Restricting NGOs

Civil society organizations (CSOs), also known as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or nonprofits, are facing difficult times. Since the mid-2000s, scholars, policy makers, and activists have been sounding alarm bells over the growing tendency of governments around the globe to restrict the ability of civil society groups to form, operate, advocate for particular causes, receive and use resources, and network with other actors. Different labels have been ascribed to this phenomenon, including ‘shrinking civic space’, ‘closing civic space’, and ‘closing civil society space’ (Brechenmacher and Carothers, 2019; Buyse, 2018; Malena, 2015; van der Borgh and Terwindt, 2012). While these labels vary in their meaning, clarity, and usefulness, what does seem to be clear is that there has been a significant and negative global shift in state-civil society relations since the turn of the millennium, with organizations increasingly unable to operate as freely as they could in earlier periods. The concept of ‘civic space’ is wide, defined differently across publications and institutions. Brechenmacher and Carothers (2019) discuss the concept as that of states restricting space for independent civil society organizations. Buyse (2018, p. 269) proposes a wider view of civic space as the ‘practical room for action and maneuver for citizens and CSOs’. Malena (2015, p. 7) sees it as a composite measure of specific capabilities: ‘the freedom and means to speak, access information, associate, organize, and participate in public decision-making’. This view is also supported by the advocacy group CIVICUS, whose measure of civic space combines the freedoms of association, assembly, and expression.1.1 https://monitor.civicus.org/whatiscivicspace/ While the concept of ‘civic space’ provides a sense of a larger trend in the decline of democratic rights and freedoms, in this special issue we narrow in on how new, state-imposed legal restrictions and other forms of repression impact organizations specifically, and how these organizations have responded to these restrictions. Arguably, the crackdown on civil society is most visible in its effects on NGOs: formal, non-profit, non-governmental organizations. It is also NGOs like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International that have been actively raising awareness of the trend in increased restrictions on organizational freedoms. We define non-governmental organizations as private, not for profit, non-state formal organizations that are not controlled or operated by governments or the market, but which may receive funding and other resources from governments and businesses. They are organized around a common purpose such as poverty alleviation at national, local, and/or international levels in order to provide services and/or address community problems through advocacy (see Dibie, 2008; Tarrow, 2001; Vakil, 1997). Because of their formal status and nature, with brick-and-mortar offices, bank accounts, statutes and articles of incorporation, and legal status, they are arguably more easily subject to legal attacks by states than are informal, grassroots organizations and nebulous social movements. In some countries, such as Russia and even democratic Israel, NGOs with strong foreign connections and financial dependencies have been subjected to pejorative, government-imposed labels like ‘foreign agent’ that these groups are in some cases forced to display in public, a label intentionally designed by government actors to discredit and delegitimize their existence. States are restricting NGOs in particular and civil society (the third sector beyond the state and the market) more broadly through legal and extra-legal means. Most visible, and more easily counted and categorized, are legal restrictions, particularly those imposed on foreign or international NGOs (organizations with a home office in one country and branch offices in third countries) and the foreign connections of both international and national NGOs. While governments have always regulated civil society organizations, a new trend has emerged wherein increasing numbers of states around the globe are adopting new, more restrictive regulations on NGO operations (Dupuy et al., 2016). These legal measures hamper the ability of organizations to receive and use foreign-sourced material resources such as funding, and limit their ability to work on issues perceived as politically sensitive (such as human rights). Emboldened by the weaponized use of law to constrain the presence and behavior of NGOs, states are also engaging in extra-legal harassment and intimidation of CSOs in general, both violent and non-violent. This phenomenon of increased state-imposed restrictions on CSOs has captured the attention of social science scholars, who have been studying the causes, dynamics, and consequences of this shift in state-society relations. As a result, the literature on the topic is growing, and so is our understanding of the reasons that states adopt restrictive CSO regulations (Bakke et al., 2019; Bromley et al., 2019; Christensen and Weinstein, 2013; Dupuy et al., 2016; Gilbert and Mohseni, 2018; Glasius et al., 2020; Howell et al., 2008); the types of restrictions states are adopting (Buyse, 2018; Musila, 2019; Rutzen, 2015); the dynamics of NGO restrictions in particular countries like Russia (Tysiachniouk et al., 2018), Kenya (Wood, 2016), Egypt (Brechenmacher, 2017) and Ethiopia (Dupuy et al., 2015), and the implications for the advancement of human rights and democratic values (Carothers, 2016; Smidt et al., 2020). Knowledge