1 Introduction

Around the world, a growing crisis of legitimacy

characterises the relationship between citizens and
the institutions that affect their lives. In both North
Introduction:
and South, citizens speak of mounting
disillusionment with government, based on Exploring Citizenship,
concerns about corruption, lack of responsiveness
to the needs of the poor and the absence of a sense Participation and
of connection with elected representatives and
bureaucrats (Commonwealth Foundation 1999; Accountability
Narayan et al. 2000). Traditional forms of expertise
and representation are being questioned (Leach et J o hn G a v e n ta
al., this volume). The rights and responsibilities of
corporations and other global actors are being
challenged, as global inequalities persist and
deepen (Newell, this volume).

In the past, there has been a tendency to respond

to the gap that exists between citizens and
institutions in one of two ways. On the one hand,
attention has been paid to strengthening the
processes of participation – that is the ways in
which poor people exercise voice through new
forms of deliberation, consultation and/or
mobilisation designed to inform and to influence
larger institutions and policies. On the other hand,
growing attention has been paid to strengthening
the accountability and responsiveness of these
institutions and policies through changes in
institutional design and a focus on the enabling
structures for good governance. Each perspective
has often perceived the other as inadequate, with
one warning that consultation without attention to
power and politics will lead to ‘voice without
influence’, and the other arguing that reform of
political institutions without attention to inclusion
will only reinforce the status quo.

Increasingly, however, we are beginning to see the

importance of working on both sides of the
equation. As participatory approaches are scaled up
from projects to policies, they inevitably enter the
arenas of governance, and find that participation
can only become effective as it engages with issues
of institutional change. As concerns about good
governance and state responsiveness grow,
questions about how citizens engage and make
demands on the state also come to the fore. As
traditional forms of representation are being re-
examined, new more direct and deliberative
democratic mechanisms are proposed to enable IDS Bulletin Vol 33 No 2 2002

1
citizens to play a more active part in decisions that The Declaration thus not only linked the idea of
affect their lives. Similarly, especially in the context development to the concept of rights, but also
of globalisation, questions emerge about how names the rights to meaningful participation and
participatory methods are used to hold corporations social justice as its inherent components. The UN
accountable and how corporations in turn act Declarations argue, as do some DFID and UNDP
responsibly, vis à vis local communities. In this papers, for the responsibility of states to guarantee
context, the questions of how citizens, especially such rights: ‘...it is essential for states to foster
the poor, express voice with influence, and how participation by the poorest people in the decision-
institutional responsiveness and accountability can making process by the community in which they
be ensured, have become paramount. live, the promotion of human rights and efforts to
combat extreme poverty’.1
To be meaningful, arguments for participation and
institutional accountability must become Concepts of rights, especially those linked to the
grounded in a conception of rights which, in a responsibilities of states, also raise questions about
development context, strengthens the status of the meaning and nature of citizenship. Who is
citizens from that of beneficiaries of development eligible for rights? On what basis are they obtained?
to its rightful and legitimate claimants (Cornwall Are they linked to the nation-state, or do they
2000). The recently published DFID strategy extend beyond it? The concept of citizenship has
paper on Realising Human Rights for Poor People long been a contentious one. In Western thought,
(2000), for example, argues that rights will citizenship has traditionally been cast in liberal
become real only as citizens are engaged in the terms, as individual legal equality accompanied by
decisions and processes which affect their lives. a set of rights and responsibilities bestowed by a
Underpinning the approach are three principles of state on its citizens. Recent more pluralistic
a rights perspective: inclusive rights for all people, approaches re-conceptualise citizenship to take a
the right to participation, and the ‘obligations to less state-centred, and more actor-oriented
protect and promote the realisation’ of rights by approach. They argue that citizenship is attained
states and other duty bearers: a concept which through the agency of citizens themselves, based
links to that of accountability. Similarly the UNDP on their diverse sets of identities. Such an approach
Human Development Report 2000 argues that ‘the also extends rights from the civil or political
fulfilment of human rights requires democracy spheres, to encompass economic, social and
that is inclusive’. For this, elections are not cultural rights, including the right to participation
enough. New ways must be found to ‘secure itself, at local, national and global levels. Such
economic, social and cultural rights for the most concepts also go significantly beyond concepts of
deprived and to ensure participation in decision the nation-state as the sole custodian of citizenship,
making’ (UNDP 2000: 7–9). and place great importance on the role of non-state
participants in claiming, monitoring and enforcing
While such arguments are increasingly linked rights themselves (Nyamu-Musembi 2002).
under the label of a new ‘rights-based approach to
development’, discourses on rights have a long However, while declarations on rights and
history in the field. In 1986, for example, a United citizenship are increasingly abundant, the gap
Nations Declaration affirmed the ‘right to between the rhetoric and reality remains large.
development,’ which it defined as: Also, while the principles of the rights-based
approach are important, there still is much to be
...a comprehensive economic, social, cultural understood about what it means, both
and political process, which aims at the conceptually and empirically, as well as much to
constant improvement of the wellbeing of the learn about how to put it into practice. Little is yet
entire population and of all individuals on the known of how rights and citizenship are
basis of their active, free and meaningful understood by poor people themselves, how they
participation in development and in the fair are realised in practice across different conditions
distribution of benefits resulting therefrom. and contexts, and with what impact. Similarly, new
(Declaration on the Right to Development 2001)1 understanding is needed of what it means to re-cast

