CIVIL SOCIETY AND DEMOCRACY Session Title

Civil Society in Non-Democracies: Tools of the State or Agents of Democratization? Abstract Buoyed by the role of civil society in the downfall of the Soviet Bloc twenty-five years, international donors, public and private, embarked on new development strategies that focused heavily on democratization. Civil society came to be seen as a core ingredient of democratizations strategies in transition countries as much as in the developing world. Donors devoted significant resources to supporting Western NGOs and indigenous civil society organizations to foster participation and local civic engagement, empower communities and demand accountability from local governments. In recent years, however, a veritable backlash against Western democratization efforts has begun to take place. Much of this backlash is directed against international NGOs and their local partners and is taking place in a broad range of countries all over the globe and in political regimes that range from authoritarian to “defective” or, in the words of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, “illiberal democracies.” Russia and China are among the perhaps most visible exponents of the crackdown on politically-active civil society, but similar tendencies are present in countries close to Western Europe (Hungary, Turkey), much of the Middle East, and parts of Africa and Latin America. As of 2014, the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law had counted more than 50 countries that enacted harsher restrictions on civil society. At the same time, many of these countries have embarked on explicit or implicit modernization strategies that seek to involve civil society in partnerships with government to improve the often dismal provision of social, health or educational services or to pursue economic development objectives. This suggests the emergence of divergent government postures vis-a-vis different parts of civil society in many countries, which in turn raises many important questions that so far seem unresolved. This panel attempts to shed light on different aspects of these emergent postures and relationships by bringing together and exploring three diverse cases. Catherine Herrold’s paper examines the relationship between local philanthropic foundations and the state in Egypt between 2010 and 2014. Prior to 2011 uprisings, foundations were largely co-opted by the state. The paper analyzes how political, economic, and cultural opportunities and constraints affected foundations’ attempts to extricate themselves from state co-optation and support civil society’s democratic political reform efforts. In Nicaragua, the second case, since his return to power in 2007 President Ortega is trying to shape and control the CSO sector via repression, co-optation and the promotion of party-loyal organizations. Katharina Obuch ‘s paper explores the different strategies CSOs in Nicaragua adopt to be able to pursue their objectives in an increasingly challenging context Repression and concerns about cooptation also mark relations between government and civil society in Russia. Russia’s aggressive efforts to suppress foreign funding while simultaneously developing public sector support, have raised significant concerns about government dependency of Russian NGOs. Toepler and Benevolenski review common issues and causes of government dependency, and access whether the Russian case mirrors or deviates from Western experiences.

Foundation-Government Relations in Mubarak and Post-Mubarak Egypt: Implications for Foundations’ Roles in Political Reform Efforts Title (Panel Paper) Foundation-Government Relations in Mubarak and Post-Mubarak Egypt: Implications for Foundations’ Roles in Political Reform Efforts

Author Catherine E Herrold, [email protected]; Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy (Presenter)

Abstract Philanthropic foundations have proliferated rapidly throughout the world in recent decades, and many of these new foundation sectors have emerged in non-democratic states. Research has begun to document the size and scope of these foundation sectors, but research has yet to examine whether, and if so how, foundations are acting in an oppositional capacity vis-à-vis autocratic governments in efforts to cultivate a more independent civil society and/or promote democratic values. This paper begins to fill this research gap by examining foundation-state relations in Egypt, both as they existed under President Hosni Mubarak’s rule and how they evolved in the wake of the 2011 uprisings that ousted Mubarak. Scholars of foundations have credited these institutions with enhancing the health of established democracies by supporting an autonomous sector of nonprofit and voluntary organizations and by backing movements for social change (e.g. the civil rights movement, environmental movement, and feminist movement) (Fleishman 2007, Hammack and Anheier 2010). US-based foundations have also been applauded for promoting democratic values abroad, particularly in non-democratic or transitioning states (Quigley 1997). However, we know very little about the democracy-building roles of foundations indigenous to autocratic or semi-autocratic states. Research on NGOs in non-democracies suggests that they tend to be co-opted by ruling regimes and used as tools in controlled liberalization strategies aimed ultimately at preserving state power (Brumberg 2002, Heurlin 2010). Are foundations similarly co-opted, or do they represent potential sources of support for the cultivation of more autonomous NGO sectors? Drawing upon data from over 100 interviews, this paper examines foundation-state relations in Egypt between 2010 and 2014. It finds that, prior to the 2011 uprisings that ousted then-President Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s foundations were largely co-opted by the ruling regime. Foundation donors were tangled in webs of crony capitalism with Mubarak’s government and targeted their foundations’ grant making strategies in ways that advanced Mubarak’s economic goals. After the revolution, the foundations seemed to stay the course. Closer examination, however, reveals that Egypt’s foundations did take on oppositional roles vis-à-vis transitional governments and sought to promote a democratic political transition in ways that both respected and took advantage of existing political, economic, and cultural contexts. Implications for theory and policy are discussed.

