Citizenship and Democracy: Lessons from Decade-long Global Research Partnership

The formal culmination of the decade long work of the Development Research Centre on Citizenship, Participation and Accountability (Citizenship DRC), an international research partnership, took place on the 8th of September 2010 at the Habitat Centre, New Delhi. It saw the sharing of research findings from150 empirical case studies in 20 countries on the theme of Citizenship and Democracy.

Rajesh Tandon, President, PRIA opened the discussion in his characteristic enthusiastic way. He put forth his long-term association with the Citizenship DRC. This association has seen engagements with a variety of audiences, academe, civil society organizations and policy makers. The experience garnered through this ten-year research has been captured through 400 publications, which would now be available to future researchers and practitioners. From this, material has been generated towards face-to-face and online teaching and learning to be used in several countries, especially Nigeria, Brazil, Mexico and India. In India, this has engaged nomadic and tribal groups, elaborating on the methodology of Participatory Research, the founding premise of PRIA.

Mapping the outcomes of citizen engagement through this research, John Gaventa, Research Professor and Fellow, Institute of Development Studies and the Director for Citizenship DRC pointed out 800 observable effects of citizen participation. A typology of four democratic and developmental outcomes was created which are: i) construction of citizenship; ii) strengthening of practices of participation; iii) strengthening of responsive and accountable states; and iv) development of inclusive and cohesive societies. It was found that citizen participation produced positive effects across these outcome types in 75 per cent of the outcomes studied in the sample. In each category there are also examples of negative outcomes, which should be seen as a wake-up call for all.

The enriching insights provided by the presenters from various countries during the day-long event emphasized the continuing need for citizen participation. Conversations revolving around citizenship, development and democracy highlighted the paradox of economic growth. It also raised issues of inclusive development. The dialogue also stressed the shift from the rights-based approach to development to the new politics of citizen-state relations. Violence and everyday insecurity and its impact on citizenship and democracy was also an integral part of the discourse.

The final reflections on the ways ahead emphasized the need for a wider dissemination of this knowledge base. The issue of social accountability needs more prominence in democratic governance processes wherein citizen participation should not be sanitized. The notion of citizenship needs to be analytically understood both in terms of individual and social citizenship. Engaging both the state as well as society seems to be the only way of ensuring the sustainability of citizen engagement.

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