Claiming Citizenship

Mobilizing for Democracy
Citizen Action and the Politics of Public Participation
Edited by Vera Schattan P. Coelho and Bettina von Lieres
9 September 2010

Mobilizing for Democracy is an in-depth study into how ordinary citizens and their organizations mobilize to deepen democracy. Featuring a collection of new empirical case studies from Angola, Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, this important new book illustrates how...

Globalizing Citizens
New Dynamics of Inclusion and Exclusion
Edited by John Gaventa and Rajesh Tandon
12 August 2010

Globalization has given rise to new meanings of citizenship. Just as they are tied together by global production, trade and finance, citizens in every nation are linked by the institutions of global governance, bringing new dynamics of inclusion and exclusion. For some, globalization provides a...

Citizen Action and National Policy Reform
Making Change Happen
John Gaventa and Rosemary McGee
8 April 2010

How does citizen activism win changes in national policy? Which factors help to make myriad efforts by diverse actors add up to reform? What is needed to overcome setbacks, and to consolidate the smaller victories?

These questions need answers. Aid agencies have invested heavily in...

Citizenship and Social Movements
Perspectives from the Global South
Edited by Lisa Thompson and Chris Tapscott
14 January 2010

Debates over social movements have suffered from a predominate focus on North America and western Europe, often neglecting the significance of collective action in the global South. Citizenship and Social Movements seeks to partially redress this imbalance with case studies from Brazil, India,...

Spaces for Change?
The Politics of Citizen Participation in New Democratic Arenas
Edited by Andrea Cornwall and Vera Schattan Coelho
30 November 2006

This book addresses one of the greatest challenges of our age: that of building democratic polities where all can realize their rights and claim substantive citizenship. In recent years, innovations in governance have created a plethora of new democratic spaces in many countries. Yet there...