The Shrinking Space for Civil Society in Europe

Long considered a problem of ‘third countries’, concerns about ‘shrinking civil society space’ have moved to the heart of the European Union: confronted with the challenges of domestic terrorism, financial crisis and populist government numerous member states have passed legislation constraining civil society organizations (CSOs) (e.g.

EC 2018; CoE 2018; FRA 2018).

Indeed, since the early 2000s, government control over and repression of civil society increased in 2/3rds of member states.

This project proposes the first theoretization and comprehensive assessment of the drivers and repercussions of the ‘shrinking of legal space’ for CSOs in the EU. It asks:How and why have EU member states altered the legal environments of CSOs over the last two decades?

How do legal differences shape CSO activities central to assuring legal and political equality within organized civil society?The theoretical framework on the drivers and organizational repercussions of ‘legally defined’ civil society space will be examined through a sophisticated, interdisciplinary, mixed-methods design.

Work package 1 examines the impact on CSO law of major challenges (domestic terrorism, financial crises, populist governments) as mediated by member states’ historically grown dispositions towards or against restricting civil society.

This is done through the first comprehensive statistical assessment of the changing legal restrictiveness in both framework legislation and ‘organization-specific legal regimes’ tailored to six CSO types (e.g. unions, religious, pro-immigrant CSOs) in 12 EU member states (2000-22).

On that basis, Work package 2 examines in a subset of six countries through qualitative case studies how public authorities implement CSO legislation and through large-scale CSO surveys with an in-built experiment CSOs’ political engagement and their resistance against government through public contestation and legal action considering law-conforming and chilling effects of regulation.