The Counter-Associational Revolution: The Rise, Spread & Contagion of Restrictive Civil Society Laws in Democratic States

Abstract

"Why and to what extent are democratic states, including long-standing, consolidated democratic states, adopting legislation that restricts the ability of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) to operate autonomous from government control? This phenomenon is common and expected in authoritarian countries, but surprising in the context of democracies, which have historically championed and funded an independent civil society. This paper maps the full scope and spread of the so-called 'closing space phenomenon' within the world's strongest democratic states. This phenomenon has been extensively mapped in the context of non-democracies but, until now, not in democracies, which alters the conventional wisdom about why this global trend has gained traction and momentum since the turn of the twenty-first century."