2
the debates of inclusion, participation and further spaces for a discussion of citizenship.
accountability in a rights-based and citizenship- Shaped by parallel moves within both human rights
centred mould. Picking up on this agenda, the and development thought, participation itself has
recently launched Development Research Centre been re-framed as a fundamental human and
on Citizenship, Participation and Accountability citizenship right, and a prerequisite for making
(see Preface) is based on the premise that a critical other rights claims (Ferguson 1999). Representing a
challenge for the twenty-first century is to level of convergence, these shifts have opened
construct new concepts and forms of citizenship spaces for the participation and good governance
which will help to make rights real for poor people. agendas to meet under concepts of ‘citizenship
participation’, ‘participatory governance’ or
In this Bulletin, researchers associated with the ‘participatory citizenship’.
Centre share emerging work around themes related
to the meanings of rights and citizenship, spaces and The emerging focus on citizenship within
places for participation, and new forms of development mirrors the increasingly global
accountability as they are emerging in differing parts interest in the subject. Heater (1999: 2–3) argues
of the globe. Part I of the Bulletin explores further that the contemporary interest in citizenship can be
how these concepts, many of which are prevalently explained by a number of factors, including
debated in Northern contexts, link to the meanings increased international migrations, heightened
and expressions of rights and citizenship in a political awareness of ethnic and cultural difference
number of Southern countries. As rights of within nation-states, and a fragmentation of
citizenship are voiced, they often enter institutional nation-states on the basis of this politicised
arenas or spaces for participation, some of which difference. In response, some governments have
involve (or claim to involve) more deliberative and promoted the notion of citizenship as a civic
inclusionary forms of policy making and democratic identity in an attempt to draw citizens together
governance. The nature and dynamics of under a new form of commonality (see Meekosha
participation in these spaces are examined, again and Dowse 1997; Seidman 1999). Others have
from a number of contexts, in Part II. Changing argued for the need to address the exclusions
understandings of rights and new arenas of created by the linkage of citizenship to nation-
participation in turn lead to a reconsideration of states (Ellison 1997; Newell 2000; Turner 1999),
traditional relationships of accountability and and argued for recognition of a more multi-layered
responsibility amongst actors across differing concept, linking the local to the global (Edwards
spheres and levels. The accountability debate, and Gaventa 2001).
especially as it relates to civil society and the
corporate sector, is taken up in Part III. As the discourses of citizenship are increasingly
used, however, the danger is that they come to offer
to everybody what they would like to understand
2 Conceptualising citizenship2 them to mean. This can range from Tony Blair’s
During the late 1990s, several parallel shifts in proclamations on ‘active citizenship’, to George W.
development thought have given rise to the Bush’s inaugural exhortations on the theme, to the
emergence of ‘citizenship’ as an area of debate. The claims of multinationals to corporate citizenship, to
focus of participatory development, long rooted in the claims by dispossessed groups for greater
concern with participation at the project level (often inclusion. Much literature around citizen
apart from the state) began to turn towards political participation simply uses ‘citizenship’ to mean the
participation and increasing poor and marginalised act of any person taking part in public affairs.
people’s influence over the wider decision-making While increasingly ‘participation’ is promoted as a
processes which affect their lives (Gaventa and right, there is little conceptualisation of what this in
Valderrama 1999; Cornwall 2000). Alongside this turn implies: individual rights, collective rights,
shift was the rise of the ‘good governance’ agenda rights to participate on the basis of particular
and its concerns with increasing the responsiveness identities or interests, rights to difference or
of governments to citizens’ voices (Goetz and dissent? While the mainstreaming of participation
Gaventa 2001). The rights-based approach opened in development may have opened up new spaces

