Jump to:Mobilising for Democracy [Paperback]Citizen Action and the Politics of Public Participationby
Usually ships within 5 to 7 working days Description of Mobilising for DemocracyThis book is about how ordinary citizens and their organizations mobilize to deepen democracy. It includes a collection of new empirical case studies from Angola, Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa that illustrate how alternative forms of political mobilization - such as protests, social participation, activism, litigation and lobbying - engage with the formal institutions of representative democracy in ways that constitute the very essence of democratic politics and not, as many authors suggest, an indication of its failure. No other volume has brought together examples from such a broad Southern spectrum and covering such a diversity of actors: rural and urban dwellers, transnational activists, religious groups, politicians and social leaders. The cases illuminate the crucial contribution that citizen mobilization makes to democratization and the building of state institutions. Yet neither are these movements driven purely by idealism. They cases also reflect often the uneasy relationship between citizens and the institutions that are designed to foster their political participation.This book suggest ways to confront these challenges by recognizing - as so many ordinary citizens already have - that more just and equitable democratic systems can only emerge from more just and equitable societies. Title Information
Write a review of this book Customer Reviews from AmazonAboutVera Schattan Coelho is a research fellow at Centro Brasileiro de Analise e Planejamento (CEBRAP, the Brazilian Centre for Analysis and Planning), where she coordinates the Citizenship and Development Group. She was the co-editor with Andrea Cornwall of the earlier volume in the Zed Claiming Citizenship series, Spaces for Change? (2007). A Brazilian political scientist, she has written widely on issues of participation and social policy in Latin America. She serves as co-convenor of the Deepening Democracy working group of the Development Research Centre on Citizenship, Participation and Accountability. Bettina von Lieres is a Senior Lecturer in the Political Studies Department at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town, South Africa, and also teaches at the University of Toronto. She was a contributing author to the earlier volume of this Zed series, Spaces of Change? (2007) A South African political scientist, she has written widely on issues of democracy, citizenship and marginalisation. She serves as co-convenor of the Deepening Democracy subgroup of the Development Research Centre on Citizenship, Participation and Accountability. |
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