ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 examined the evolution of nation-states in the Global South, and their relationship to a changing international political order. Here, we change the focus to the local scale, and look at how these macro-level changes interact with people's lived experience of politics and power. In doing so, we need to examine both formal and informal politics (Key Concept 6.1) and the overlapping ways in which both influence structures of power (Key Concept 1.3). Although this chapter is primarily concerned with ‘formal politics’ — the institutions of the state — it takes a particular interest in the ways in which these institutions shape, and are shaped by, people's exercise of power in their everyday lives.
