Can foreign donors help build new democracies? In the 1990s, public and private organizations such as USAID and the Soros Foundation poured huge amounts of money and expertise into Russia to help build the dream of a vibrant democratic society. Sarah L. Henderson argues that despite the altruistic intentions of foreign assistance agencies and domestic activists, foreign aid designed to spur civic growth has had unintended consequences. Drawing on extensive field work, survey research, and work experience for several funding agencies in Moscow in the late 1990s, Henderson focuses on donor efforts to support the emerging community of nongovernmental organizations and, in particular, on efforts to build a functioning women's movement in Russia. Her intimate knowledge of Russia's growing NGO community informs a worrisome finding: foreign aid has made a tremendous difference, but not in altogether expected or positive ways. New Russian civic groups serve either the needs of an indigenous clientele or the demands of the foreign aid bureaucracy--but rarely both. Henderson's research and experience show that while aid has kept a fledgling civic community alive, it is a civic community that is disconnected from its own domestic audience. The book suggests that large flows of foreign aid have in some ways damaged the long-term prospects for democratization in Russia.

Abers (political science, Center for Public Policy Research, U. of Brasília, Brazil) provides a close study of innovative city government in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Led by the Workers' Party, the city implemented a participatory budget program in which residents meet in their neighborhoods to determine budget priorities. Taking place in a city long dominated by patronage politics and elite rule, the story is both a sociopolitical study of the impact that state- sponsored participatory forums can have on civil society and a contribution to the theory and practical possibilities of participatory democracy.--

In an historic turn, grassroots America has overcome its apathy and cyclic reversion to the ways of the past, last induced by Islamic fundamentalism. Newly cognizant of its inherent interests, grassroots America has responded to the vision of Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton, and fl ocked to the polls. The emotions of politics take front and center. In Democracy From The Grassroots: A Guide to Creative Politics, we examine in depth the political passion of the grassroots and these emergent leaders. Beginning with an inspiring historical overview of grassroots politics in America, the author then guides us through its organizational structures the political clubs, committees, councils, caucuses, and workshops wherein real people work to create real change. A chapter devoted to the analysis of issues, the systems which determine their resolution, and their role in the political campaign, serves to enlighten and motivate the ideal lead-in to an exhaustive section on training. A concise summary integrates the hypotheses set forth about the role of grassroots politics in American social development. And in a unique and compelling twist, that model is then compared to the individual's development as a person. Written by psychoanalyst, political activist and scholar Dr. Joseph Abrahams, Democracy From the Grassroots, A Guide to Creative Political Action presents the pioneering work of three decades in the grassroots trenches. At once a vibrant history lesson and a call to action, this slender volume is as lush in practical howto as it is in thoughtful refl ection and insight. The appendix is remarkable for its richly annotated bibliography and a revealing chronicle of the events and issues of American grassroots movements.

How ordinary citizens band together to bring about real change In an America where the rich and fortunate have free rein to do as they please, can the ideal of liberty and justice for all be anything but an empty slogan? Many Americans are doubtful, and have withdrawn into apathy and cynicism. But thousands of others are not ready to give up on democracy just yet. Working outside the notice of the national media, ordinary citizens across the nation are meeting in living rooms, church basements, synagogues, and schools to identify shared concerns, select and cultivate leaders, and take action. Their goal is to hold big government and big business accountable. In this important new book, Jeffrey Stout bears witness to the successes and failures of progressive grassroots organizing, and the daunting forces now arrayed against it. Stout tells vivid stories of people fighting entrenched economic and political interests around the country. From parents and teachers striving to overcome gang violence in South Central Los Angeles, to a Latino priest north of the Rio Grande who brings his parish into a citizens' organization, to the New Orleans residents who get out the vote by taking a jazz band through streets devastated by Hurricane Katrina, Stout describes how these ordinary people conceive of citizenship, how they acquire and exercise power, and how religious ideas and institutions contribute to their successes. The most important book on organizing and grassroots democracy in a generation, Blessed Are the Organized is a passionate and hopeful account of how our endangered democratic principles can be put into action.

The collected essays in this book provide a comparative examination of the process of grassroots mobilization and the development of community-based forms of popular democracy in Central and South America. The first part contains studies from individual countries on organizations ranging from those supported by governments and integrated into the country's political structure to groups that were organized against the existing political system. The organizations studied included those focusing on a particular concern, such as housing, and those with wide responsibility for community affairs; but all were organizations based on common interests where people lived and, in some cases, where people worked. The second part offers theme studies on men, women and differential participation; problems and meanings associated with decentralization, especially in relation to devolution of power to the local level and the construction of popular alternatives; and the competing theoretical paradigms of new social movements and resource mobilization.

Today democracy has come to mean simply free trade or perhaps a vote every 2 to 4 years. Chances are this definition isnt help you in your organizing work. To build a real movement for social and economic justice we have to build a definition of democracy the same way we build good organizations: from the bottom up. This toolkit examines US history from a popular movement perspective, discusses lessons from past movements for democratic participation, provides tools for building democracy at the grassroots level, and shows us how to take the long view politics for movement building.