page document summarises research into Bangladesh's attempt to enhance community participation in the public health sector.
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  Literature Review on Local-Global Citizen Engagement

  Benequista, N & A, Dunn

  Local-Global Citizen Engagements Working Group, Citizenship DRC, September
  This document was commissioned to provide an overview of some of the most prominent academic debates relevant to this...
  This document was commissioned to provide an overview of some of the most prominent academic debates relevant to this research agenda, focusing on authors from UK and U.S. institutions.