John Gaventa

Reversing the flow – a new democratic conversation?

Mike Edwards, former director of the Ford Foundation’s Governance and Civil Society unit, reminded an audience of charitable trusts and foundations in London last year that ‘democracy is a journey, not a destination: a process of contestation that unfolds over time and is rarely if ever completed’. This is as true in the ‘more mature’ democracies as it is in those ‘emerging’.