Representation and Exclusion in Partial Democracies: The Role of Civil Society Organisations

The ‘third democratic wave’ that rose in the 1990s has receded in many countries, as incumbent regimes have manipulated electoral processes and regressive political movements have exploited class, ethnic and sectarian antagonisms to undermine political order. Such events have led many to question the importance of democratic processes. The papers in this special section challenge both the uncritical advocates and over-critical naysayers of the third wave by treating democratisation as a long-term and contested transition from closed to open access societies, where elections represent a necessary but not sufficient mechanism to guarantee representation for excluded groups. The three papers focus on the critical role of civil society organisations (CSOs) in securing representation for marginal actors, drawing on the cases of Bangladesh and Uganda. In doing so the contributions illustrate the challenges that CSOs confront in situations marked by the problems of clientelism, capture and exclusion.