This was presented as part of a research workshop held at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) on 30 April 2015, in partnership with the Global Partnership for Social Accountability (GPSA) and the Transparency Accountability Initiative (TAI). The focus of the workshop was on "the quest for citizen-led accountability - looking into the state." This presentation explored the need to understand context and under what conditions states respond positively to citizen demands.

1. 1
Anuradha Joshi
IDS
April 2015
Image: Zackary Canepari
Panos Pictures
Seeing the Citizen(s):
State Response and Citizen-led Accountability

2. State Responses to Citizen-led Accountability
2
Under what conditions do states respond positively to
citizen demands? Why?
 State responses to citizen action are not uniform
 The ‘state’ is not monolithic
 State accountabilities that are invoked can be both
legal and ‘moral’
 States agents face collective action problems just as
social actors do

3. Looking into the state
3
 Need to understand the inner workings of the
state
 But also need to look out from inside the state—
‘seeing the citizen(s)’
 And need to trace the potential range of ‘invisible’
impacts of citizen-led accountability on state
institutions

4. Understanding state action: some entry
points?
4
 Typologies of contexts
 Individual and organizational incentives,
motivations
 Formal and informal institutional relationships
 Constructing plausible causal chains