This set of articles is a publication of Carnegie’s Civic Research Network.
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace gratefully acknowledges support from the Ford Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, and the UK Department for International Development that helped make this study possible.
- Saskia Brechenmacher and Thomas Carothers, The Legitimacy Landscape
- César Rodríguez-Garavito, Objectivity Without Neutrality: Reflections From Colombia
- Walter Flores, Legitimacy From Below: Supporting Indigenous Rights in Guatemala
- Arthur Larok, Pushing Back: Lessons From Civic Activism in Uganda
- Kimani Njogu, Confronting Partisanship and Divisions in Kenya
- Youssef Cherif, Delegitimizing Civil Society in Tunisia
- Janjira Sombatpoonsiri, The Legitimacy Deficit of Thailand’s Civil Society
- Özge Zihnioğlu, Navigating Politics and Polarization in Turkey
- Stefánia Kapronczay, Beyond Apathy and Mistrust: Defending Civic Activism in Hungary
- Zohra Moosa, On Our Own Behalf: The Legitimacy of Feminist Movements
- Nilda Bullain and Douglas Rutzen, All for One, One for All: Protecting Sectoral Legitimacy
- Saskia Brechenmacher and Thomas Carothers, The Legitimacy Menu
The Legitimacy Landscape
Saskia Brechenmacher and Thomas Carothers
Civil society is under stress globally as dozens of governments across multiple regions are reducing space for independent civil society organizations, restricting or prohibiting international support for civic groups, and propagating government-controlled nongovernmental organizations. Although civic activists in most places are no strangers to repression, this wave of anti–civil society actions and attitudes is the widest and deepest in decades. It is an integral part of two broader global shifts that raise concerns about the overall health of the international liberal order: the stagnation of democracy worldwide and the rekindling of nationalistic sovereignty, often with authoritarian features.
Attacks on civil society take myriad forms, from legal and regulatory measures to physical harassment, and usually include efforts to delegitimize civil society. Governments engaged in closing civil society spaces not only target specific civic groups but also spread doubt about the legitimacy of the very idea of an autonomous civic sphere that can activate and channel citizens’ interests and demands. These legitimacy attacks typically revolve around four arguments or accusations:
- That civil society organizations are self-appointed rather than elected, and thus do not represent the popular will. For example, the Hungarian government justified new restrictions on foreign-funded civil society organizations by arguing that “society is represented by the elected governments and elected politicians, and no one voted for a single civil organization.”
- That civil society organizations receiving foreign funding are accountable to external…
