1 Linking participation with power Concepts and methods of 'participation' are used increasingly throughout the world in shaping policy and in delivering services.At the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) we are finding that these participatory approaches throw new light on the complex interactions within and between society and state institutions at local, national and global levels.Participatory approaches lead to questions about how different kinds of knowledge and values shape the rules of the game and policy choices.What are the societal and political processes through which power operates that inform whose voice is heard and whose is excluded?This then leads to asking what is power?Is it just about someone making other people act against their best interests?Or, is it also the glue that keeps society together?What are the connections between power and social change?To make explicit that these are the questions at the core of our research and teaching interests, the Participation Group at IDS has recently changed its name to 'Participation, Power and Social Change'.And, in keeping with that name change, this issue of the IDS Bulletin aims to present some of our current work on the practice of power in development and on the entry points for change.Much of this work has been supported by a programme of action research and capacity building funded between 2003-6 by the Department for International Development (DFID), the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), and the contributions explicitly or otherwise reflect our dialogue with colleagues in these agencies as well as more broadly with our many partners in civil society and research institutes, primarily in the South, but also in the North.
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Eyben et al. (2006) studied this question.