Antecedentes y Objetivos

Tags: Civil Society Building

This project focuses on forms of civic engagement and mechanisms that facilitate interactions between local level state institutions and social actors in the specific context of a post-conflict setting. It concentrates on different forms of social organisation, the crucial social-political factors for engagement, and the characteristics of state institutions that affect the available space for this engagement.

The overall purpose of the knowledge project is to contribute to an understanding of the role of different social actors in enhancing civic engagement in situations where the space for engagement was curtailed due to a conflict situation in the past. The term ‘social actors’ is used to indicate that not only NGOs and CBOs will be studied, but also the more informal forms of social organisation by citizens, and the dynamics among these social actors. This is to stress the diversity of civil society.

Central questions that guides this research is:

 

1. How are the patterns of interaction between the governance system and social actors formed in a post-conflict setting?
2. Under which conditions do they lead to more inclusive and responsive governance and create an environment for civic engagement?

 

Sub-questions are the following. In a post-conflict setting:

 

1. How do socio-cultural factors influence the way civil society actors engage in different participatory spaces?
2. How does the governance system affect the strategies of civil society actors, which they use to pursue their interests?
3. How does the history, the legacy of the conflict and the cultural context influence the process of making and maintaining participatory spaces?