3
and places for citizen participation, little More recent work in contemporary citizenship
understanding exists of what actually occurs in theory attempts to find ways of uniting the liberal
these spaces, and how they differ one from another. emphasis on individual rights, equality and due
Similarly, with regard to accountability, there is process of law, with the communitarian focus on
little conceptualisation of who is accountable to belonging and the civic republican focus on
whom in what domains of life, or how a person processes of deliberation, collective action and
might deal with their multiple and often conflicting responsibility. In doing so, it aims to bridge the gap
individual and group obligations and rights. between citizen and state by recasting citizenship
as practised rather than as given. As Lister (1997:
Many of these questions have been theoretically 41) argues: ‘To be a citizen in the legal and
explored within the academic literature on sociological sense means to enjoy the rights of
citizenship, which often distinguishes between the citizenship necessary for agency and social and
liberal, communitarian and civic republican political participation. To act as a citizen involves
traditions (Jones and Gaventa 2002). Liberal fulfilling the potential of that status’. Placing an
theories promote the idea that citizenship is a emphasis on inclusive participation as the very
status which entitles individuals to a specific set of foundation of democratic practice, these
universal rights granted by the state. Central to approaches suggest a more active notion of
liberal thought is the notion that individual citizens citizenship: one which recognises the agency of
act ‘rationally’ to advance their own interests, and citizens as ‘makers and shapers’ rather than as ‘users
that the role of the state is to protect citizens in the and choosers’ of interventions or services designed
exercise of their rights (Oldfield 1990: 2). The by others (Cornwall and Gaventa 2000).
actual exercise of rights is seen as the choice of
citizens, on the assumption that they have the Not only do these arguments broaden the concepts
resources and opportunities to do so (Isin and of rights and citizenship as realised through non-
Wood 1999: 7). While rights to participate have state actors, rather than through the state alone, they
long been central to liberal thought, these are often also carry with them a more integrated view of
largely seen as rights to political and civic the nature of rights themselves. Historically, under
participation, e.g. to vote within a representative the liberal view of citizenship, concern with rights
democratic system, to form associations (such as focused primarily on the protection of individual
parties) and to exercise free speech. freedoms, especially in reference to civil and political
rights. Beginning with the work of T.H. Marshall, a
The concept of the ‘self-interested’, ‘independent’ number of writers have extended the concern with
citizen, which some liberal thinkers construct, has civil and political rights, to social and economic
been critiqued by communitarians, who argue that rights, which in turn attempt to guarantee the
an individual’s sense of identity is produced only resources and securities necessary for people to
through relations with others in the community of participate in civil and political life (Ellison 1997;
which she or he is a part. As this implies, Turner 1999; Nyamu-Musembi 2002). Increasingly,
communitarian thought centres on the notion of the demands for social and economic rights are
the socially-embedded citizen and on community stretched yet further, to conceptualise rights which
belonging (Smith 1998: 117). Civic republican enable the realisation of other rights, including the
thinking, on the other hand, places more emphasis right to claim rights, or as Isin and Wood (1999: 4)
on people’s political identities as active citizens, suggest, the ‘right to have rights’.
apart from their identities in localised
communities. While it also emphasises what binds Extending the notion of citizenship also implies
citizens together in a common identity, this is that the right to participation itself should be seen
underpinned by a concern with individual as a fundamental citizenship right, which helps to
obligations to participate in communal affairs protect and guarantee all others. As Lister suggests:
(Oldfield 1990: 145). As this suggests, much civic
republican writing promotes deliberative forms of ...the right of participation in decision making
democracy, in contrast to the liberal emphasis on in social, economic, cultural and political life
representative political systems (Heater 1999). should be included in the nexus of basic

