Contents:
Acknowledgements 1. Introduction: People, Power and Public Spaces Eva Poluha and Mona Rosendahl 2. From Avoidance to Alliance: Hunter-Gatherers, Non-Governmental Organisations and State Relation in Tamil Nadu, South India christer Norstrom 3. Sounds of Silence: Uncertainty, Language and Politics in the Cuban Economic Crisis Mona Rosendahl 4. Learning Political Behaviour: Peasant-State Relations in Ethiopia Eva Poluha 5. In Touch with Politics: Three Individuals in the Midst of the Dalit Movement Eva-Maria Hardtmann 6. The Republic of China at a Crossroads? Processes of Democracy and Ethnic Identity on the Island of Taiwan Alexander Wanek 7. The Illicit Daughter: Hindi-Language Newspapers and the Regionalisation of the Public Sphere in India Per Sthalberg 8. Public Space Inside Out: Beirut's Private and Public Spaces Under Reconstruction Daniel Genberg Index

Research in localities in India, Cuba, Ethiopia, Taiwan and Lebanon is used to develop a broader understanding of global political phenomena such as democracy, representation and accountability. To contextualise aspects of 'good' governance the articles in the volume deal with people's perceptions of and interactions with the state; how they interpret government laws and regulations; how they interact with officials and how they comment on acts and speeches made by local bureaucrats and national power holders. Through a discussion of the much debated distinction between private and public, the articles show how the notions of public and private are interconnected in many ways, how they are contested and reformulated by people based on their experiences, and how they can be used as a tool in questioning dominant ideas and ways of executing 'good' governance.

The first ethnographic study of life in Cuba to emerge in over twenty years, Inside the Revolution offers a rare, close view of how socialist ideology translates into everyday experience in one Cuban municipality. Mona Rosendahl draws on eighteen months of fieldwork, in a municipality she calls by the fictional name Palmera, to present a vivid account of the lives and thoughts of residents, many of whom have lived inside the revolution for more than thirty-five years.In Palmera, support for the socialist program remains strong. Rosendahl attributes continuing loyalty to four conditions: improvements in the standard of living from 1959 to 1990, the uniformity and omnipresence of political communications from the government, a historical emphasis on local participation in the revolution, and the consistency of revolutionary ideals with traditional machista expectations and practices. Through an analysis of ideology and practice in contemporary Cuba, Rosendahl documents how its citizens support the present political system, and how reciprocal economics between households and ideas about gender both reinforce and challenge that system. Rosendahl also explains how those who oppose state socialism resist participation in society through inaction or withdrawal.