scholarly journals Civil society, peacebuilding from below and shrinking civic space: the case of Cameroon’s ‘Anglophone’ conflict

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Nancy Annan ◽  
Maurice Beseng ◽  
Gordon Crawford ◽  
James Kiven Kewir
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Civic Space

scholarly journals The Impact of Neoliberalism on Civil Society and Nonprofit Advocacy

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Alexander ◽  
Kandyce Fernandez
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Representative Democracy ◽  
Pivotal Role ◽  
Political Advocacy ◽  
Critical Inquiry ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Civic Space ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Nonprofit Advocacy

AbstractThe following manuscript employs critical inquiry to analyze the effects of neoliberalism on nonprofits in the U.S. and their capacity to engage in political advocacy and the production of meaning, a pivotal role for civil society institutions. Three false narratives of how nonprofits support democracy are presented followed by a discussion of how neoliberalism and the economization of the sector has delimited their capacity to fulfill their roles of engaging in emancipatory projects or social change. The manuscript concludes with a discussion of how nonprofits can reclaim civic space and empower citizens in a representative democracy.

‘Public Service’ in a Globalised Digital Landscape

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingrid Volkmer
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Global Citizenship ◽  
Global Civil Society ◽  
Public Communication ◽  
Civic Space ◽  
Digital Landscape

This chapter calls for the need to begin the debate on the requirements of national public service media in the new discursive scopes of public ‘civic’ communication. In other words, it is necessary to begin to assess public service as no longer being only in the normative national parameter of territorial ‘boundedness’, but as a much needed civic space within today's sphere of globalised public communication. The BBC's public remit is still embedded in a bounded conception of the nation. For example, one aim of the BBC's remit is to sustain citizenship and civil society. However, given today's networked structures of communication, citizenship is also perceived as global citizenship, and relates not only to national responsibilities but rather to new responsibilities in a global civil society.

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 Why Attacks on Civic Space Matter in Strasbourg: The European Convention on Human Rights, Civil Society and Civic Space

2019 ◽  
pp. 13-37
Author(s):  
Antoine Buyse
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Case Law ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Judicial Decision ◽  
Judicial Decision Making ◽  
European Court ◽  
Civic Space ◽  
Work First

This article explores the role of the European Convention on Human Rights in addressing the issue of attacks on civic space, but also the potential effects of shrinking civic space on Strasbourg’s work. First, an overview of the notions of civil society and civic space is given, linking these concepts to democracy and human rights. Subsequently, the formal and informal roles for civil society in the judicial decision-making are discussed. Finally, the substantive protection offered to civil society and civic space under the ECHR and the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights is analysed. This article argues that the differentiations in theory on the varying contributions of civil society to democracy and human rights are to a large extent reflected in Strasbourg jurisprudence. Even more importantly, the ECHR system and civil society benefit from each other. This is why the current attacks on civic space are not just a problem for civil society itself, but also for the work of the European Court: it is submitted that a shrinking of civic space can also negatively affect the Strasbourg system, as the two are intertwined to a considerable extent.Received: 06 July 2019Accepted: 10 October 2019Published online: 20 December 2019

scholarly journals Centre-staging citizenship, power and communities in accountability discourses: An overview

2021 ◽  
pp. 273-278
Author(s):  
Sathyasree Goswami ◽  
E Premdas Pinto
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Health It ◽  
The Core ◽  
State Actors ◽  
Health Rights ◽  
Civic Space

This paper distils the key insights from thematic and inter-thematic deliberations of the Global Symposium on Citizenship, Governance and Accountability in Health. It describes the evolution of the symposium theme on linking accountability to citizenship and governance in health while providing an overview of the symposium. The paper further synthesises the key discussions of the core-themes, lays out analytical reflections that have emerged from the deliberations that touch upon the issues of power and politics surrounding accountability, viz civil society, democracy, power, civic space and the role of private non-state actors that affect health rights of the marginalised.

scholarly journals Navigating Civic Space in a Time of Covid: Synthesis Report

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anderson, Colin Anderson, Colin ◽  
Rosie McGee ◽  
Niranjan Nampoothiri ◽  
John Gaventa ◽  
Salvador Forquilha ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Emergency Relief ◽  
Global Trends ◽  
The Public ◽  
Civic Activism ◽  
Fundamental Freedoms ◽  
Synthesis Report ◽  
Civic Space

Since long before the Covid-19 pandemic emerged in 2020, civic space has been changing all over the globe, generally becoming more restricted and hazardous. The pandemic brought the suspension of many fundamental freedoms in the name of the public good, providing cover for a deepening of authoritarian tendencies but also spurring widespread civic activism on issues suddenly all the more important, ranging from emergency relief to economic impacts. Research partners in the Action for Empowerment and Accountability (A4EA)'s Navigating Civic Space in a Time of Covid project have explored these dynamics through real-time research embedded in civil society in Mozambique, Nigeria, and Pakistan, grounded in a close review of global trends.

scholarly journals Civil Society and Latent Mobilisation Under Authoritarian Neoliberal Governance

2021 ◽  
pp. 211-234
Author(s):  
Bilge Yabancı
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Class Politics ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Selective Approach ◽  
Neoliberal Governance ◽  
Left Movement ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Civic Space

AbstractThis chapter reflects on the impact of Turkey’s authoritarian neoliberal governance on the transformation of civil society with a particular focus on latent counter-mobilisation. The first section focuses on how Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (Justice and Development Party, AKP) has transformed civic space through a selective approach that switches between repression and facilitation. The AKP represses autonomous and dissident organisations and activists through judicial harassment and new regulations while facilitating the growth of a government-oriented civil society sector (GONGOs). The GONGOs fulfil two aims: softening the immediate effects of the state’s withdrawal from social provision and generating bottom-up consent for authoritarian neoliberal governance. The second section analyses resistance against the AKP’s authoritarian neoliberalism by focusing on the case of a unique social movement, Müslüman Sol hareket (Muslim Left movement), which fuses class politics with Islamic social justice. Based on insights from original fieldwork and interviews with activists conducted in 2018–2019 in Turkey, the discussion demonstrates that the syncretic amalgamation of socialism with Islamic justice has emerged at the unexpected intersections of ideologies and everyday experiences and challenges simultaneously the AKP’s neoliberal exploitation, instrumentalisation and politicisation of religion, and authoritarian governance.

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).

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