Poverty and Social Exclusion in North and South

The rapid growth and acceptance of the concept of participation has been a key feature in development in the 1990s, and is central to the evolving discussion on social exclusion. While during the 1970s and 1980s, 'participation' was more the discourse of grassroots organisations or NGO, this decade has seen the concept being embraced at the institutional and governmental level. The World Bank Working Group on Participation is seen as an authoritative source on participation in development. The Bank has launched 18 flagship participation projects internationally An Inter-agency Group on Participation has been established to promote participation amongst aid agencies. The UNDP is incorporating participation as a critical path for poverty alleviation. Encouraged by aid organisations, national governments are being urged to decentralise, and to democratise through strengthening community participation and planfling at the local and regional levels. In this article, I will briefly discuss the links between the concepts of participation and social exclusion. Then, turning to the context of the United States, I will present a short history of three government programmes that have attempted to use participation to address poverty and social exclusion. Finally, I will conclude with themes which emerge from this history and which may be relevant for the South, as participation is increasingly used as an institutionalised strategy for addressing poverty

Triumph, deficit or contestation? : deepening the 'deepening democracy' debate

Around the world concepts and constructions of democracy are under contestation. Some analysts see the spread of democratic institutional designs as evidence of democracy’s triumph. Others – across both north and south – point to growing democratic deficits, and how they threaten democratic legitimacy. Following a review of these debates, this paper focuses on emerging debates within what is often referred to as the ‘deepening democracy’ field, a school of thinking that focuses on the political project of developing and sustaining more substantive and empowered citizen participation in the democratic process than is often found in representative democracy alone. Within this ‘school’, the paper explores four broad approaches – ‘civil society’ democracy, participatory democracy, deliberative democracy and empowered participatory governance – and how they differ from one another as well as from ‘thinner’ forms of democracy associated with liberal and neoliberal thinking. The paper argues that democracy-building is an ongoing process of struggle and contestation rather than the adoption of a standard institutional design, and poses a series of challenges which future conceptual and practical work on deepening democracy may need to address. Keywords: democracy, governance, participation, deliberation, citizenship, rights, inclusion, civil societ

Can Participation ‘fix’ Inequality? Unpacking the Relationship Between the Economic and Political Citizenship

This paper, based on a lecture given at the University of Sussex, UK, takes on the issue of growing inequality. Arguing that we know more about how economic inequality affects political participation than we do about how participation and voice (for greater civic and political equity, for example) affect economic inequality, he describes on going work to identify participatory practices that offer some precedents for linking strategies for narrowing political and economic gaps from below. These combinations in turn contribute to challenging these intersecting inequalities and hold promise for transformative solutions across the global North and South

Democratising Economic Power: The Potential for Meaningful Participation in Economic Governance and Decision-Making

Participation is the act of people engaging in decisions that impact their lives. It has been widely promoted in social, political and civic spheres. However, the question of participation in economic governance is underdeveloped. This paper explores participation in economic decision-making – ranging from citizen engagement in economic policy, economic development, or the governance of economic institutions – through an analysis of 28 cases in 14 countries, from both the global South and the global North. It asks what constitutes meaningful participation, in terms of how economic activity is organised and how economic governance is practiced, and what are the conditions that enable these alternative structures and practices? It identifies five conditions for participation in economic affairs, many of these familiar from participatory practice elsewhere: distributed authority; mobilisation; networks and coalitions; deliberation and democratised knowledge. The paper then discusses wider social and political implications of participation in economic governance, in terms of the relationship between the economy and society, and the relationship between economic and political forms of participation. Finally, three key participation challenges are explored: who is participating, how are power relations affecting participation, and whether participation can permeate the mainstream. The overall aim of this paper is to learn from existing and emergent practice in order to deepen knowledge on participation in economic governance, contributing both to public debate and future research