Paper short abstract:

We examine the contested role of Civil society organistions in creating the basis for the representation of excluded groups in democratic transitions, and their role in overcoming the mechanism used by dominant elites to incorporate them in repressive systems.

Paper long abstract:

We provide the theoretical framework for case studies that evaluate attempts by excluded social groups to use representative organisations to increase their ability to access to public politics in late developing countries. It treats their emergence as a response to recent democratic reforms, and the difficulties they have encountered as a function of the tensions created by the continued existence of weak states, clientalistic social and economic relationships and weak organisational capacities. It challenges the excessive optimism that sustained the recent democratic wave, and argues that effective attempts to overcome the disruptions and reversals being experienced by many transitional societies will depend on the ability of these agencies to avoid elite capture by strengthening the accountability mechanisms that link them to their stakeholders, and their ability to challenge entrenched political and economic elites without overturning the political settlements that sustain political order, economic growth and social stability.