The book provides insight into the changing nature of Muslim politics and the ideas of citizenship in independent India. It studies the electoral mobilization of minority groups across North India, particularly in Uttar Pradesh where Muslims have been demographically dominant in various constituencies. The volume discusses themes such as the making and unmaking of the ‘Congress heartland’ and the threat of revival of ‘Muslim communalism’, alongside issues of representation, property, language politics, rehabilitation and citizenship, politics of Waqf, personal law and Hindu counter-mobilization. The author utilizes previously unused government and institutional files, private archives, interviews and oral resources to address questions central to Indian politics and society. An important intervention, this book will be useful for scholars and researchers of politics, Indian history, minority studies, law, political studies, nationalism, electoral politics, partition studies, political sociology, sociology and South Asian Studies.

Globalization has given rise to new meanings of citizenship. Just as they are tied together by global production, trade and finance, citizens in every nation are linked by the institutions of global governance, bringing new dynamics of inclusion and exclusion. For some, globalization provides a sense of solidarity that inspires them to join transnational movements to claim rights from global authorities; for others, globalization has meant greater exposure to the power of global corporations, bureaucracies and scientific experts, thus adding new layers of exclusion to already fragile meanings of citizenship. Globalizing Citizens presents expert analysis from cities and villages in India, South Africa, Nigeria, the Philippines, Kenya, the Gambia and Brazil to explore how forms of global authority shape and build new meanings and practices of citizenship, across local, national and global arenas.

How does citizen activism win changes in national policy? Which factors help to make myriad efforts by diverse actors add up to reform? What is needed to overcome setbacks, and to consolidate the smaller victories? These questions need answers. Aid agencies have invested heavily in supporting civil society organizations as change agents in fledgling and established democracies alike. Evidence gathered by donors, NGOs and academics demonstrates how advocacy and campaigning can reconfigure power relations and transform governance structures at the local and global levels. In the rush to go global or stay local, however, the national policy sphere was recently neglected. Today, there is growing recognition of the key role of champions of change inside national governments, and the potential of their engagement with citizen activists outside. These advances demand a better understanding of how national and local actors can combine approaches to simultaneously work the levers of change, and how their successes relate to actors and institutions at the international level. This book brings together eight studies of successful cases of citizen activism for national policy changes in South Africa, Morocco, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Turkey, India and the Philippines. They detail the dynamics and strategies that have led to the introduction, change or effective implementation of policies responding to a range of rights deficits. Drawing on influential social science theory about how political and social change occurs, the book brings new empirical insights to bear on it, both challenging and enriching current understandings.

Interest in citizenship has never been higher. But what does it mean to be a citizen in a modern, complex community? Richard Bellamy approaches the subject of citizenship from a political perspective and, in clear and accessible language, addresses the complexities behind this highly topical issue.

This book provides a clear and comprehensive introduction to the developments which have brought about a new, global wave of inclusiveness and democracy. From Brazil to Bangladesh, a new form of participatory politics is springing up. Featuring contributions detailing how such movements have worked in Latin America, Europe and Africa, the book analyzes the impact they have had on the democratic process. By opening up the political sphere in this way, the authors contend, these grassroots movements truly have created "spaces for change."

While the European integration project is facing new challenges, abandonments and criticism, it is often forgotten that there are powerful legal instruments that allow citizens to protect and extend their rights. These instruments and the actions taken to activate them are often overlooked and deliberately ignored in the mainstream debates. This book presents a selection of cases in which legal institutions, social movements, avant-gardes and minorities have tried, and often succeeded, to enhance the current state of human rights through traditional as well as innovative actions. The chapters of this book investigate some of the cases in which the gap between the conventionally recognized rights and those advocated is becoming wider and where traditionally disadvantaged groups raise new problems or new issues are emerging concerning individual freedom, transparency and accountability, which are not yet properly addressed in the current political and legal landscape. Can political institutions and courts without coercive power of last resort actually foster more progressive rights? This book suggests that the expansion of human rights might be a viable strategy to generate a proper European citizenship. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of European Studies, Politics and International Relations, Law and Society, Sociology and Migration Studies and more broadly to NGOs and policy advisers.