4
 human rights... Citizenship as participation contexts in which citizens find themselves, and
can be seen as representing an expression of that ignore differences in both awareness of rights
human agency in the political arena, broadly and the capacities to claim them, will inevitably
defined; citizenship as rights enables people to lead to differential outcomes. Those with the
act as agents (Lister 1998: 228). resources, power and knowledge to shape
definitions of rights and how they are put into
As we have seen earlier, the UN Declaration on the practice are able to turn rights discourses and
Right to Development not only calls for the right to entitlements to their advantage. On the other hand,
participation, but also argues that participation the very structure of exclusions means that the
must be ‘active, free and meaningful’, thus warning most marginalised are often unable to do so (Young
of the dangers of its more manipulated or 1989: 258) As Ellison argues, imposing a universal
tokenistic forms. set of values under the guise of concern for all
produces a ‘false uniformity’ (1999: 59), which
While the liberal versions of citizenship have hides the realities of power and difference that
always included notions of political participation as ‘make some more equal citizens than others’
a right, extending this to encompass participation (Cornwall and Gaventa 2000: 53; Taylor 1996;
in social and economic life politicises social rights, Caragata 1999).
through re-casting citizens as their active creators.
As Ferguson (1999: 7) asserts, for example, people Questions of power and material resources are
cannot realise their rights to health if they cannot linked very closely to a second set of issues
exercise their democratic rights to participation in involving identity and difference, or what Lister
decision making around health service provision. refers to as ‘a politics of recognition and respect’
Thus, while social rights can be seen as positive (2002: 37). Citizens’ voices derived from identities
freedoms in terms of enabling citizens to realise that are not recognised, nor indeed respected, are
their political and civil rights, participation as a not likely to be heard. How people perceive
right can be seen as a positive freedom which themselves as citizens, and how (or indeed,
enables them to realise their social rights (Ferguson whether) they are recognised by others, is likely to
1999; DFID 2000, Lister 1997). have a significant impact on how they act to claim
their citizenship rights in the first place (as the
While extending the meanings and concepts of story told by Abah and Okwori in this volume
citizenship and rights is important, at the same illustrates). In turn, perceptions and identities
time there is a growing recognition that entitling all themselves are created by and in interaction with
citizens to the same rights does not necessarily dominant structures of power and discourse.
promote equitable outcomes (Cornwall 2000; Feminist, race and disability writers and
Ferguson 1999). Paradoxically, rather than movements have been at the forefront of
addressing inequalities, universalism can work to challenging conceptions of citizenship, which are
marginalise the already marginal and exacerbate often based on the reality of the ‘white-male-able-
social exclusion (Ellison 1999: 58–9; Coelho, this bodied citizen’, leaving little space for the
volume) while simultaneously masking this under recognition of differences.
a veneer of formal equality (Lister 1997: 18). As
Kabeer, building on Fraser, reminds us, there are at With the increasing recognition that for many the
least two broad reasons for this paradox, deriving dominant, universal conceptions of citizenship are
from differences in resources and in recognition in practice hollow and meaningless, more
(Fraser 1995; Kabeer 2000). pluralistic understandings of citizenship that grow
from and give recognition to differing forms of
The first set of reasons for why universal identity have gained new prominence in the
pronouncement may fail has to do with inequities contemporary literature. A number of writers have
of resources and power, which allow some to claim argued usefully that different claims to group
their rights more forcefully than, and often at the identity can be conceptualised as forms of
expense of, others. Concepts of citizenship that citizenship rights, and that citizenship must be
abstract rights from the political and historical understood within differing cultural, ethnic,

