Citizenship participation: what difference does it make?

New study from the IDS Citizenship DRC

Tags: Worldwide , Civil Society Building
Additional tags: Civic driven change citizen participation

Quicksand is a central feature of the evidence base underneath qualitative development approaches. Citizen participation is a case in point. Since the mid nineties of the last century, citizen participation has become widely accepted as a strategy for improving governance processes and for attaining development objectives such as improved governance, democratization and the millennium development goals. To date however, its impact has proven difficult to assess. Does citizenship participation make a difference in practice?

It does, suggest John Gaventa and Gregory Barrett in a new study on citizen participation by the Development Research Centre on Citizenship, Participation and Accountability(DRC) from the Institute of Development Studies in Brighton. You can download the study here

Drawing on 800 observable outcomes from 100 case studies, in 20 countries gathered during 10 years of research work, they conclude that in 75% of the cases, citizenship participation has had a positive impact. Citizen participation potentially strengthens people’s sense of citizenship. It can enhance practices of citizen participation and collective action, lead to improved governance and promote more inclusive societies. There are negative effects too: citizen action can lead to (violent) state reprisal and sometimes reinforces existing power structures. Surprisingly, the positive and negative effects are spread seemingly evenly across the full range of case countries, including those that have looked into fragile states(Zimbabwe) and violent contexts(eg. The slums of Rio de Janeiro). This seems to go against the idea that citizen participation should not be a priority in (post) conflict settings or included as a priority in humanitarian and reconstruction interventions.

The researchers have also looked into various participation strategies. They come up with four categories of citizen participation: associational activity, membership of social movements, engagement with formal spaces for participation or a combination thereof. Interestingly, social movement activity and local associations account for more than 70% of the positive outcomes. This is good news for development actors who believe in the emancipatory/countervailing potential of civil society and who understand that social movements are part and parcel of a healthy society.

Yet, these very same actors might get disappointed by the general conclusion of the paper: citizen participation matters, but questions remain about the how, where and why. Despite the impressive case study material, The researchers readily admit that the findings in this meta-study do not permit to draw any firm conclusions on what strategies work under which conditions. They also don’t provide many clues for civil society support strategies by (international) outside actors. As in earlier work, they seem to suggest at most that outside actors can at best play a facilitating role, provided that they’re flexible and in it for the long haul. This resonates with research from our own knowledge programme on social movements and NGO collaboration. Their suggestion is to save these questions for a next round of research. Our suggestion to followers of this website: have a look here at the rich case study material, the policy briefs and the Zed-book series of the Citizenship that formed the basis for this study and you’ll find plenty of food for thought and critical reflection.