Brumberg, Daniel. 2002. "Democratization in the Arab World? The Trap of Liberalized Autocracy." Journal of Democracy 13 (4):56-68. Fleishman, Joel. 2007. The Foundation: A Great American Secret. New York: Public Affairs. Hammack, David C., and Helmut Anheier. 2010. "American Foundations: Their Roles and Contributions to Society." In American Foundations: Roles and Contributions, edited by Helmut K. Anheier and David C. Hammack. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution. Heurlin, Christopher. 2010. "Governing Civil Society: The Political Logic of NGO-State Relations Under Dictatorship." Voluntas 21:220-239. Quigley, Kevin F. F. 1997. For Democracy's Sake: Foundations and Democracy Assistance in Central Europe. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press.

Individual Submission Panel Paper

Integration, De-politicization or Radicalization? Strategies of Nicaraguan CSOs in the Face of Governmental Pressure Title (Panel Paper) Integration, De-politicization or Radicalization? Strategies of Nicaraguan CSOs in the Face of Governmental Pressure

Author Katharina Obuch, [email protected]; Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster (Presenter)

Abstract Civic participation has played an important role in the Nicaraguan democratization process, starting with the Sandinista Revolution in 1979 when the Nicaraguan people overthrew a 40-year dictatorship. Later, after the voting out of the Sandinistas in 1990, CSOs had a significant share in the consolidation of formal democratic structures and they performed a crucial role in organizing and mobilizing support for the impoverished population or providing emergency help in times of crisis and natural disasters. A resulting boom of CSOs in the context of external democracy promotion even brought Nicaragua the title as “world champion of NGOs” (Kurz 2010: 62) in the 1990s. At the same time, government-CSO relations were never easy; all democratically elected Nicaraguan governments tended to be skeptical against pressure and advocacy of CSOs which critically watched and depicted setbacks. Since the return to power of former revolutionary Daniel Ortega in 2007, the situation has got more complex. On the one side, Ortega presents himself as President of the poor supporting “popular power” via participation and mobilization of the population (Gómez Pomeri 2012). On the other, he tries to shape and monitor the Nicaraguan CSO sector via repression, cooptation and the building up of party loyal participation structures and organizations. As opposing CSOs have become an important voice in criticizing Ortega’s increasingly authoritarian style of government, tensions and confrontation between certain parts of the CSO sector and the government as well as within the CSO sector and have grown (Serra Vázquez 2011). Moreover, in the face of struggles with Ortega’s policies many foreign donors that have historically been the most important funding source and supporters of the Nicaraguan CSO sector are currently withdrawing their support.

Against this background, this paper explores the consequences of this increasingly challenging situation on the Nicaraguan CSO sector. More precisely, it makes out three major strategies CSOs undertake to be able to pursue their objectives. First, a subordination to the President’s policies and integration into the governmental party’s structures; second, a restriction to service provision and less political and less controversial areas; and third, an increasing radicalization that lets some CSOs perform the role of the absent party political opposition. The findings are based on interviews with Nicaraguan CSO leaders and experts on the Nicaraguan CSO sector. References García Palacios, Omar A. / Ullua Morales, Chantal A. (2010): Las relaciones del gobierno de Nicaragua y la sociedad civil. Centro de Servicios de la Cooperación para el desarrollo KEPA: Kepa’s Working Paper’s 32/2010. Goméz Pomeri, Ricardo (2012): Nicaragua zwischen Absolutismus und Demokratie. VS Verlag. Kurz, Rudi (2008): Wie heute solidarisch sein? In: Schnipkoweit, Ivo / Schützhofer, Timm (Hrsg.): Der neue Sandinismus in Nicaragua. Autoritärer Selbstbedienungsstaat oder neues Entwicklungsmodell? One World Perspectives. Working Papers 2/2010. 61-68. Serra Vázquez, Luis (2011): Civil Society Index for Nicaragua. Restrictions and the politicisation of civic space: challenges for civil society in Nicaragua. RNDDL-Red Nicaraguense por la Democracia y el Desarrollo Local. CIVICUS.

