Contested Civic Spaces in Liberal Democracies

Strachwitz Rupert Graf and Toepler Stefan ()
Additional contact information
Strachwitz Rupert Graf: Director, Maecenata Institute for Philanthropy and Civil Society, Berlin, Germany
Toepler Stefan: Professor, Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University, Arlington, VA, USA

Nonprofit Policy Forum, 2022, vol. 13, issue 3, 179-193

Abstract: In this introductory essay for the special issue on contested spaces in liberal democracies, we review how and to what extent the closing or shrinking space debate that has influenced the civil society discourse in authoritarian contexts presents an appropriate mode of analysis for similar, disconcerting developments that have been observed in liberal democracies. In particular, recent changes in Germany, Austria, Israel, and Greece are covered in this issue. We suggest that while shrinking space mechanisms are observable, civil society is nevertheless experiencing new activism and growth. In contrast to authoritarian regimes, spaces in liberal democracies are increasingly contested reflecting both a politization of issues that nonprofits, NGOs or CSOs are working on, such as migration and climate change, but also a new civic agency that expands the political dimensions of civil society, embracing its more political functions beyond traditional service delivery.

Keywords: shrinking space; civil society; democracy; politization; contestation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/npf-2022-0026 (text/html)
For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:nonpfo:v:13:y:2022:i:3:p:179-193:n:2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/npf/html

DOI: 10.1515/npf-2022-0026

Access Statistics for this article

Nonprofit Policy Forum is currently edited by Dennis Young

More articles in Nonprofit Policy Forum from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().