is also growing on the efforts of foreign aid donors and civil society organizations to respond, react, and push back against the clampdown (Bossuyt and Ronceray, 2020; ICNL, 2018; Kreienkamp, 2017). The contributions in this special issue add to this growing literature, examining trends in the clampdown on CSOs, how particular types of organizations are impacted (including the ways in which restrictions impact on organizational operations), how restrictions can change the balance between civil society actors with rival ideological perspectives, how restrictions can enable the rise of new civil society actors attacking existing CSOs, and how restrictions can shape popular attitudes and donor funds. Importantly, the contributions in this issue shed light on how organizations respond to restrictions and attempt to push back against states. Finally, several papers widen the analytical lens beyond the organization and examine the impact of closing civil society space on larger social, political, and economic outcomes. The remainder of this piece introduces the contributions of the different articles in this Special Issue, situating them in literature per theme that they most significantly contribute to, and pointing to areas for further research on such themes. One of the basic questions within the academic and policy literatures on closing civil society space has been the nature of the clampdown, in terms of trends and patterns in the clampdown. Several international institutions and policy-oriented organizations have been monitoring the global rise and spread of anti-CSO regulations in particular and the closing of civic space more generally, including CIVICUS, the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL), the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Freedom House, the Center for Strategic Studies, and a number of foreign aid donors. To date, research on this topic has focused on answering questions like: Where is the clampdown occurring, and at what points in time? What types of measures are being adopted, and by which states? What kind of activities and behaviors are restricted and why? Which types of organizations are impacted? Without good answers to these questions, it is difficult to know the severity and scope of the clampdown, whether and how restrictions may diffuse over space and time, and whether and how restrictions are fundamentally reshaping state-society relations. Amnesty International (2019) finds that as of 2019, at least 50 countries in the world have new laws in place to constrain the operations of CSOs and the individuals who support them. Musila (2019) finds that 12 African countries have adopted anti-CSO laws and six more have pending legislation. Interestingly, anti-CSO measures have been rejected by legal institutions in a further six African countries, a point we return to below. Bromley et al. (2019) find that over 60 countries had adopted laws restricting the ability of CSOs to receive foreign funding by the year 2015. In 2018, CIVUCUS reported that civil society was under attack in 111 countries, measuring this using their more expansive notion of civic space. Ultimately, trends in the increased imposition of legal restrictions on CSOs are following a larger pattern in the decade-long global decline in associational and organizational freedoms and democracy over all, as reported by Freedom House (2020). In some countries, anti-CSO regulations prohibit or constrain organizations from working on issues perceived by ruling regimes to be political – and thus sensitive – in nature. These issues include human rights, equality, gender and sexuality, anti-corruption, good governance, and elections. Legal restrictions negatively affect the rights-based organizations working on them (Buyse, 2018). Dupuy et al. (2015) found that in the case of Ethiopia, the draconian Charities and Societies Proclamation of 2009 led to the demise of the country’s independent human rights organizations, while Brechenmacher (2017) found that new legal measures in Egypt helped to crush groups working on democracy promotion. Beyond a handful of case studies, however, we lack a more systematic understanding of the ways in which restrictive CSO laws impact on particular types of organizations, including service delivery groups and groups focused on specific issues like the environment (Matejova et al., 2018). Several of the contributions in this special issue provide new insights into questions on trends and patterns in restrictions on CSOs, as well as what types of NGOs are impacted and how. Using updated data from Dupuy et al. (2016), Fransen et al. find that at least 90 countries worldwide adopted restrictive CSO regulations between 1990 and 2018. These restrictions cover entry in to the sector, operations, issue areas of work, reporting, and the receipt and use of foreign-sourced funding. The authors further examine the effects of new legal as well as extra-legal clampdowns on transnational advocacy. Transnational collaborations among CSOs have proved particularly instrumental in facilitating the growth of CSOs and their political clout as they have pushed for the recognition and spread of various types of human rights in countries around the globe. Investigating these effects on transnationally-linked organizations in Zambia and Bangladesh and on their organizational connections in the Global North, Fransen and his co-authors find that while transnational advocacy work does continue even after new restrictive regulations are adopted, they are changed in significant ways: organizations change their strategies, adjust they way in which