Pandemic democracy: the nexus of covid-19, shrinking civic space for civil society organizations and the 2020 elections in Ghana

2022 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Kumi
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Civic Space

The Widening and Narrowing of Egypt’s Civic Space

2020 ◽  
pp. 50-78
Author(s):  
Catherine E. Herrold
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Reform ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Organized Activities ◽  
Philanthropic Foundations ◽  
Civic Space

Chapter 2 begins in the wake of Hosni Mubarak’s overthrow when Egyptian citizens expressed a newfound desire to participate in bringing freedom and democracy to the country. It goes on to show how Egyptian NGOs and foundations perceived an opportunity to play an important role in harnessing that energy and involving activists in organized activities related to democratic political reform. Yet by late 2011, Egypt’s transitional government began to crack down on the NGO sector even more harshly than the Mubarak regime had. In addition, Egypt’s economy declined precipitously. Chapter 2 lays out the opportunities and challenges that the 2011 uprisings created for Egyptian civil society organizations and briefly describes how two sets of donors—Western aid organizations and Egyptian philanthropic foundations—responded in the months following Mubarak’s removal.

scholarly journals COVID-19 and shrinking civic spaces: patterns and consequences

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felix S. Bethke ◽  
Jonas Wolff
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Health Care Systems ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Civic Spaces ◽  
Multiple Data ◽  
Global Trend ◽  
Care Systems ◽  
Civic Space ◽  
Do So

Abstract In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, a majority of countries worldwide have introduced severe limitations on the freedom of assembly, if not an outright lockdown, in many cases complemented by restrictions on further civil and political rights. Although restrictions were generally considered necessary to save lives and protect health care systems from overburdening, they also pose the risk of government overreach, that is, governments may use the pandemic as a convenient opportunity and justification to impose restrictions for political purposes. In this sense, COVID-19 may give yet another substantial boost to a global trend that has been unfolding since the early 2000s: the shrinking of civic spaces, which is characterized by an increase in government restrictions that target civil society actors and limit their freedoms of assembly, association, and expression. The aim of the paper is to assess civic space restrictions that have been imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic with a view to exploring their immediate consequences as well as their potential mid-term implications for civil society organizations in general and contentious civic activism in particular. We do so by, first, providing evidence from multiple data sources about the global spread of COVID-19-related restrictions over time and across countries. Second, we identify key dynamics at work in order to assess the immediate consequences and the potential mid-term implications of these restrictions. These dynamics are illustrated by looking at experiences from individual countries (including Cambodia, Germany, Hungary, and Lebanon).

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

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reetika Syal ◽  
Margit van Wessel ◽  
Sarbeswar Sahoo
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Disaster Risk Reduction ◽  
Disaster Risk ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
State Agencies ◽  
Individual State ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
Organization Level ◽  
Civic Space

AbstractExisting 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.

scholarly journals Source of Life or Kiss of Death: Revisiting State-Civil Society Dynamics in India during COVID-19 Pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajesh Tandon ◽  
Ram Aravind
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
The State ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Economic Welfare ◽  
Subsequent Phase ◽  
The Government ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Civic Space

Abstract As COVID-19 spread through India, Civil Society Organizations (CSO)s mobilized resources to support the efforts of the Government by playing the role of an active partner in providing social and economic welfare to the affected population. This paper aims to provide a concise overview of the response of civil society to the pandemic situation at the grassroots and policy level. Further, the authors discuss the paradox in demonstrated efficiency and commitment of civil society, which follows a crackdown on civil society organizations by the state through silencing voices of dissent and regulating the shrinking civic space. The strained relationship between the government and civil society organizations in India is also examined against the backdrop of draconian legislation and policies framed during the time of COVID-19, proscribing debate, review or consultations. In the context of the pandemic and the subsequent phase of recovery, such actions of the Government will have deleterious effects on the relationship of trust between civil society and the state. Through this paper, the authors argue for a more tolerant and co-operative approach to the functions of civil society organizations by the Government, thus effectively reducing mistrust and suspicion in the intentions of the state.

The elimination of violence and terrorism in Iraq strategy

2019 ◽  
pp. 375
Author(s):  
Mona Ali Duaij ◽  
Ahlam Ahmed Issa
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
The State ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Terrorist Organization ◽  
The Media ◽  
Causes Of Crime ◽  
Religious Aspect

All the Iraqi state institutions and civil society organizations should develop a deliberate systematic policy to eliminate terrorism contracted with all parts of the economic, social, civil and political institutions and important question how to eliminate Daash to a terrorist organization hostile and if he country to eliminate the causes of crime and punish criminals and not to justify any type of crime of any kind, because if we stayed in the curriculum of justifying legitimate crime will deepen our continued terrorism, but give it legitimacy formula must also dry up the sources of terrorism media and private channels and newspapers that have abused the Holy Prophet Muhammad (p) and all kinds of any of their source (a sheei or a Sunni or Christians or Sabians) as well as from the religious aspect is not only the media but a meeting there must be cooperation of both parts of the state facilities and most importantly limiting arms possession only state you can not eliminate terrorism and violence, and we see people carrying arms without the name of the state and remains somewhat carefree is sincerity honesty and patriotism the most important motivation for the elimination of violence and terrorism and cooperation between parts of the Iraqi people and not be driven by a regional or global international schemes want to kill nations and kill our bodies of Sunnis, sheei , Christians, Sabean and Yazidi and others.

The Meritocratization of Civil Society

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Bovens ◽  
Anchrit Wille
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Third Sector ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Advocacy Groups ◽  
Interest Representation ◽  
The People ◽  
Professional Advocacy ◽  
Education Gap

Civil society organizations are, if not schools, at least pools of democracy. In the ‘third sector’, too, active engagement and participation ‘by the people’ have given way to meritocracy, or, in other words, to rule by the well-educated. Many popularly rooted mass organizations have witnessed a decline in membership and political influence. Their role as intermediary between politics and society has been taken over by professionally managed advocacy groups that operate with university educated public affairs consultants. First, the chapter describes the associational revolution, the enormous increase in the number of civil society organizations. Then it in analyses the education gap in membership and the shift from large membership organizations to lean professional advocacy groups, which has occurred over the past three decades. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the net effect of this meritocratization of civil society for political participation and interest representation.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Arneil
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Rural Land ◽  
Internal Colonialism ◽  
Key Terms

Chapter 1 defines the volume’s key terms: domestic colonization as the process of segregating idle, irrational, and/or custom-bound groups of citizens by states and civil society organizations into strictly bounded parcels of ‘empty’ rural land within their own nation state in order to engage them in agrarian labour and ‘improve’ both the land and themselves and domestic colonialism as the ideology that justifies this process, based on its economic (offsets costs) and ethical (improves people) benefits. The author examines and differentiates her own research from previous literatures on ‘internal colonialism’ and argues that her analysis challenges postcolonial scholarship in four important ways: colonization needs to be understood as a domestic as well as foreign policy; people were colonized based on class, disability, and religious belief as well as race; domestic colonialism was defended by socialists and anarchists as well as liberal thinkers; and colonialism and imperialism were quite distinct ideologies historically even if they are often difficult to distinguish in contemporary postcolonial scholarship—put simply—the former was rooted in agrarian labour and the latter in domination. This chapter concludes with a summary of the remaining chapters.

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