Blurring the Boundaries - Citizen Action Across States and Societies provides a summary of nearly a decade of research on citizen engagement done by the Development Research Centre on Citizenship, Participation and Accountability (the Citizenship DRC).

The brief note Blurring the Boundaries - Citizen Action Across States and Societies has been produced by the Development Research Centre on Citizenship, Participation and Accountability (the Citizenship DRC) and provides a summary of nearly a decade of research on citizen engagement. It highlights key findings from this extensive research, especially those that link to the debates surrounding policy statements and projects that have proclaimed to support bottom-up participation and citizen-led development for the last two decades. The publication is intended as a summary and reference guide to the Citizenship DRC’s work, with clear signposting to additional materials on theory, case studies and policy recommendations.

More specifically this brief note describes benefits of engagement, how, and under what conditions, such benefits occur and it gives attention to the issue of citizenship in fragile settings. In addition it gives some guidance on how donors, NGOs, and government offices can use this research and how to take a citizen-led approach to development.

The Citizenship DRC has been a collaborative network of some sixty researchers and practitioners in nearly 30 countries and this publication draws upon an evidence base of more than 150 case studies to give an overview of the contributions made by different forms of citizen engagement.