Democracy promotion and civil society

The annual Global Civil Society Yearbooks provide an indispensable guide to global civil society or civic participation and action around the world. This year, the Yearbook will focus on communicative power and democracy, investigating different forms of democracy promotion and communication with a view to understanding the relationship between communication, democracy and media. The Global Civil Society Yearbook remains the standard work on all aspects of contemporary global civil society for activists, practitioners, students and academics alike. It is essential reading for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the key actors, forms and manifestations of global civil society around the world today

Self-determined citizens? A new wave of civic activism in Armenia

‘When people on the street approached us and asked, “What NGO are you from?” We replied, “We are not from any NGO. We are citizens of the Republic of Armenia."

Why peace looks a long way off in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

At the end of September, conflict erupted between forces fighting for Armenia and Azerbaijan, reviving a decades-old dispute over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Armine Ishkanian argues that while it remains to be seen if a diplomatic solution can be found, there seems little prospect of peace emerging in the short-term

Armenia’s election: the status quo wins at the expense of democracy

Armenia held elections on 2 April which saw the ruling Republican Party of Armenia win the largest share of the vote. Armine Ishkanian indicates that the result was highly disappointing for civil society groups and democracy activists in the country. The question now is whether these groups will succumb to frustration and despair, or whether they will begin the difficult and time-intensive work of building democracy from the bottom up

Answering the age-old question: what does democracy mean to those who protest for it?

There has long been a debate about democracy as a form of governance and whether it is in decline – Brexit and Trump have only exacerbated it. Drawing on research in four capital cities, Armine Ishkanian explains how activists view democracy. She explains why these committed and engaged citizens reject representative democracy, and the internal struggles of organisation within contemporary social movements

Social movements, Brexit, and social policy

In this article, I examine the relationship between social movements, Brexit and social policy and consider how political and socio-economic developments since the 2008 financial crisis helped create a fertile ground for Brexit. I query the assumption that Brexit was simply a result of those left behind by globalisation and instead explore why and how actors from across the ideological spectrum supported Brexit and examine the sources of discontent which created the conditions from which Brexit emerged. To understand the relationship, role and impact of social movements and, more widely, civil society on social policy, I argue that it is important to critically examine how diverse actors within civil society are campaigning for the recognition of unmet needs and challenging systems of redistribution and the ways in which they interact and engage with governance institutions and policy processes

Surreptitious symbiosis: the relationship between NGO’s and movement activists

For now, thanks to surreptitious symbiosis, it is possible to do sustained activism to bring about social change, without becoming part of a ‘civil society industry’. From the Squares and Beyond partnership