In this article, the author looked at four cases of key historical policies in
Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and Tanzania to examine how states engage with citizen voices. The policies all took place in contexts of political change and major junctures of democratization. Three kinds of moments are identified when the state listens: hearing moments, when it engages with citizen voices but does not change the way it acts; consultation moments,
when it engages with citizen voices through two-way dialogue, resulting
in one-sided action; and concertation moments, when coalitions between
reform-minded officials and politicians and organised citizen voices engage
in two-way dialogue and action for accountable governance. Concertation
moments occurred when there was a shared sense of urgency and a common goal across state and non-state actors, and despite different understandings of accountable governance. But concertation moments are
also laborious and temporary, part of larger, ever-changing policy processes,
and often states revert to consultation or hearing.