5
national and gendered contexts (Isin and Wood conditions. While liberal notions of free and equal
1999; Lister 1997; Nyamu-Musembi 2002.) In this citizenship in the West were linked to other social
formulation, citizenship is an ‘ensemble of different and economic changes, such as the Industrial
forms of belonging’ (Isin and Wood 1999: 21). Revolution, colonised populations often achieved
Drawing on Mouffe’s (1992) conceptualisation of national independence organised as religious,
identity, it can be seen that not only is citizenship ethnic and tribal communities, with very different
differentiated across individuals, but each material histories.
individual person may experience and express
different forms of citizenship (Isin and Wood 1999) In the following article, Abah and Okwori continue
in differing spaces and moments. this theme, exploring the impact of ethnic and
religious identities on the meanings and expression
of citizenship in the Nigerian context. What is today
3 Meanings and expressions of the formal state of Nigeria, was in fact cobbled
rights and citizenship together by colonial fiat, linking very diverse tribal,
To further pursue a pluralistic understanding of religious and cultural groupings under the same
rights and citizenship implies an approach that somewhat artificial construction of ‘Nigerian’
starts with the views of citizens themselves. citizenship. Whereas the national Constitution
Understanding citizenship rights in this approach under the new democracy in Nigeria proclaims that
focuses more on asking ‘how do people perceive ‘every citizen shall have equality of rights,
their rights of citizenship?’ than on examining how obligations, and opportunities before the law’, in fact
those rights of citizenship are enshrined in law. such rights are mediated through other forms of
Though a great deal of conceptual debate exists identity, which may often be exclusionary and
about the nature of rights and the definitions of competing. People who ‘belong’ with one identity,
citizenship, little empirical work has been done to whether based on location, religion, gender or
understand how poor people themselves perceive ethnicity, are considered ‘foreigners’ with another.
their rights, how these meanings are acted upon Constructing new forms of citizenship in such a
through political or social mobilisation, and how complex context must overcome not only the legacy
they are bounded by issues of knowledge and of colonial policies of indirect rule, which allied with
representation, as well as by differences in identity. and re-enforced ethnic and tribal institutions
(Mamdani 1996), but also a history of decades of
In the lead article in Part I, Kabeer examines how post-independence military dictatorship as well.
Western philosophical notions of citizenship Abah and Okwori argue that the search for meanings
compare and contrast with colonial and post- of citizenship in Nigeria must go back to the citizens
colonial experiences. In so doing, she first reminds themselves, and use participatory methods, such as
us that even in the West, where citizenship is often citizen’s drama, both to understand local perceptions
held to be universally assured, history suggests as well as to create spaces for articulating new, more
numerous ways in which major populations have inclusive meanings.
been excluded based on their difference, whether it
be class, race, gender or something else. Realisation While an all-embracing notion of the citizen,
of citizenship in these contexts came only after bestowed with certain absolute rights, is also
centuries of struggles by the excluded to claim and ‘guaranteed’ by the Bangladesh Constitution, the
extend their rights, both to new populations and to article by Mahmud shows that in fact these rights
new arenas, from the political to the economic and are often mediated by culture of privilege and
social. Just as Western conceptions of citizenship patronage, and by gender and social status.
had often been used to disenfranchise populations However, Mahmud argues, in certain instances,
in their own countries, so too did colonial powers collective citizen action can provide the space for
use differences of caste, religion and race within ‘making rights real’ and can foster a more inclusive
colonial societies to construct categories of sense of citizen identity through strengthening the
personhood which in turn were used to re-enforce belief that one has the right to have rights as a
divisions. Moreover, Kabeer reminds us, constructs member of the community. Investigating this claim
of citizenship emerge from differing material across four mini case studies of collective action in

