This special issue of Development in Practice (Volume 23, Number 5, October 2013) has grown from the sense that important changes in the last two decades pose dilemmas and challenges for civil societies in many countries. The Issue reports on a series of studies of the evolving roles of civil society sectors and citizen initiatives in several regions of the world.
The papers in this special issue resulted from a multi-country collective reflection organized by five civil society support organizations from different regions. They sought to identify roles, capacities, contributions, and limitations of civil society in these changing contexts using a variety of approaches to data collection and analysis. They include regional overviews, descriptions of national sector evolution, and cases of citizen activism in Southern and Eastern Africa, Asia, Southern Latin America, Western Europe and Russia.
Contents:
- Rajesh Tandon and L. David Brown. Civil societies at crossroads: eruptions, initiatives, and evolution in citizen activism
- Mutizwa Mukute & James Taylor. Struggles for systems that nourish: southern Africa civil society contributions and challenges to the creation of flourishing societies
- James Taylor. Struggles against systems that impoverish: South African civil society at the crossroads
- Jackline Kabahinda. Kampala city traders (KACITA) strike for action
- Kaustuv Kanti Bandyopadhyay. Civil society at multiple crossroads in Asia
- Inés M. Pousadela. From embarrassing objects to subjects of rights: the Argentine LGBT movement and the Equal Marriage and Gender Identity laws
- Debika Goswami and Rajesh Tandon. Civil society in changing India: emerging roles, relationships, and strategies
- Kaustuv Kanti Bandyopadhyay and Thida C. Khus. Changing civil society in Cambodia: in search of relevance
- Anabel Cruz. Is civil society in the Southern Cone of Latin America at a crossroad?
- Inés M. Pousadela. Protest and proposal, participation and representation: the Chilean student movement, 2011–12
- Charles Buxton and Evgenia Konovalova. Russian civil society: background, current, and future prospects
- Neil Howard and Keira Pratt-Boyden. Occupy London as pre-figurative political action
- Maro Pantazidou. Treading new ground: a changing moment for citizen action in Greece
- Rik Habraken, Lucas Meijs, Lau Schulpen and Cristien Temmink. Dutch civil society at crossroads
- Brian Pratt and Rowan Popplewell. The emergence and re-emergence of civil society: a brief history of civil society in Europe, from the Magna Carta to the Eurozone crisis
- Research article: Civil societies at crossroads: lessons and implications