Local democratic governance in fragile states

Local democratic governance in fragile states

notes from a workshop

Tags: Worldwide, Civil Society Building

In late November, Jon Gaventa and Marjoke Oostrom from the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) facilitated a PSO hosted workshop about local democratic governance in fragile settings. Dutch NGOs concentrate their discussions on how to adjust their bottom-up strategies to fragile settings to contribute to peace, security and democratic governance, and to reconciliation and justice, but more may be required to (re)build local democracy…

The workshop focused on how fragility works out at the local level for local government institutions, citizens and the mechanisms for local state – citizen interaction. The workshop was attended by 55 people from 14 different organisations, which demonstrates the interest to explore these issues.

John Gaventa gave a presentation on the key challenges for citizen participation in local governance, emphasising the importance to work on ‘both sides of the equation’; on the capacities of local state institutions as well as on the capacities of citizens to articulate their voice. Gemma van der Haar (Disaster Studies, Wageningen University), who together with John Gaventa commented on the points raised by participants, stressed the notion of local government as an arena where contestation, but sometimes also collaboration takes place.

Taking the issue of citizen participation to a context of state fragility, we find particular challenges. First of all, state institutions themselves are weak or completely absent, or are themselves major cause of insecurity. This results in ‘empty’ or heavily controlled spaces for participation. Secondly, these settings are highly complex in terms of actors and power relations. The legitimacy of local state institutions is often challenged by organised non-state actors that may use violence and coercion to establish their authority and a form of social-political order. The presence of these actors will affect mechanisms for local state – citizen interaction and spaces for participation. Thirdly, insecurity has consequences for citizens’ will and capacity to stand up, which is a reason to speak of ‘fragile citizenship’. These issues were further discussed by participants in relation to the role of international and domestic NGOs. For each of these issues requires thinking by the NGOs on how they position themselves and how they address these issues.

Marjoke Oosterom (IDS) prepared a working paper for this workshop, entitled ‘Fragility at the Local Level. Challenges to Building Local State – Citizen Relations in Fragile Settings’. The paper highlights key issues in the relation between citizens and local governments and presents implications for aid actors that work in fragile settings. You can download the paper below.