6
the fields of health and education, Mahmud finds of new decentralised institutions, to a wide variety
that even though such forms of claiming action did of participatory and consultative processes in
open space for some, especially the most national and global policy deliberations.
disenfranchised women, the process itself did not Rhetorically at least, there has been increasing
overcome social differentiation. Rather, she argues, emphasis on using such mechanisms to support
the process of claiming and articulating rights is inclusion of the poorest social groups, those who
embedded in, and often strengthened by, do not usually have sufficient resources (economic,
inequalities of power and person, making the idea educational, political) to influence the outcomes of
of a truly ‘inclusive’ citizenship an elusive one. traditional policy processes. Signalling at once the
perceived inefficacy of formal representative
While Mahmud’s work focuses on how concepts of mechanisms and a growing concern with means of
citizenship and the claiming of social rights may be enabling otherwise excluded groups to engage in
mediated by forms of social power, the article by shaping the institutions that affect their lives, these
Leach, Scoones and Thompson examines how strategies seek to create and make use of new
issues surrounding knowledge and expertise also political spaces.
serve simultaneously both to exclude citizen voice
and to open up new opportunities and arenas for In Part II, the article by Cornwall traces the
citizen engagement in decision making. Building changes in the discourse of participation in
on current debates surrounding science, society development, especially the shift from
and risk found especially in the North, as well as participation of ‘beneficiaries’ in projects, to the
debates in the South on indigenous knowledge and more political and rights-based definitions of
ethnoscience, they examine the role of citizen participation by citizens who are the ‘makers and
participation in science policy processes, locally, shapers’ of their own development (Cornwall and
nationally and globally. In so doing, they also argue Gaventa 2000). She then moves on to examine
for extending the bundle of political, social, and more closely the kinds of ‘spaces’ in which
economic rights to include ‘knowledge rights’: the participation may occur, arguing that they must be
right for differing forms of knowledge to co-exist understood in the contexts in which they are
and have influence in decision making. Moreover, created. In particular, she argues for distinguishing,
they show how the recognition and claiming of amongst other factors, between ‘invited spaces’
knowledge rights can be an important arena for the created from above through donor or governmental
expression and construction of citizenship, an issue intervention, and spaces which are chosen, taken
later picked up in the article by Hughes on the case and demanded through collective action from
of corporate bioprospecting in indigenous below. Whatever their origins, however, no new
communities in Mexico. spaces for participation are neutral, but are shaped
by the power relations which both enter and
4 Concepts and practices of surround them. While attention has been paid to
participation what spaces and mechanisms exist for public
From the understanding of how rights and participation, more attention, she argues, must be
citizenship are perceived and articulated, we move paid to who is creating these spaces and why, who
to the second theme: understanding the dynamics fills them, and how the new spaces carry within
of citizen participation in various types of them ‘tracks and traces’ of previous social
deliberative spaces and places. Across the globe, as relationships, resources and knowledge. What
the concepts of rights are expanded, the traditional prevents long-established patterns of power from
boundaries between the state, civil society and the being reproduced? Who speaks, for whom, and
private sector are becoming blurred, requiring a who is heard?
rethinking of the roles and relationships of
governments, the corporate sector and citizens. Building on 20 years of experience of the Society
Since the last decade of the twentieth century, for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA) in
many countries have pursued new mechanisms to exploring these issues, Tandon also takes a
promote more direct citizen engagement in the historical approach, arguing that the exploration of
processes of governance, ranging from the creation participation must look both at traditional forms

