Making Space for Citizens

The introduction of this 4-page Institute for Development Studies (IDS) Policy Briefing, Issue 27, describes its purpose as:

"The limits of democratisation strategies which focus only on the formal electoral arena are becoming increasingly clear. In both North and South, interest is now growing in approaches to ‘deepening democracy’ which seek to extend the range and scope of opportunities for citizen participation. This has led to a proliferation of ‘new democratic spaces’. This IDS Policy Briefing takes a closer look at examples of these spaces in a number of very different countries. It argues that... much more attention needs to be paid to key contextual factors as well as to institutional design. The Briefing concludes with some practical lessons on dealing with the key challenges which ‘new democratic spaces’ pose for policymakers and for citizen representatives."


Examples of these new democratic spaces by country include:

• India - The panchayati raj local governance reforms have created a system of elected authorities down to the village level. In the absence of such national reform programmes, local and regional initiatives to support participation may be promoted by individual ‘champions’ and political parties, though these can be subject to changes in government and need to establish a solid legal framework and sense of ownership among citizens.
• United Kingdom - The Neighbourhood Renewal Scheme has provided extra resources for the country’s most deprived areas, with spending coordinated through local partnerships, which are required to develop community participation, though friction between elected leaders and unelected community leaders can surface.
• Angola - Serving as an example of a post-conflict setting and post-authoritarian setting, this country is sometimes vulnerable to disputes over claims to legitimate representation. Here, the tension can occur among non-governmental organisation (NGO)-sponsored neighbourhood organisations and residents’ committees created by the former one-party state, both putting themselves forward as the legitimate ‘representatives of the people’.
• Bangladesh - ‘Health watch committees’ set up by an activist NGO with international development agency support encouraged inclusive participation and rights-claiming, but lacked accountability, needing a legal mandate to work with health service officials.
• Bolivia - The Law of Popular Participation established citizen oversight committees in each municipality and empowered them to freeze the budget if expenditure departed from what had been originally planned.
• Canada - A national consultation about health care reform was only partially successful in incorporating the perspectives of Inuit people, as it did not allow for traditional forms of community-level discussion.
• Uganda - The use of English in local planning meetings has tended to exclude women, who are less likely to speak the language. Also, civil society participation in Ugandan policy debates is dominated by organisations based in the capital
• Mexico - Indigenous communities aligned with the Zapatista movement have set up ‘autonomous municipalities’ in Chiapas that refuse to recognise state-sponsored institutions and refuse to participate in regional development planning until indigenous rights are addressed.

The document highlights the progress of Brazil, where "political will, active civil society, and good institutional design combine." An example offered is that of orçamento participativo (OP) or participatory budgeting, which began in Porto Alegre, but is now more widely used and has, with the help of NGO-community alliances, survived more conservative rule. The legitimacy of most of Brazil's participatory and deliberative democratic institutions stems from the 1988 post-military constitution, which provided for citizen oversight of the new resources transferred to lower levels of government. As stated here, strong movements and civil society groups have helped to create democratic spaces, but their success has depended on the ability to build networks and alliances that include reformers inside government. "The enabling legal framework has resulted both from local struggles to enshrine rights in law and from appealing to rights-based provisions in the Constitution – which themselves were the result of social movement struggles during the transition from dictatorship."


In conclusion, for "outsiders" hoping to support these new democratic spaces a key lesson is to work with both policy makers and with citizens, facilitating legitimacy and legal frameworks while opening connections and channels for civil society. For policy makers, there is no single best practice model, and there may be a need to create legal frameworks and clear mandates for participants, while attending to their demands, and a need for the time and resources for participatory processes. For citizens, there may be a demand from government for representative negotiators, and these may be challenged as to their legitimacy as representatives. Representation needs to be shared, if expertise and the power that results from connections is to be balanced among groups and individuals represented. Engagement in policy needs to be strategic and well-focused.