The Changing Space for NGOs: Civil Society in Authoritarian and Hybrid Regimes

Toepler, Stefan; Zimmer, Annette; Fröhlich, Christian; Obuch, Katharina

doi:10.1007/s11266-020-00240-7

Cited by 100 publications

(89 citation statements)

References 89 publications

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“…An important indicator of democratic backsliding, however, is a phenomenon that until recently dominated in authoritarian states: shrinking civic space. Shrinking civic space takes the following forms: control of resources, ideological regulations, legal restrictions, prosecution, and criminal law (Toepler et al 2020;van der Borgh and Terwindt 2012;Buyse 2018).…”

Section: Strength Of Interest Groups and Democracy Backslidingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Polish interest groups facing democratic backsliding

Pospieszna

Vetulani-Cęgiel

2021

Int Groups Adv

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Democratic backsliding in Central and Eastern European countries is on the rise. Independent judiciaries, other institutions of liberal democracy, as well as civil liberties and media freedom are being undermined, coupled with the human rights and dignity of certain groups being curtailed or even violated. In these difficult political and legal circumstances, non-state actors, such as interest groups, face many challenges. The goal of this research is to explore how interest groups in Poland perceive their position, what tactics they use in order to influence public policies and decision-makers, and whether they search for networking strategies in order to strengthen their position vis-à-vis the government. By placing our research in the Polish context, we fill the gap in the current literature on the situation of interest groups that face democratic backsliding. We base our analyses on new survey data collected from Polish interest groups in 2017–2018, conducted within the Comparative Interest Group Survey.

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Section: Strength Of Interest Groups and Democracy Backslidingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Polish interest groups facing democratic backsliding

Pospieszna

Vetulani-Cęgiel

2021

Int Groups Adv

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Clear distinctions between 'types' of CSOs as oriented towards either service delivery or advocacy, loyal or independent, as seen in some existing literature (e.g. Toepler et al, 2020) thereby turn out to be too crude as reality can be both more fine-grained and dynamic. While small-scale and limited to a single policy domain and context, our article hereby offers a novel angle towards researching the possibilities of CSO roles under conditions of restricted civic space; with more attention to the importance of interplay.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In recent years, many states have restricted the space for civil society to carry out their roles-especially political ones (CIVICUS, 2020;Dupuy et al, 2016;Hossain et al, 2018;Rutzen, 2015;Toepler et al, 2020). These restrictions are not a range of isolated incidents, but inherently structural in nature, where states have deliberately and systematically attempted to undermine civic space (Buyse, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Much of this research focuses on restrictions as damaging the claim-making role of civil society (Toepler et al, 2020), which is often executed in the public sphere and sometimes in consultation with government agencies. Work on the crackdown on civic space raises doubts about whether this role, essential for civil society's contribution to articulating and promoting alternatives (Bebbington et al, 2008), and including less-heard views and interests can be executed in many contexts today, especially considering how restrictions obstruct autonomy and silence challenging voices.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While some of this literature seeks to develop broadly applicable typologies of e.g. motivations, roles and implications (Toepler et al, 2020), some of it (also) emphasizes the need to look closely to the interplay that can be found in specific cases and contexts, zooming in on the role of agency and manoeuvring of individual state agencies and CSOs (Spires, 2011;Heiss, 2017;Wischerman et al 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Collaboration, Co-Optation or Navigation? The Role of Civil Society in Disaster Governance in India

2021

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Existing research on civil society organizations (CSOs) facing restricted civic space largely focuses on the crackdown on freedoms and CSOs’ strategies to handle these restrictions, often emphasizing impact on their more confrontational public roles. However, many CSOs shape their roles through collaborative relations with government. Drawing on interviews with state agencies and CSOs, this article analyes state–CSO collaboration in the restricted civic space context of disaster risk reduction in India. Findings are that the shaping of CSOs’ roles through collaboration under conditions of restricted civic space is only partly defined by the across-the-board restrictive policies that have been the focus of much existing research on restricted civic space and its implications for CSOs. Interplay at the level of individual state agencies and CSOs, based on mutual perceptions, diverse organization-level considerations and actions, and evolving relations, shape who collaborates with whom and to what effect. This article thus stresses interplay and agency, moving away from simple understandings of co-optation, and calling for a more differentiated approach to the study of state–civil society collaboration under conditions of restricted civic space, with close attention to navigation.

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Revisiting the role of civic organizations in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan: Confidence, membership, and democratic practice

Moldogaziev

Witko

2022

Public Admin & Development

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In many emerging and authoritarian countries, civil society organizations that focus on political or sensitive policy issues are being cracked down upon, while serviceoriented ones are given a relatively greater ability to operate. What might the consequence of this be for democratic practice given the important role civic organizations play in this process? We examine this question by considering whether the absence of confidence in a country's governing institutions is related to membership in service-rather than governance-focused civic organizations, and how such membership is associated with elite-challenging, political activities in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. We find that individuals who have no confidence in state institutions are less likely to seek membership in governancefocused civic organizations, but not necessarily in service-focused ones. At the same time, membership in both types of civic organizations is associated with participation in political activities, while beliefs that a country is run democratically decreases it. This suggests that a variety of civic organizational types, even those without an explicit governance-focus, contingent on perceptions of democratic governance and other covariates held constant, enhance democratic practice. K E Y W O R D Scivic organizations, confidence in institutions, perceived democratic practice, political action | INTRODUCTIONAs recently as the summer of 2021, Kyrgyzstan's President Sadyr Japarov signed a bill into law that would increase reporting requirements for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) doing work in his country. Some critics of the law saw it as a thinly veiled attack on organizations that have been investigating and exposing corruption among high-ranking officials in his government (Talant, 2021). This also coincides with a designation by leading international watchdogs that the country is now firmly under an authoritarian rule (Freedom House, 2019, which indiscriminately harasses opposition figures, news outlets, and even ordinary individuals who post on social media platforms. After years of flirting with democracy, such backsliding into authoritarianism in Kyrgyzstan is weakening democratic practices in the country and is shrinking the existing platforms for democratic voice. Similar legislation has been in the works in Tajikistan, with a particular focus on foreign funding sources of local NGOs (Jamshed, 2020), while two separate NGO bills were enacted in Kazakhstan in 2015 and 2016, which reportedly allow tax authorities in the country to harass civic organizations (Human Rights Watch, 2020). This trend aligns with events elsewhere, whereby in authoritarian countries, developing democracies, and backsliding democracies (e.g., Hungary, Poland, Russia, and Turkey) civil society organizations (CSOs) that are focused on improving governance have become subject to increased scrutiny by host governments in recent 26 -

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The Changing Space for NGOs: Civil Society in Authoritarian and Hybrid Regimes

Cited by 100 publications

References 89 publications

Polish interest groups facing democratic backsliding

Polish interest groups facing democratic backsliding

Collaboration, Co-Optation or Navigation? The Role of Civil Society in Disaster Governance in India

Revisiting the role of civic organizations in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan: Confidence, membership, and democratic practice

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