Keyword: civic action
Winds of Change: does development intervention help or hinder community action?
Are capacity development projects needed that support local leaders to enable social action to demand citizen rights? "Yes!", argue the organizers of the roundtable 'Winds of Change: Will they Bring a new paradigm to Development Assistance?'. Indeed, we wrote before that citizen action matters. But research findings from the Participation, Power and Social Change research team from IDS, Sussex, say that international (outside) actors at best can play a facilitat...
Public event: Arab spring, summer of protest: A next generation of social activism?
There is something brewing underneath the surface. Recent months have seen a surge of drastic forms of citizen action in various parts of the world. The 'Arab spring' was followed by a summer of protest followed touching countries like Greece, Spain, Israel and other parts of Western Europe. Are we witnessing the awakening of a new generation of social activism, and if so, what are the new strategies, agenda's, structures and emerging connections?