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ut some community members report being toointimidated to contradict local leaders and governmentadministrators (Viswanathan and Srivastava2007: 72). Social mobilisation of the poor canhelp make participatory procedures in governmentwork closer to the way they are meant to.Legal empowerment is sometimes also facilitatedby democratic competition and free discussionof policy issues at the national level, whichinduces leaders seeking majority support to viewith policy proposals favourable to disadvantagedcitizens. But these are not panaceas. Proceduraldemocratic rule is now quite common in the world,yet empirical studies show countries experiencingdemocratic reform do not have systematicallybetter poverty outcomes (Ross 2006). For example,democratic countries are just as capable asdictatorships at carrying out government austerityprogrammemes that fall most heavily on the poor(Lindenberg and Devarajan 1993).The procedural democracies are not at all consistentin the extent to which they protect minorities,root out political corruption and preventstate-sponsored violence against citizens. Oftenthe leadership positions in these countries aredominated by the same social stratum that was incharge before the advent of procedural democracyand competitive politics. In some societies thisdominant group’s role is legitimated by religionor tradition, and deferential attitudes on the partof the poor may add another stumbling block toempowerment. One explanation for the economicdisparities that persist under democracy is theholdover of identity politics that divide the poor(Varshnay 2005). There may also be deep rootedpatron-client networks that push down the poor(more on this topic later).Take the example of Philippines. Its governmentis chosen in contested elections. Thousands ofcommunity based organisations exist in Manila andelsewhere, so there is a strong civil society. Philippineshas a national housing finance programmemeto regularise the city’s vast informal settlements,implementation of which is left to partnershipsbetween community groups, local governments,and the private sector. Local governments are alsorequired to set aside land for relocation of informalsettlers and to compile lists of informal settlers whoare eligible for relocation. Yet even in this relativelybenign political environment, the community groupstend to have limited influence and evictions andconversion of land to commercial uses continuesapace (Shatkin 2000).Honduras and Nicaragua have analogous problemsin rural areas. Land and forestry laws favour thepoor on paper, but practice is different. In Nicaragua,constitutional and legislative provisionsexist for the demarcation and titling of indigenousterritories. Yet the government continues to grantindustrial logging concessions on community landswithout fulfilling these requirements. In Honduras,small-scale forest producers have use rights butseldom can meet transaction costs of securingpermits and other approvals, owing to regulatorycomplexity and bureaucratic corruption. This forcesthem to rely on timber traders to secure permitsand other approvals, which, in turn, fuels collusionbetween traders and public officials, and elite captureof community forest management rights (Wellset al. 2004). Again, the quality of democraticinstitutions in this pair of countries appears to varyaccording to the class and income of the citizensusing them.These anecdotes obviously do not mean dictatorshipsare consistently better at confronting povertythan are countries classified as democratic. Thereare examples throughout history of authoritarianregimes that carried out successful land reforms andother pro-poor policies; yet there have undoubtedly299