Table of Contents

Foreword - John Gaventa Introduction - Vera S. Coelho & Bettina von Lieres Part I: Associational mobilization: constructing citizenship 2. Have NGO Political Empowerment Programs at the Grassroots Level Contributed the Deepening of Democracy in Kenya? - Celestine Nyamu Musembi 3. Microfinance and Social Mobilization: Alternative Pathways to Grassroots Democracy? - Naila Kabeer and Simeen Mahmud 4. The Nucleo Representativo das Associações (NRA) of Dombe Grande, Angola: building democracy and citizenship at the local level - Idaci Ferreira and Sandra Roque Part II: Social movements: contesting political authority and building state responsiveness 5. We got it in our heads that we should do the job of the state the Indigenous Peoples - Movement and the Health System in Acre, Brazil - Alex Shankland 6. The 2007 Movement and the Role of Citizen Action in the Consolidation of Democracy in Nigeria - Jibrin Ibrahim and Samuel Egwu 7. How Deep is Deep Democracy? Global Citizenship in Local Spaces - Steven Robins Part III: Citizen involvement in formal governance mechanisms 8. The Infinite Agenda of Social Justice: Dalit Mobilization in the Institutions of Local Governance - Ranjita Mohanty 9. Public Involvement and Social Mobilization: A win-win game? - Vera S. P. Coelho, Alexandre Ferraz, Fabiola Fanti, Meire Ribeiro 10. Dynamics of Political Change and transformation: Civil Society, Governance and the Culture of Politics in Kenya - Duncan Okello Part IV: Where and how to participate? 11. Passivity or Protest? Understanding the dimensions of Mobilization on Rights to Services in Khayelitsha, Cape Town - Lisa Thompson and Ndodana Nleya 12. How styles of activism influence social participation and democratic deliberation - Arilson Favareto, Yumi Gonçalves, Frederico Menino, Carolina Galvanese, Vera S. P. Coelho

Promotional Information

Explains how ordinary citizens and their organizations mobilize to deepen democracy. This book includes a collection of empirical case studies from Angola, Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa that illustrate how alternative forms of political mobilization engage with the formal institutions of representative democracy.

About the Author

Vera 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.

Reviews

'A welcome and timely engagement of cases of participatory democracy from Africa, India, and Latin America that have not, on average, been subject to the levels of intensive study common in the wealthy democracies. The volume balances theoretical expectations with contextualized accounts of cases, yielding a careful, cautiously optimistic survey of burgeoning participatory practices in the Global South. The chapters are closely attentive to conditions of success and failure of participatory experiments. An important addition to our knowledge about making democracy work.' - Mark E. Warren, University of British Columbia