Government With The People

This chapter provides a critical introduction to the problem of disengagement between governments and citizens. It looks at different arguments for reforming the scope and approach adopted by the state and explains why the way forward has to be through more effective state-citizen cooperation. It also gives a general outline of the three parts of the book. The first part examines the theoretical background and recent development of state-citizen cooperation to find out why more attention should be given to advance it; how its impact should be judged; and what makes it distinctive and complementary to other proposals on improving democratic governance. The second part reviews policies and strategies that have been tried out in different parts of the world to enable citizens and state institutions to work together in an informed and collaborative manner in defining and pursuing the public good. The final part considers how various underlying barriers to effective state-citizen cooperation can be overcome, with reference to specific case examples.