Mobilizing for Democracy: Citizen Action and the Politics of Public Participation

Mobilizing for Democracy: Citizen Action and the Politics of Public Participation
ISBN-10
1848139152
ISBN-13
9781848139152
Category
Political Science
Pages
225
Language
English
Published
2013-04-04
Publisher
Zed Books Ltd.
Authors
Vera Schatten Coelho, Bettina von Liers

Description

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 forms of political mobilization, such as protests, social participation, activism, litigation and lobbying, engage with the formal institutions of representative democracy in ways that are core to the development of democratic politics. No other volume has brought together examples from such a broad Southern spectrum and covering such a diversity of actors: rural and urban dwellers, transnational activists, religious groups, politicians and social leaders. The cases illuminate the crucial contribution that citizen mobilization makes to democratization and the building of state institutions, and reflect the uneasy relationship between citizens and the institutions that are designed to foster their political participation.

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