Resisting World Culture: The Rise of Legal Restrictions on Foreign Funding to NGOs, 1994-2015

• In Event: 3255 - Human Rights

Abstract

The decades since the 1990s have witnessed a wave-like rise in restrictions on foreign funding to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). At least 60 countries have implemented laws tightening restrictions against foreign funding to NGOs at least once, and several have enacted multiple kinds of restrictions in recent years (e.g. India, China, and Russia). We use event history analyses to consider domestic and global explanations for the rise of legal restrictions on foreign funding to NGOs over the period 1994 to 2015 in countries worldwide. Our findings show evidence of increasing resistance towards globally-linked civil society groups – the primary carriers of liberal world society (see Meyer et al 1997; Boli & Thomas, 1997; 1999; Schofer & Longhofer, 2011). Our study makes several contributions to research examining the expanding opposition to global liberal and neoliberal institutions. Empirically, we extend existing data on civil society restrictions to 2015 and go beyond prior statistical analyses with an expanded set of explanatory factors. Conceptually, we develop social and cultural explanations for a growing backlash against global civil society.

Authors

• Patricia Bromley, University of Utah

• Wesley Longhofer, Emory University

• Evan Schofer, University of California-Irvine