Kony2012: the dilemma of mobilising for aid

Focused on the challenges of declining funds and public skepticism at home, development organisations tend to pay more attention to ´what works´ to convince donors and journalists, rather than finding out first what resonates with the people they mean to help. What kind of success is a film which its intended ´beneficiaries´ would rather do without?

KONY2012 The real story

Well it's become the fastest viral video of all time: 100 Million views  in just 6 days and counting. The film "Kony 2012" hopes to kick-start a  worldwide campaign to capture Joseph Kony -- one of Africa's most  notorious warlords.For its fans the campaign is an unparalleled  example of the internet's   power as a force for good. For its critics  the film glosses over   complex realities in the region and pushes for an  imperialist agenda in...

Civic Exploration

In the previous two civic exploration newsletters, we’ve explored a number of ‘revolt’ style on and off line responses. In this edition we shine our light on citizen-led efforts to promote Transparency and Accountability, in short TAIs. Thriving on mass communication and in particular web 2.0 technology, TAIS such as budget tracking, citizen corruption watch and online vigilantism are taking the world by storm. Please have a look at the newsletter for the latest news in the TAI-field, its par...

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.