//MOBILIZING PIECE ACCOUNTABILITY: CITIZENS, MOVEMENTS THINK AND THE STATE Brendan Halloran and Walter Flores* * Respectively, Program Officer, Transparency and Accountability Initiative (brendan.halloran @transparency-initiative.org) and Director, CEGSS and COPASAH member ([email protected]) • Citizen engagement is ubiquitous in externally supported efforts to improve government accountability, however lessons about the need to encourage and strengthen existing forms of citizen collective action are not being fully put into practice • Citizens can successfully pressure and support government accountability through collective mobilization strategies that require capable, autonomous and representative grassroots organizations and movements • External funders and professional NGOs can play a role in engaging with and supporting popular organizations and movements to strengthen the ‘accountability ecosystem’, but care must be taken in building and maintaining such relationships External actors, including funders and international NGOs, have been working What we still don’t know – to support efforts to make governments Unpacking the state more responsive and accountable to their citizens for many years, with important In a recent workshop on social lessons learned along the way (see also accountability research hosted by T/AI, here, here and here). External support for GPSA and MAVC, one of the key lessons more accountable governance has taken is that we still need to know more about many forms. Technical assistance to improve what drives state responsiveness and laws, institutions and mechanisms for accountability. accountability have been a strong element of such initiatives, as well as support for pro-reform actors (or ‘champions’) in may look like laws and government. But do these approaches reflect mechanisms that function the realities of many challenging national elsewhere, but don’t Lant Pritchett and local contexts? In diverse countries, function properly due to and others from Mexico to Tanzania to Indonesia, state political, resource and have called this ‘isomorphic accountability is fundamentally a question other constraints. mimicry’ of power. Individuals and groups use the state apparatus to control wealth and other To complement capacity privileges that would be eroded with more building, technical assistance and other transparent and accountable systems. Thus, efforts, external actors have also renewed 1 what are their incentives for reforms? Even their focus on the role of citizens. However, where progressive decision makers seek to many early ‘social accountability’ (i.e. citizen make positive changes, they will likely face and civil society driven) approaches were obstacles from those whose interests are narrow and isolated, and too frequently being challenged, and thus need support focused on specific tools like citizen from other pro-reform actors. Even where scorecards to get citizen feedback to institutional reforms are put in place, these authorities (‘feedback loops’). Jonathan Fox has demonstrated the failure of such ‘tactical approaches’ to social accountability that response of the state is one of violence. pursue change through short-term, isolated In other cases, political parties seek to ‘projects’, advocating instead for longer term, manipulate these mobilizations, often vertically integrated campaigns based on leading to rifts and deeper distrust. multiple tactics and entry points. Innovative social accountability efforts have sought to Promising examples emerge when take on board some of these lessons, and national movements or civil society some have even turned conventional thinking coalitions are able to link to local on its head by embracing complexity and grassroots mobilizations. Such pursuing more politically-informed and relationships amplify the voice of relational approaches. local actors while connecting national organizations directly to citizen actions Yet many lessons about the role of citizens and needs. The T/A community needs acting collectively for state accountability to consider how to support these cases don’t seem to be making their way into of citizen organization and mobilization, practice. For example, the evidence that which are leading the struggle for state individual and group participation tends to accountability around concrete issues replicate local power inequalities and need affecting their lives. to be connected to broader movements for democratic change. Or that citizen participation through organizations HOW CAN CITIZENS HOLD THE STATE and associations leads to greater gains ACCOUNTABLE? in government responsiveness and accountability than individual or community It is clear that citizens expressing their voice participation – especially for the most and taking action is fundamental to ensuring marginalized citizens and in the most government accountability. Citizens attempt challenging contexts. In other words, "it is to – with varying degrees of success – hold when participatory mechanisms in formal authorities to account through many means governance coincide with citizen mobilization and mechanisms, such as:* - whether in the form of associations or social NOTE movements - that the effectiveness of these • Political organizing and elections pathways is ensured" (Coelho and von Lieres). *Get more in depth on these • Formal institutional legal mechanisms of mechanisms of citizen voice The question is where are the associations redress with ODI’s excellent report and blog series on this topic. and movements? • Media or other advocacy campaigns to ‘name and shame’ or otherwise influence the behavior of power holders Perspectives from Pakistan – • Individual or community-based Gulbaz Khan participatory mechanisms, from citizen scorecards to participatory budgeting Transparency and accountability goals are • Nonviolent social movements, deeply enmeshed in issues of state power. campaigns and other forms of collective Too many initiatives seek to leverage what citizen organizing and action outside are perhaps well-meaning ‘champions’ formal political processes, including among elected officials or bureaucrats confrontational tactics to advance these aims. In these cases, citizens may be involved through Thus, citizens can and must be involved participatory mechanisms. Yet even when in expecting, demanding and pressuring these exercises begin promisingly, too government decision makers to be many fall victim to capture, manipulation or more responsive to public corruption. needs and more accountable for their Citizen relationships with In Pakistan, there is a need to more actions. Yet for state actors cannot be defined seriously consider the role of membership- citizens to engage by a simple collaborative or based citizen organizations and antagonistic dichotomy. Citizens the state on these would generally prefer to movements. There are numerous issues is to enter collaborate with authorities so examples of where citizen organization into political terrain collectively solve problems. But and leadership has built up over time under real world conditions of of extreme power increasing inequality and closing 2 to challenge abuses of power by state imbalance. How do civic space, popular organizations authorities. Yet often these movements citizens build and and movements must be more are small and local, and frequently the savvy and flexible, to engage with wield the kind of the state where possible and to contest unaccountable actions where necessary! ‘countervailing power’ (or ‘people power’) Technology, digital activism and that will bridge this gap? Individual (or even movements ‘community’) engagement through formal participation or ICT-enabled complaints or Technology and digital activism is demands is unlikely to be sufficient in most becoming more visibly associated with contexts. Even more ambitious efforts, popular collective action, as Facebook, such as building formal mechanisms for Twitter, YouTube, and many other tools citizen participation in government decision and spaces are increasingly common making, can exclude marginalized groups, in the repertoire of grassroots activists be captured by local elites, or limited to (see here and here). Yet technology is addressing specific issues (budgeting, service no panacea for social change, and to the quality, etc.) while ignoring deeper and more extent that the T/A community should systemic power inequalities. Yet advocacy by be supporting the tools for citizens to professional NGOs, with little accountability organize and act collectively to demand to citizens and their priorities – and thus real state accountability, we also need to be legitimacy deficits – has its own limits.* realistic about the limits of social media A healthy civil society ecosystem, and and other technologies for movement NOTE more effective social accountability building. Communications technologies approaches, depends on the efforts of can reduce the time and costs of *Three common limitations people’s organizations and movements collective action, sometimes facilitating on NGO action to address seeking more accountable governance. mass collective action under challenging accountability: We argue that external funders and NGOs conditions, as we have seen in the news 1. Weak roots in society can and should support and complement headlines in recent years, from Cairo to 2. Priorities and modalities these existing efforts, as well as promoting shaped by external funding Hong Kong. Yet mobilization is not the an enabling