Samuel Hickey is a lecturer in Social Development at the Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester.

Giles Mohan is a lecturer in Development Studies in the Development Policy and Practice discipline of the Open University. He is the coauthor of Structural Adjustment: Theory, Practice and Impacts (2000) and of Power, Space and Development (2003).
>Giles Mohan is a lecturer in Development Studies in the Development Policy and Practice discipline of the Open University. He is the coauthor of Structural Adjustment: Theory, Practice and Impacts (2000) and of Power, Space and Development (2003).

Describes and analyses new experiments in participation from a wide range of situations that show how, far from being a redundant and depoliticizing concept, participation can be linked to genuinely transformative processes and outcomes - provided that a political and not a technocratic approach is taken.

Part I: From Tyranny to Transformation?
1. Towards participation as transformation: critical themes and challenges for a post-tyranny agenda Sam Hickey and Giles Mohan
2. Towards Participatory Local Governance: Assessing the Transformative Possibilities John Gaventa
3. Rules of Thumb for Participatory Change Agents Bill Cooke

Part II: Rethinking participation
4. Relocating Participation within a Radical Politics of Development: Critical Modernism and Citizenship Giles Mohan and Sam Hickey
5 Spaces for transformation? Reflections on issues of power and difference in participation in development Andrea Cornwall
6. Towards a Repoliticisation of Participatory Development: Political Capabilities and Spaces of Empowerment Glyn Williams

Part III: Participation as popular agency: reconnecting with underlying processes of development
7. Participation, resistance and problems with the 'local' in Peru: towards a new political contract? Susan Vincent
8. The 'Transformative' Unfolding of 'Tyrannical' Participation: The Corv,e Tradition and Ongoing Local Politics in Western Nepal Katsuhiko Masaki
9. Morality, Citizenship and Participatory Development in an Indigenous Development Association: the case of GPSDO and the Sebat bet Gurage of Ethiopia Leroi Henry

Part IV: Realising transformative participation in practice: state and civil responses
10. Relocating participation within a radical politics of development: insights from political action and practice Sam Hickey and Giles Mohan
11. Securing voice and transforming practice in local government: The role of federating in grassroots development Diana Mitlin
12. Participatory Municipal Development Plans in Brazil: Divergent Partners Constructing Common Futures Glauco Regis Florisbelo
13. Confrontations with power: Moving beyond 'the tyranny of safety' in participation Ute Kelly
14. Failing Forward: going beyond PRA and imposed forms of participation Giles Mohan and Mark Waddington

Part V: Donors and participation: caught between tyranny and transformation?
15 Participation in Poverty Reduction Strategies: Democracy Strengthened or Democracy Undermined? David Brown
16. Beyond the technical fix? Participation in donor approaches to rights-based development Jeremy Holland, Mary Ann Brocklesby and Charles Abugre

Part VI: Broader perspectives on from tyranny to transformation
17. The social embeddedness of agency and decision-making Frances Cleaver
18. Theorizing participation and institutional change: ethnography and political economy Anthony Bebbington