How does state fragility affect citizen-state relations at the local level? How can development agencies seek to promote citizen participation? This paper outlines the key issues and challenges in building local citizen-state relations in fragile settings. It argues that strengthening citizen voice and agency through support for local civil society institutions is just as important as building the capacity of the state to respond to citizens’ needs. Development agencies should focus more on ‘citizenship-building’ in fragile settings and on fostering a sense of socio-political community.
While the importance of local democratic state institutions for lasting security and development is widely recognised, state fragility at the local level has received very little attention in both academic and policy circles. In fragile settings, many factors pose a threat to developing a sense of agency and citizenship. At the individual level, violent conflict shapes peoples’ perceptions of the self as a citizen. Social relations and networks are also severely disrupted by conflict, often resulting in deep mistrust of others and undermining willingness to engage with one another.
Failing to address local state-citizen relations may hamper the consolidation of viable local democracies and undermine state legitimacy in the long run. Some key issues for local state-citizen relations in fragile settings include:
- Legitimacy: State institutions gain legitimacy from various sources. It is important to move beyond the notion that service delivery is the single most important source. Voice and participation are also essential and are key to a viable relation between citizens and the local state.
- The presence of non-state actors: Fragile settings are characterised by highly complex configurations of actors and relations. Understanding their power dynamics and authority, how they evolved historically and how they are perceived by the local population is critical to meaningful intervention.
- Accountability: Accountability depends on strengthening both citizens’ voice and state capacity. Where local state institutions are not present or are highly coercive, strengthening collective voice and awareness of citizenship and rights may build the foundations for future local state-citizen interactions.
- Civic agency: It is important to understand how experiences of conflict have affected civic culture and to know how people perceive themselves as citizens, the wider community and the state. This can provide insight into individual and collective civic agency and civic engagement.
- Safe spaces: In hostile situations, CSOs can play an important role in creating and maintaining ‘safe spaces’ where citizens can come together, share experiences, reflect on their situation and start building the confidence and capacity to act.
Even in very adverse contexts, small examples of social organisation can be found that foster civic engagement. Aid agencies and other civil society actors play important roles in promoting such engagement. Development agencies should:
- Focus support to fragile settings more on ‘citizenship building’: This includes strengthening local capacities for conflict resolution and development in a way that also supports capacities for voice and civic agency. It requires not only enhancing the self-confidence of citizens but also helping to consolidate social relations and networks that had suffered due to insecurity.
- Support channels for engagement: This includes strengthening the capacity of CSOs to foster and strengthen mechanisms and channels that facilitate interactions between local governments and citizens.
- Work with, rather than bypass, local governments: This requires involving local government institutions at an early stage, even if they seem weak, corrupt and unreliable. Strengthening local government capacities and legitimacy can help to build a foundation for long-term democratic development.
