How Does Trade Policy Impacts Upon Citizens' Relationship with the State?

Publication by knowledge-team member Rosalba Icaza

Tags: South America , Civil Society Building

Together with Peter Newell and Marcelo Saguier, dr. Rosalba Icaza (ISS) explores how trade policy impacts upon citizens' relationship with the state, and the state's ability to realize particular rights.

The paper also analyses how struggles over citizenship are being played out not only in a one-way, 'top-down' relationship. New solidarities and expressions of citizenship are also being articulated 'from below' by an increasing array of actors mobilizing simultaneously in multiple governance arenas linking local and global spheres and processes. This contribution is part of the book "Globalizing Citizens New Dynamics of Inclusion and Exclusion' edited by John Gaventa and Rajesh Tandon (London: Zed Books)

About the Book

Globalizing Citizens explores how globalisation has given rise to new meanings of citizenship. Just as they are tied by global production, trade and finance, citizens in every nation are linked by the institutions of global governance and this brings new dynamics of inclusion, and exclusion. This expert new analysis presents case studies from cities and villages in India, South Africa, Nigeria, Philippines, Kenya, The Gambia, Brazil and South Africa to explore how new forms of global authority shape and build new meanings and practices of citizenship, across local, national and global arenas. For some, globalisation has provided a new sense of global solidarity that has inspired them to join transnational movements and mobilise to claim rights from global authorities, but for others, globalisation has meant greater exposure to the power of global corporations, bureaucracies and scientific experts, thus adding new layers of exclusion to already fragile meanings of citizenship.

About the Editors

Rajesh Tandon is the founder and executive director of PRIA (Society for Participatory Research in Asia), and has been an activist-scholar for the past three decades, focusing on issues such as citizenship and participatory governance, participatory research and building civil society alliances. In addition to his writing and scholarship, he has served as a civil society leader in India and internationally, including serving as a founding member and chair of CIVICUS, programme director of the Citizens and Governance Programme of the Commonwealth Foundation and chair of the Montreal International Forum (FIM). He has been active participant in the Development Research Centre on Citizenship, Participation and Accountability and served as co-convenor of the working group on globalising citizen engagements.

John Gaventa is a Research Professor and Fellow in the Participation, Power and Social Change Team at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. A political sociologist by training, he has written widely on issues of power, citizen action, participation and democracy, including the award winning Power and Powerlessness in an Appalachian Valley (1980) and Global Citizen Action (co-editor, 2001). He also has been active with a number of NGOs and civil society organisations internationally, including the Highlander Centre in the United States and Oxfam in the UK. He is the director of the Development Research Centre on Citizenship, Participation and Accountability and served as co-convenor of the working group on globalising citizen engagements.

You can find more information on the book here