they work, move away from explicit advocacy work, temper their transnational connections, and even disband when restrictions prohibit their activities. Roggeband and Krizsan’s contribution examines the impact of anti-CSO restrictions on women’s rights activism. These authors argue that the closure of civil society space is targeted specifically at rights-promoting groups and organizations that are perceived as being anti-government (with those two often going hand in hand). Governments instrumentally use CSOs to strategically prop up state power and target those that challenge that power, in effect fundamentally reorganizing civic space. This has been very apparent in Eastern Europe, where the governments of Hungary, Poland, and Croatia have been actively disempowering women’s rights and gender equality organizations by denying them access to funding, excluding them from policy processes, and using negative discourses to frame their work. Furthering Roggeband and Krizsan’s look at how states can enable the rise of conservative civil society groups as part of a more general clampdown on civic space, Pousadela and Perera look at how civil society groups in the form of anti-rights groups or can themselves also contribute to restricting civil society actors. Anti-rights groups are varied, and include paramilitary forces, private corporate security entities, criminal gangs, and religious fundamentalist groups. Rights-promoting civil society groups increasingly find themselves under attack by these anti-rights groups, who are in some cases even supported by states to clamp down on pro-rights groups. While the argument that ‘bad civil society’ actors (Chambers and Kopstein, 2001) exist is well known – and some of these groups have even acquired political power (see Berman, 1997 on the rise of the Nazis, and Sullivan, 2007 on the Taliban in Afghanistan) – their ability to shape and curtail pro-rights groups and spaces with the active support of the state has not been well-documented to date. While states have always regulated and shaped civic space, even in democratic states, this regulatory power is not necessarily exercised for pro-liberal outcomes. One of the primary ways that states have been restricting CSOs is by constraining their ability to access and use foreign-sourced funds. This is not coincidental, as funding from bilateral donors and multilateral financial institutions directly contributed to the growth of a liberal civil society in low- and middle-income countries, especially after the end of the Cold War. Foreign aid donors have traditionally viewed civil society – and CSOs in particular – as forces for positive change, alternatives to failed states, and the foot soldiers and catalysts of democracy and human rights. As a result of the social and political influence that foreign funding has yielded, many states have chosen to ‘strike back’ against foreign-supported civil society organizations through legal channels (Dupuy et al., 2016). If the aim of foreign funding restrictions is to reduce such inflows, then CSO-restricting governments have been granted their wish. The increase in legal constraints on foreign funding of civil society has negatively impacted on donor funds to civil society; Dupuy and Prakash (2017) find that countries with foreign fund restrictions in place experience a 32% decline in bilateral aid flows in the years after enacting such a measure. In an unpublished paper, Chaudhry and Heiss (2018) find an even greater impact on aid flows, with 45% less foreign aid channeled towards countries that restrict CSOs’ ability to engage in advocacy. Interestingly, these authors also find that donors channel their funds in countries with such legislation away from politically sensitive issues and more often through domestic rather than international CSOs. Why, exactly, donors reduce their aid to restriction-adopting countries is not well understood and merits further investigation, as does the impact of such laws on other types of global financial flows like remittances and foreign direct investment. One of the contributions to this special issue goes beyond the concern with the impact on public funding flows in the form of foreign aid allocations to civil society and looks at the effects of restrictive CSO legislation on to international NGOs. Using a and Heiss find that social among is to understanding patterns of to organizations that and crackdown donors with levels of social are to to human rights that have with the governments of the countries in which they operate, and are less to support that have more relations with with levels of social are more to the and support with difficult relations with These the that (including those of of funding can in which receive what of in what form, and from and Heiss point to a larger of CSO both government donors as well as donors reduce their to working in difficult countries, this reduce the and services that CSOs provide in and contribution to this issue up the of the wider consequences of CSO restrictions, a topic that has also not been This is for a number of is the that the rise and spread anti-CSO legislation is a phenomenon and the of regulations restrictive CSO regulations may themselves have or independent impact on social, political, and economic their effects be the result of with other legal restrictions and social, political, and economic we not of the that we know these restrictions are some wider The that have into the effects of restrictive CSO legislation beyond the effects on organizations that such restrictions can reduce political in CSO-restricting countries (Dupuy and