This book addresses one of the greatest challenges of our age: that of building democratic polities where all can realize their rights and claim substantive citizenship. In recent years, innovations in governance have created a plethora of new democratic spaces in many countries. Yet there remains a gap between the intention to institutionalize participation and the reality of exclusion of poorer and marginalized citizens.

Through case studies of a diversity of institutions - hospital facility boards in South Africa, a national-level deliberative process in Canada, sectoral management councils and community groups in Brazil, India, Mexico and Bangladesh, participatory budgeting in Argentina, NGO-created forums in Angola and Bangladesh, community forums in the UK, and new intermediary spaces created by social movements in South Africa - contributors examine how the democratic potential of these new spaces might be enhanced.

Andrea Cornwall is a Fellow of the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex. She is author of Beneficiary, Consumer, Citizen: Perspectives on Participation for Poverty Reduction (2000), co-editor of Realizing Rights: Transforming Approaches to Sexual and Reproductive Wellbeing (Zed 2002) and Pathways to Participation (2003).

Vera Schattan P. Coelho is a political scientist. She is a researcher and project co-ordinator at the Brazilian Center of Analysis and Planning in São Paulo, Brazil. She is the author of numerous articles on health policy, pension reform, and participatory governance and is editor of Pension Reform in Latin America (2003) and Participation and Deliberation in Contemporary Brazil (2004).
Andrea Cornwall is a Fellow of the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex. She is author of Beneficiary, Consumer, Citizen: Perspectives on Participation for Poverty Reduction (2000), co-editor of Realizing Rights: Transforming Approaches to Sexual and Reproductive Wellbeing (Zed 2002) and Pathways to Participation (2003).

Vera Schattan P. Coelho is a political scientist. She is a researcher and project co-ordinator at the Brazilian Center of Analysis and Planning in São Paulo, Brazil. She is the author of numerous articles on health policy, pension reform, and participatory governance and is editor of Pension Reform in Latin America (2003) and Participation and Deliberation in Contemporary Brazil (2004).