7
and spaces for participation, as well as those that her article warns that the ways such rights are
have been created through more ‘modern’ framed by human capital discourses, by prior
institutions, such as interventions of development approaches to compulsory education, and by the
agencies or statutory bodies, especially those rise of privatisation will limit the degree to which
associated with decentralisation. Moreover, Tandon such rights can be realised through the state alone.
argues that in the Indian context, new forms of For the right to education to become real, more
citizenship must be created which build on work is needed to reframe the concept and
collective meanings and institutions as well as on discourse of universal education in a way that
individual conceptions of rights. Finally, Tandon allows for diversity and difference, and to construct
reminds us that we should not look at the concepts more meaningful spaces and processes for citizen
of citizenship, participation and accountability participation that attempt to address the forms of
separately, but that they come together in a broadly exclusion which bound the degree to which rights
interlocking ‘governance wheel,’ in which to education can themselves be claimed.
‘citizenship gives the right to hold others
accountable and accountability is the process of Both the Brazil and India cases provide examples of
engaging in participation.’ attempts to institutionalise citizen participation
and social rights through constitutional means.
While Tandon explores the creation of spaces and While thus attempting to provide ‘invited spaces’
places for participation historically, Coelho, Andrade for participation, both cases suggest that legal
and Montoya examine new social policies found in means for ensuring rights are not enough. Broader
the 1988 Constitution in Brazil, which have approaches are needed, which recognise the
attempted to guarantee the ‘liberal citizenship’ diversity and identities of local actors and the ways
approach through creating spaces for direct civil in which they can be pre-empted from claiming
society-state interaction in the form of local councils rights by forces of social and economic exclusion.
and public hearings. While the processes of The case study by Paré, Robles and Cortéz
participatory budgeting in Brazil have recently discusses the ways in which the Zapatista
received a great deal of attention internationally, less movement and other indigenous peasant
well known outside of the country are these local movements in southern Mexico have attempted to
councils, which serve as spaces for deliberation and claim their rights to the use and management of
debate in the design and monitoring of social natural resources, based on their own cultural
services. In the area of health alone, there are more understandings as well as their reading of
than 5,000 health councils, almost one for each of international declarations on the rights of
5,507 municipalities, providing a large-scale case indigenous peoples. Such understandings are very
study of attempts to institutionalise direct forms of much at odds with other more individualistic views
citizen participation. Situating the creation of these of private property rights driven by global market
spaces in the crisis of the welfare state, Coelho et al. forces, and enshrined in the existing Mexican
draw some important lessons from them, including Constitution. In such cases, they warn,
the need to understand the state, civil society and participation in new spaces for dialogue must go
market not as homogeneous groups of actors, but as beyond narrow, instrumental concerns, which risk
heterogeneous in their interests, and to point out simply re-enforcing existing rules of the game.
that the spaces alone do not guarantee voice. Despite They argue for a more strategic approach, which
their Constitutional guarantee, there is still the embraces a wider perspective of rights and
question of whether the most marginalised groups citizenship, and aims to challenge existing social
are able to articulate their voice in these arenas, and relations and rules of the game over the longer
a question of the alliances and institutional term. Such strategies may also require resistance
arrangements which help them to do so. from below to participation in certain public spaces
created from above, and construction of more
Similarly, Subrahmanian explores the implications autonomous spaces, which are based on
and challenges of recent moves to enshrine the recognition of the culture and identities of
‘right to education’ in the Indian Constitution. indigenous people.
Even though such rights may be adopted in law,

8
5 Dimensions of accountability are also being challenged to examine their own
Changing meanings of rights and citizenship, as accountability to their membership and constituency.
well as the opening up of new roles and spaces for Demonstrating the importance of the issues of
citizen participation, raise critical questions about control of knowledge in scientific debates (as
the ways in which civil society, state and market developed by Leach et al.), the case study examines
actors hold each other to account. Rather than the entangled issues of accountability in the pursuit
focusing simply on the role of the state in ensuring of cultural, economic, environmental and knowledge
rights of citizenship, new models of accountability rights for indigenous people. Echoing concerns
are emerging which focus on the role of citizens raised by Cornwall, this article also asks questions
themselves in monitoring the enforcement of rights, about representation; about who has the right to
and in demanding public scrutiny and transparency. speak for whom in rights-based claims.
By broadening our definitions of rights beyond the
civil and political, further questions also arise about
the role of citizens in seeking social and corporate 6 Emerging lessons and themes
responsibility, and of the role of non-state actors in Through the exploration of these themes within a
the regulatory process. rights-based approach, by authors from a range of
disciplines and continents, this Bulletin hopes to
As meanings and discourses of citizenship are deepen our understanding of the meaning and
broadened, the language of ‘corporate citizenship’ application of concepts like citizenship,
is invoked by corporations themselves to indicate participation and accountability in development.
the social, cultural and economic responsibilities to In so doing, we quickly see that the concepts are
communities in which they operate and to assert not generic, easily applicable and portable from
claims to their own rights as well (Zadek 2001). one situation to another. Rather, a far more
Tracing debates about corporate accountability, nuanced, multidimensional and multi-tiered
Newell critically examines this concept as it is used approach is needed.
in relation to poorer communities in both North
and South. He argues that power inequities and the Perhaps most importantly, the articles suggest the
lack of meaningful mechanisms for accountability need to understand how rights and citizenship are
raise questions as to whether the concept of shaped by differing social, political and cultural
corporate citizenship appropriately describes the contexts. Several articles in this volume question
balance of rights and duties that major firms enjoy. the extent to which concepts of citizenship
Then, drawing on a number of examples, he developed in a Western (or Northern) context, can
examines ways in which poor communities be applied in the same way to post-colonial settings
themselves may be able to demand and construct in the South. Similarly, we have seen throughout
new relations of accountability with corporations. the volume ways in which more universal
Similarly, the earlier article by Tandon refers to conceptions of citizenship and rights are
work in India which promotes concepts of ‘multi- themselves mediated by relations of power, social
stakeholder’ accountability, and which uses hierarchy, and often competing identities, which
mechanisms such as public hearings and citizen serve simultaneously as a force for the inclusion of
monitoring to hold both corporations and certain voices and identities and the exclusion of
governments to account in addressing industrial others. At the same time, case material from both
development issues. North and South demonstrates the importance of
struggles by people across the globe to articulate
The final article by Hughes provides another good and claim their own perceptions and practices of
example of communities and civil society groups citizenship in their everyday lives, and that simply
attempting to hold corporations accountable on the legalistic, and state-based mechanisms for realising
issue of ‘bioprospecting’ by multinational rights will not be fulfilled without the agency of
corporations in regions of high biological and non-state actors themselves.
ecological diversity in Mexico. At the same time as
they make broader demands for accountability and On the other hand, state-based and more universal
transparency, civil society organisations themselves declarations of rights, including the right to

