Home The Changing Face of Citizen Action
How are citizens across the globe claiming their rights in an increasingly interconnected world? That is the central question on this site and the topic of an international knowledge exploration scheduled for september 2011. Together with IDS, ISS and CiS, the Hivos knowledge programme will bring together activists, academic and social practitioners from the global south and global north. We will connect the 'old' world of social movements and civil society building with emerging knowledge on social mobilization 2.0 and if attempts to link the development sectors' knowledge on 'aided change' with broader social processes. The purpose is to deepen our understanding and reflect on implications for civic support practices and further academic research. On this site you find information on the programme, participants and a collection of links and recent studies on the changing face of citizen action.
News
Transparency and Accountability vs. Privacy
“Big data” projects generally, and biometric schemes in particular, have faced intense scrutiny and opposition the world over. Apart from posing fairly obvious threats to civil liberties and constitutional freedoms, they are prone to more practical errors around reliability, security, accuracy and access. India is one example of a country on the cusp of a radical shift towards increasing digitisation and e-governance, seemingly without much thought being given to the potential dangers of such...
Fragile Citizenship
In this article, Marjoke Oosterom, PhD candidate at the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, discusses how perceptions and practices of citizenship are experienced in the post-conflict situation of the Acholi region in Northern Uganda.
A Dilemma of Democratic Citizenship
Citizenship in the West is understood as a status of the individual incorporating rights and duties. However, this understanding of citizenship can also be viewed as a democratic deficiency of modern citizenship. In May 2010 James Tully, professor at UVic, gave a public lecture on this topic called "A Dilemma of Democratic Citizenship". In this lecture he explains that the dilemma arises when citizens try to respond to four major local and global problems of public goods today.
Dance-athon in Syria
On December 19, The New York Times reports on an unusual musical approach in Syria to their uprising. Demands for change have been expressed through "catchy tunes and collective choreography, to the extent that mourners packing a street one day this month began to dance during a protester’s funeral, a conspicuous break from the traditionally somber ritual". Watch the video and read the whole story by Neil MacFarqhuar here.
Newsletter: Changing Face of Citizen Action, Issue 2
The Occupy movement continues to make headlines around the world with frequent reference to Tahrir squares as a key source of inspiration. At the same time in Egypt, tensions between the military government and demonstrators keep on growing. Civic actors in both Egypt and Tunisia are confronted with the more stubborn realities on the long march of institutional change, while protesters in Syria continue to pay a heavy price for their largely peaceful actions. In this newsletter we share some...
Civic Driven change:Bringing Politics back in
Politics is central to development discourse, yet remains peripheral. And, over some twenty years, a civil society narrative has not fulfilled its potential to ‘bring politics back in’. Reasons can be found in conceptual confusion, in selectivity in donor thinking and policies towards civil society and in the growth-driven political economy of NGO-ism.
Archetypes of Revolution
Upload your image of what best characterizes your protest movement! Archetypes of Revolution is a user-generated visualization of worldwide protest movements and revolutions. Their interactive world map displays all images per continent. Next to the website the images are also displayed in an interactive installation currently located at the Cast Lead #2 exhibition in Brussels, until November 28.
Citizen action and the perverse confluence of opposing agendas
Are people organizing against injustice in ways that differ fundamentally from those of recent decades? And, today's uprisings and mobilizations compared to their predecessors, do you find more continuity than difference? These and other question on contemporary citizen action and the Occupy movement are addressed by Lisa Veneklasen in her highly interesting article on opendemocracy.net. Here you will find a short introduction of her article.
Occupy Wall Street, London, Amsterdam..occupy…occupy.. everywhere!
The 15M demonstrations in Spain formed the kick off of the indignados (outraged) movement which took much of their inspiration from the Arab Spring. Occupy Wall street followed suit and soon occupy camps popped up at central squares all over the world.
Unruly politics: atomised movements, activist individuals and clientilism
Do new social media create new forms of citizen action? Jenny Morgan reports on the 'Changing Face of Citizen Action' knowledge exploration in the Hague.
On a lighter note...
The dictators' survival guide
Amidst growing protests in even the most repressive of regimes, the question arises what the do's and don'ts are for dictators trying to stay in charge. In Foreign Policy's dictator's survival guide Mica Zenko reflects on Ghadafi's downfall and offers strategic advice for all those remaining absolute rulers desperately clinging to their eroding power bases.
On the barricades...
In 2010, Metropolis TV, a long term Hivos partner made a round across the globe to report on citizen protests. The result: a rich collection of inspiring short documentaries ranging from the long struggle by a group of Nicaraguans claiming prize-money from Coca-cola to the earth-scooter protesting against pollution in China.
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openDemocracy
- Cinema, citizenship and the promise of the internet: a personal view from the Third World, Salik Shah (21/02/2012)
- Secret museums: Anita Desai and the desecrating gaze, James Warner (22/02/2012)
- Law & Order, take two, David Elstein (21/02/2012)
Institute of Development Studies (IDS) News Feed
- Achieving universal energy access (22/02/2012)
- Challenging attemps to silence civil society in Uganda (16/02/2012)
- Contextualising gender knowledge for Latin American audiences - working in partnership with Uruguayan NGO CIEDUR (15/02/2012)
The Broker online
- Back to globalism, starting at home (06/02/2012)
- It’s the future calling… (02/02/2012)
- INGOs must make tough choices (18/01/2012)
Sites we follow
Links: DRC Citizenship - CDC - The Broker - 15 October Organisations: Coady - MySociety - Twaweza - Hivos - CiS - ISS - IDS