Participation--From Tyranny to Transformation? Exploring New Approaches to Participation in Development

Participatory techniques have established themselves in both project implementation in developing countries and community interventions in industrial countries. Recently, participation has been fashionably dismissed as more rhetoric than substance, and subject to manipulation by agents pursuing their own agendas under cover of community consent. In this important new volume, development and other social policy scholars and practitioners seek to rebut this simplistic conclusion. They show how participation can help produce genuine transformation for marginalized communities. This volume is the first comprehensive attempt to evaluate the state of participatory approaches in the aftermath of the "Tyranny" critique. It captures the recent convergence between participatory development and participatory governance. It revisits the question of popular agency, as well as spanning the range of institutional actors involved--the state, civil society and donor agencies. The volume embeds participation within contemporary advances in development theory.

Samuel Hickey is a lecturer in Social Development at the Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester. Giles Mohan is a lecturer in Development Studies in the Development Policy and Practice discipline of the Open University.

Part I: From Tyranny to Transformation? * Towards Participation as Transformation: Critical Themes and Challenges for a Post-Tyranny Agenda--Sam Hickey and Giles Mohan * Towards Participatory Local Governance: Assessing the Transformative Possibilities--John Gaventa * Rules of Thumb for Participatory Change Agents--Bill Cooke * Part II: Rethinking Participation * Relocating Participation within a Radical Politics of Development: Critical Modernism and Citizenship--Giles Mohan and Sam Hickey * Spaces for Transformation? Reflections on Issues of Power and Difference in Participation in Development--Andrea Cornwall * Towards a Repoliticisation of Participatory Development: Political Capabilities and Spaces of Empowerment--Glyn Williams * Part III: Participation as Popular Agency: Reconnecting with Underlying Processes of Development * Participation, Resistance and Problems with the Local in Peru: Towards a Political Contract?--Susan Vincent * The 'Transformative' Unfolding of 'Tyrannical' Participation: The Corvee Tradition and Local Politics in Western Nepal--Katsuhiko Masaki * Morality, Citizenship and Participatory Development in an Indigenous Development Association: the case of GPSDO and the Sebat bet Gurage of Ethiopia--Leroi Henry * Part IV: Realising Transformative Participation: State and Civil Responses * Relocating Participation within a Radical Politics of Development: Insights from Political Action and Practice--Sam Hickey and Giles Mohan * 1Securing Voice and Transforming Practice in Local Government: The Role of Federating in Grassroots Development--Diana Mitlin * Participatory Municipal Development Plans in Brazil: Divergent Partners Constructing Common Futures--Glauco Regis Florisbelo * Confrontations with Power: Moving beyond the 'Tyranny of Safety' in Participation--Ute Kelly * Failing Forward: Going beyond PRA and Imposed Forms of Participation--Giles Mohan and Mark Waddington * Part V: Donors and Participation: Caught between Tyranny and Transformation? * Participation in Poverty Reduction Strategies: Democracy Strengthened or Democracy Undermined?--David Brown * Beyond the Technical Fix? Participation in Donor Approaches to Rights-based Development--Jeremy Holland, Mary Ann Brocklesby and Charles Abugre * Part VI: Broader Perspectives on From Tyranny and Transformation * The Social Embeddedness of Agency and Decision-making--Frances Cleaver * Theorizing Participation and Institutional Change: Ethnography and Political Economy--Anthony Bebbington