9
participation, have also served in certain cases to types of policy spaces. In a contemporary era,
broaden the spaces through which citizens characterised both by increased globalisation and by
themselves may exercise their claims. But they do increased localisation, the spaces for the
not always do so. A more nuanced view requires construction of citizenship are multi-tiered. As we
‘unbundling’ the rights-based framework through have seen in various articles, perceptions of rights
exploration of differing kinds of rights and their are shaped both by global declarations as well as by
interaction with one another. While much of the local and indigenous practices. At the same time, in
literature on the construction of democratic looking at claims to participation across a variety of
citizenship focuses on the formal mechanisms for policy spaces, be they environmental, social,
the protection of legal, political and civil rights, these economic or political, and be they at local or global
articles have pointed to the importance of a more levels, we have seen a common set of questions
multidimensional approach through examining how emerging about issues of representation, and about
the civil and political intersect with other rights, how power and privilege shape the dynamics of
including social, economic, environmental and who participates. In each space, contestations over
‘knowledge’ rights. In particular, we have focused on whose knowledge and whose voice are legitimate
‘participation’ and the ‘right to have and to claim will affect who enters, with what agendas, and with
rights’ as an important foundation for other rights. what outcomes.
In so doing, difficult questions arise of conflicts
amongst rights, and of how these are negotiated. Despite the emerging and welcome turn to a
‘rights-based approach’ to development, these
Negotiation often means entering spaces for articles remind us that rights-based approaches are
participation and expression of citizen voice. Our not automatically pro-poor. They are likely to
discussion of policy spaces, however, reminds us become so, we argue, only through understanding
that they are rarely neutral. The fact that public the perceptions of poor people themselves about
spaces for participation exist, whether in rule of their rights, and through creating spaces for citizen
law or social practice, does not mean that they will engagement that are relevant to and inclusive of
always be used equally by various actors for poor people. Through linking concepts of rights to
realising rights of citizenship. Rather, each space is constructs of citizenship that emphasise the agency
itself socially and politically located, with dynamics of poor people acting for themselves to claim their
of participation varying across differing levels and rights, and by holding others accountable for them,
arenas of citizen engagement, and across differing we can hope to begin to make rights real.

Notes
1. From Declaration on the Right to Development, 2. Parts of this section draw heavily on work by Emma
adopted by General Assembly resolution 41/128 of 4 Jones and John Gaventa (2002), ‘Concepts of
December 1986. Quoted in Human Rights Council citizenship: a review’, IDS Development Bibliography
of Australia, 2001, p. 26. No 19, Brighton: Institute of Development Studies.

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