and enable government human rights by the ability of CSOs to and of such behavior et al., 2020). Beyond many questions how the rise of anti-CSO legislation on such as the of political (including political and social attitudes towards and with civil the delivery of public services by CSOs, and the impact of these restrictions on other democratic freedoms and rights. and contribution examines how anti-CSO restrictions and the closure of civic space more broadly are to shape the of poverty alleviation and in Ethiopia, and They argue that such restrictions limit the of civil society organizations in policy processes, hamper ability to and and reduce civil in service This in poverty alleviation and particularly for groups in Roggeband and Krizsan’s contribution that the larger effect of legal and extra-legal repression of civil society is the of civil society and of state-society relations. governments support some civil society groups, and actively other groups who are to be in to values and the ability to access to resources and to political are at the of States often have the hand when it to the the power and influence of formal civil society organizations, since it is states that law This states to shape political and in turn support for as well as the contributions to this also how more is on the between anti-CSO restrictions and piece the between restricting CSO freedom to and on the one hand and the freedom of on the how very often are among the for repression in countries with CSO restrictions in in how organizations or government efforts to constrain CSO freedom et al., 2019; Perera et al., Ultimately, restrictive CSO regulations have how and even the notion of an independent civil society While the rise in restrictive CSO regulations the of CSOs to state power, restrictive CSO regulations have not been or adopted a a from CSOs as well as foreign aid donors et al., Brechenmacher and Carothers, 2019; ICNL, 2018; Kreienkamp, 2017). Civil society organizations have responded to and even these regulations in various as several contributions to this issue The of how organizations respond and to their regulatory environment is a growing of and et al., 2017). In work on CSO to in that CSOs adopt of their to respond to government and their they or work around engage in with the or engage in policy advocacy. CSOs in sensitive issue areas such as human rights are to adopt the while and CSOs are more to engage in with the they engage at and types of CSO to regulations in and Civil society and to restrictive regulations from the such legislation is The contribution by Fransen et al. find that regulations are CSOs in transnational advocacy adopt a number of different strategies, including on or to operate regulations by as a different of up transnational and to on service delivery activities to restrictions and Transnational and advocacy are more difficult and even and its and the is not In some civil society is in states not to adopt new anti-CSO legislation at all, as et al. in their In Kenya and a of civil society organizations the of targeted and a public advocacy and awareness raising to governments to contribution how civil society can against government to basic democratic In and civil society groups popular that pushed back against government at change at ruling on contribution the power of civil society to basic democratic freedoms. In – one of most – civil society the government for over years to adopt a to strategically the in ways that pushed the government to adopt this law in the of restrictive CSO legislation is how these regulations with a of civil the ability of organizations and social to action through active and advocacy work to particular causes, and to popular and political Several contributions in this issue the of civil society groups in this In and find that to individuals increased their support and the in the of the in a country where most civil (including the freedoms of association, assembly, and are by the but also the by et al., Pousadela and and Fransen et al., the of how to sense of the between legal restrictions and repression in terms – including extra-legal such legal restrictions are in or are they more often by governments as an to legal restrictions on civil This is also an where further research is most In a new of for states to civil society in the form of the global Since governments around the world have been using the worldwide spread of the as a to clamp down on civil society groups – a trend that many of the groups at the of this have been actively The International Center for Not-for-Profit Law has been monitoring government to the and finds that countries have measures that affect freedom of and countries have measure that affect freedom of assembly, often through the use of other countries are restricting the to and on have civil society groups from political and and engaging in transnational advocacy activities (Brechenmacher and Carothers, 2020). to this special issue as well as other have also been in government repression of civil society the et al., 2020; and 2020; and also more research be in the years to how is legal and extra-legal repression of civil and how civil society is and back against such Dupuy is a with in and the civil and and a in political science from the of Fransen is of International at the of and of the of International of include transnational governance, transnational governance, and the transnational organization of civil Prakash is a of the for the of and and the of the Center for at of is also an International at the Center for of

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