“Governments attempt to reorganize civic space through a dual process of selective in- and exclusion of civil society organizations,” Conny Roggeband (University of Amsterdam) and our Senior Research Fellow Andrea Krizsan write in their article published in Global Policy.
They argue that “civil society organizations identified as critical of or even anti-government face obstruction and restraints, whereas simultaneously the space and state support for organizations identified as pro-government is expanded. Governments instrumentalize certain civil society organizations to their own benefit: they are sponsored and used to influence the realm of civil society in ways that directly legitimize state power and maintain an appearance of democracy.”
The authors illustrate their claims by discussing the reorganization of civic space in some Central and Eastern European countries through the case of women’s rights activism.
Read the full article here.