Individual Submission Panel Paper

Government Dependency: Issues, Causes, and an Application to the Russian Case Title (Panel Paper) Government Dependency: Issues, Causes, and an Application to the Russian Case

Author Stefan Toepler, [email protected]; (Presenter) Vladimir Benevolenski, [email protected]; Higher school of economics (Presenter)

Abstract Russia has recently seen the emergence of two distinctively different approaches to government/nonprofit relations that reflect the differences in the core functions that civil society performs. These are in turn embodied in what can be termed the radical and (neo-)liberal perspectives on civil society (Lewis, 2006). In the radical view, civil society primarily in the form of political and other claims-making NGOs (Tilly 2008) serves the important democratic function of providing a counter-balancing power to the government, attempting to protect individual citizens from an overbearing state. In the neo-liberal view, civil society, comprised of Putnam-style, a-political NGOs, contributes to “good governance” and efforts to improve and strengthen the state through

building trust relationships and norms of reciprocity among the population while helping government to address public needs. In Russia, the working conditions for civil society in the radical view have significantly deteriorated with reduced access to foreign support, greater restrictiveness, and reports of increased bureaucratic harassment and derogatory labeling as “foreign agents.” On the other hand, Russia has also embarked on new programs to strengthen public funding streams at federal and regional levels to bolster a fairly broad array of socially-oriented NPOs in an effort to help modernize the still Soviet-style delivery of public services (Benevolinski, 2014; Salamon, Benevolinski, and Jakobson, 2015). This combination of supporting service-focused neoliberal civil society, while undercutting the Western support of radical civil society has quickly led Western scholars to brand Russia’s posture towards civil society as an effort to push Russian NGOs to become government dependent and thus vulnerable to cooptation (Dauce, 2014) Concerns about government dependency are a long-standing concern in the literature of Western nonprofit-government relations as well. In fact, accepting government monies is widely perceived as a double-edged sword. Two contrary strands of evaluating the role of government support emerged relatively early within the nonprofit literature. As embodied by Salamon’s (1995) Partners in Public Service, one strand portrays the government-nonprofit relationship as positive, arguing that the influx of government monies enabled a significant scaling up of nonprofit activity. The other strand of the literature—exemplified by Smith and Lipsky’s (1993) Nonprofits for Hire—focuses on the negative effects of government support on the culture, structure and behavior of nonprofits. While this debate has been a mainstay of nonprofit research since the early 1980s, however, there have been few attempts to systematically catalogue the various effects of government support across diverse fields of nonprofit activity and different parts of the world. Taking the form of a conceptual literature review, this paper will first review the main drawbacks and pathologies ascribed to government support, and provide a general assessment of the evidence, following Toepler (2010). Utilizing a broad array of Russian sources and materials and current research undertaken by the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, we then explore to what extend the current Russian experiences either mirror Western concerns about government dependency or present a different set of challenges. References Benevolenski V.B. (2014) Tools Of Government For Support Of SONPOS In Russia: In Search Of Cross-Sector Cooperation In The Delivery Of Social Services. Working Papers of the Basic Research Program of NRU HSE WP BRP 17/PA/2014. Series: Public Administration. Daucé ,Françoise (2014). The Government and Human Rights Groups in Russia: Civilized Oppression? Journal of Civil Society, Volume 10, Issue 3, July 2014, pages 239-254 Lewis, D. (2006). The Management of Non-Governmental Development Organizations. London: Routledge. Salamon, Lester M. (1995), Partners in public service : government-nonprofit relations in the modern welfare state, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Salamon, Lester M., Vladimir B. Benevolenski, Lev I. Jakobson (2015). Penetrating the Dual Realities of Government–Nonprofit Relations in Russia. Voluntas, First online: 08 September 2015 Smith, Steven Rathgeb, and Michael Lipsky (1993), Nonprofits for Hire: The Welfare State in the Age of Contracting, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Tilly, C. (2008) Contentious Performances. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Toepler, S. (2010). “Government Funding Policies.” In Seaman, B. & Young, D. (eds.), Handbook of Research on Nonprofit Economics and Management. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 320-334.