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Marc, A., Willman, A., Aslam, G., and Rebosio, M., with Balasuriya, K., 2013, ‘Understanding state-society connectedness’. Statebuilding approaches also need to go beyond modelling the relationship between state, elites and an undisaggregated ‘society’, and ask who is represented by each group, who participates in state-society negotiations, and whose demands are being expressed? For example, donor approaches to statebuilding typically have not engaged with existing knowledge about gender power relations and how statebuilding processes impact women and men differently. It may thus be more effective to target international behaviour and initiatives that affect incentives, such as management of extractive industries, international tax evasion and corruption. External actors will find it difficult, though, to directly influence internal political dynamics. Greater attention also needs to be paid to questions of power and to altering elite incentives. The challenge is to build peace alliances that stretch horizontally and vertically between different levels of society. Strategies and policies are needed that focus on the interaction between institutions and citizens at all stages of war-to-peace transition, from peace negotiations and implementation of agreements to post-conflict peacebuilding. Where donor policy and funding has been directed at both state and civil society institutions, these interventions have often been compartmentalised based on a traditional state-civil society divide. Attention must also be paid to supporting civil society and citizen engagement such that they can hold the state accountable and make it responsive to society. Much of the focus in statebuilding has been on building the capacity of central state institutions. Efforts to promote an inclusive political settlement can re-shape relations and contribute to political and social transformation. This results in a legacy of negative and weak state-society relations. In some situations, citizens may be excluded from public life through state repression and violence. The concentration of power in a few elites also limits the participation of citizens from public life. Political elites, who benefit from patronage and income from natural resource rents and criminal activities, often have little incentive to engage with citizens and to build effective public authority. The prominence of informal institutions and relationships and unofficial processes result in divergences between formal systems and rules and actual practice. In many fragile and conflict-affected states, relations are based on patronage and lack of accountability. The nature of the political settlement can greatly impact upon state-society relations. Citizenship confers various benefits, including the right to enjoy a nationality to vote, hold office and participate in political processes to access education, health and other goods to access the labour market beyond the informal sector to own businesses, land and other forms of property and to security of residence and freedom of movement. This implies a relationship among citizens, and between the state and all those living within its borders’ (Benequista, 2010, p. The Citizenship Development Research Centre views a citizen as ‘someone with rights, aspirations and responsibilities to others in the community and to the state. Rather, the state derives its legitimacy through its interaction with citizens and an organised and active civil society.

Neither the state nor civil society is seen as acting in isolation. The focus is not on particular institutional forms but rather on the relations and relational functions of state and society institutions. They are focused on issues such as defining the mutual rights and obligations of state and society, negotiating how public resources should be allocated and establishing different modes of representation and accountability’ (DFID, 2010, p. State-society relations is defined by DFID as ‘interactions between state institutions and societal groups to negotiate how public authority is exercised and how it can be influenced by people.