Working Paper Fragility at the Local Level

Challenges to building local state – citizen relations in fragile settings

Tags: Post-Conflict Participation
Additional tags: Fragility , Uganda , Conflict

This paper is an introduction to available literature on local democratic governance in fragile settings
with an emphasis on contexts marked by protracted violent conflict. In this paper the term ‘fragile
settings’ is used as it covers fragile states as well as regions within countries that experience state
fragility. First the challenges to local governance in fragile settings are introduced drawing on three
debates; fragile states and state-reconstruction, decentralisation, and participatory governance.
Hereafter three thematic issues are highlighted; legitimacy problems of local governments
A specific chapter is devoted to the role of civil society organisations in (re)building local democratic governance.

This working paper is prepared for the workshop
‘Local Governance in Fragile settings’, hosted by PSO
and co-organised by Hivos, ICCO and IDS in
November 2009. The paper is part of an ongoing PhD
research on civic engagement in post-conflict
situations, carried out at the Institute of Development
Studies (IDS) and supported by The HIVOS
Knowledge Programme and ICCO.