In what circumstances is citizen mobilisation to claim rights and entitlements responded to by democratic states in ways that deepen democracy? This book explores the interaction between citizen mobilisation and the state in India, Brazil and South Africa. It finds that the gains won through mobilisation are often selective and partial, and sometimes non-existent. Mobilisation that adopts a critique or protest approach seems less likely to elicit a positive state response than collaborative engagement. State actors prefer to interact with citizens within their own policy frameworks and spaces, and within their own ideologies. State engagement with mobilised citizens in the countries studied has had both progressive and regressive outcomes: it has increased space for participation in policymaking, and increased state resistance to critique.
State responses to mobilisation depend on a complex set of historical, institutional and situation-specific criteria, as well as political, economic and social opportunity structures. There are, however, certain similarities in the ways the three states deal with their citizens, and some broad patterns of engagement between different types of social actors and the state. For example:
- Mobilisation is often centred on achieving recognition for, and redistribution of resources to benefit, excluded identity groups.
- States have shown more willingness to engage with social actors pursuing collaborative engagement with them than with those who adopt a protest approach.
- When the ideology and means of social mobilisation correspond to the goals of the state, it is perceived as legitimate by the state, which responds with facilitation.
- When the ideology and means of mobilisation are different from those of the state, it responds with repression or indifference.
Neither civil society nor the state are isolated entities capable of promoting democracy on their own. The results of inclusive democracy seem to depend mainly on changes in the dynamics and structures of interaction between state and society actors. These changes – such as new alliances between state and society and new participatory spaces – occur through state interaction with mobilised citizens. Further conclusions include the following:
- Mobilisation can be triggered by state institutions’ inadequate implementation of existing policies, or by policies’ inadequate provisioning for the poor.
- Political conditions that enable mobilisation involve affirmative action regarding a certain section of people; socio-economic policies for poverty eradication; participatory spaces created by the state; a political environment in which claims can be made; and a public administration system in which all social actors can interact.
- Forms of citizen engagement with the state become more varied and sophisticated over time, yet the democratic gains are not always clear.
- Repression in different forms is not beyond the purview of the purportedly democratic state. Tensions are more frequent in the cases of organised, large-scale social movements.
- Knowledge and access to resources are powerful leverage tools. However, the closer a social movement gets to the state, the less likely it will be to achieve major transformatory change.
- For the citizen, action helps to construct citizenship, and is important despite the potential lack of a state response. A sense of agency and empowerment is crucial to democracy.
