Power and Empowerment Meet Resistance: A Critical, Action- Oriented Review of the Literature

This article reviews recent literature relating resistance studies to power studies, seeking insights that can be applied by change practitioners and social activists. Starting by critically revisiting the purpose and evolution of power analysis with the hindsight that comes from two decades of scholarship and practice, it shows how the transformative potential of power analysis is currently constrained in important respects. The coverage of power theory in the resistance literature is found to be promising but patchy. Agency-based, coercive and wilful versions of power as ‘power over’ tend – with noteworthy exceptions – to be more accessible and tractable to power and resistance scholars and strategists alike than the less accessible structuralist and post-structuralist versions of power as norms, culture and discourse, or processes of structuration. The article therefore proposes a broader framing of power analysis, and makes a start at extending its application beyond strategising for empowerment to strategising for resistance

Paris in Bogotá: applying the aid effectiveness agenda in Colombia

Recent research in the field of development aid persuasively problematises aid relationships and begins to reveal their significance for the real-life application and effectiveness of international development cooperation. Until insights from such research percolate through aid machineries such as the OECD DAC and its workings, the country-level consequences of universal aid frameworks and prescriptions will continue to be insufficiently foreseen, and in some cases unexpectedly problematic. This paper is about an in-depth, qualitative study of the application of the Paris Declaration (PD) on Aid Effectiveness in Colombia. This middle-income, non aid-dependent country with a prolonged and complex internal armed conflict and a poor human rights record, hitherto on the margins of international aid circles, has fast assumed a high-profile role in them via its adoption of the PD. The study stemmed from a conviction that PD application in Colombia has unanticipated consequences, with under-appreciated impacts on the strategies of donors and social actors. Donors are subject to an attempt to push them (back) into a technocratic corner. In this politically complex context where donors’ presence owes at least as much to concerns over Colombia’s international human rights performance as to classic aid donor concerns with widespread extreme poverty, this is worrying and undesirable. It also has serious implications for the tripartite aid dialogue process established in 2003, involving Government, donors and social actors. This, for all its flaws and frustrations, is unique and important in a historic context of polarised, antagonistic and violent relationships between the state and left-wing advocates of human rights and social democratic principles. It will require skilful and opportunistic responses by both donors and social organisations to turn this conjuncture to their favour, in the sense of strengthening their leverage on the Government in relation to human rights, poverty, conflict and democratic governance

Government Responsiveness: A think piece for the Making All Voices Count programme

This think piece is based on a review of recent experience conducted between October and December 2013 and a series of e-Dialogues in January 2014. It is an individual reflection on what we found - and did not find - about what government responsiveness consists of, and what can make it happen.DFIDUSAIDSIDAOmidyar Networ

Learning Study on 'The Users' in Technology for Transparency and Accountability Initiatives: Assumptions and Realities

The use of telephony and digital technologies has increased dramatically since the turn of the Century, especially in countries in the global South. Hence, the International Development community has enthusiastically invested in Technology for Transparency and Accountability Initiatives with the aim to deepen democracy and improve developmental results. A well-known example is the use of texting for election monitoring; citizens can send a text to a central number to report fraud at a polling station. The data gathered with these texts is visually represented on an online platform and is used for lobby and advocacy purposes. Funding and implementing agencies, such as Hivos, as well as other stakeholders, such as engaged activists and governance scholars, are closely studying the impact and effectiveness of these initiatives. The question rose whether enough attention was being paid to the people expected to use these technological tools. The assumption underlying the production of these tools is that more access of ordinary people leads to greater engagement of them with their surroundings. In order to address these questions, Hivos commissioned IDS to undertake a research on the users of two existing platforms currently supported by Hivos and other partner organizations. The report shows that indeed more attention to these end users is important, when designing and implementing projects. Some of the key lessons revolve around demonstrating that these initiative are transforming governance and accountability and targeting the right people (not just the usual suspects) the right way (with interactive communication).Hivo

Opening Governance

Open government and open data are new areas of research, advocacy and activism that have entered the governance field alongside the more established areas of transparency and accountability. In this IDS Bulletin, articles review recent scholarship to pinpoint contributions to more open, transparent, accountable and responsive governance via improved practice, projects and programmes in the context of the ideas, relationships, processes, behaviours, policy frameworks and aid funding practices of the last five years. They also discuss questions and weaknesses that limit the effectiveness and impact of this work, offer a series of definitions to help overcome conceptual ambiguities, and identify hype and euphemism. The contributions – by researchers and practitioners – approach contemporary challenges of achieving transparency, accountability and openness from a wide range of subject positions and professional and disciplinary angles. Together these articles give a sense of what has changed in this fast-moving field, and what has not – this IDS Bulletin is an invitation to all stakeholders to take stock and reflect. The ambiguity around the ‘open’ in governance today might be helpful in that its very breadth brings in actors who would otherwise be unlikely adherents. But if the fuzzier idea of ‘open government’ or the allure of ‘open data’ displace the task of clear transparency, hard accountability and fairer distribution of power as what this is all about, then what started as an inspired movement of governance visionaries may end up merely putting a more open face on an unjust and unaccountable status quo

Mapping trade policy : understanding the challenges of civil society participation

This paper examines the way that a range of development actors view and engage with the arena of trade policy, focusing in particular on the challenges encountered by civil society actors participating in that arena. The dynamics of civil society participation in the trade arena – what might be achieved, and how – are very different from those that shape civil society participation in processes labelled poverty reduction; this paper explores the differences. To achieve this, we provide an overview of the international trade policy landscape, and discuss factors that shape participation at the interfaces of trade and development policy processes. We go on to present the views and perspectives of two sets of civil society actors – UKbased international non-government organisations, and Ugandan and Kenyan civil society organisations – about their experiences and strategies of engagement and participation. Finally we reflect on some of the challenges of civil society participation in the trade arena: structural complexity and inequities, the exclusion of alternatives to trade liberalisation narratives, and the dynamics of representation

Introduction: Opening Governance – Change, Continuity and Conceptual Ambiguity

Open government and open data are new areas of research, advocacy and activism that have entered the governance field alongside the more established areas of transparency and accountability. This article reviews recent scholarship in these areas, pinpointing contributions to more open, transparent, accountable and responsive governance via improved practice, projects and programmes. The authors set the rest of the articles from this IDS Bulletin in the context of the ideas, relationships, processes, behaviours, policy frameworks and aid funding practices of the last five years, and critically discuss questions and weaknesses that limit the effectiveness and impact of this work. Identifying conceptual ambiguity as a key problem, they offer a series of definitions to help overcome the technical and political difficulties this causes. They also identify hype and euphemism, and offer a series of conclusions to help restore meaning and ideological content to work on open government and open data in transparent and accountable governance