Replace, Reduce, Reframe: How Civil Society Organizations in Central and Eastern Europe Responded to Multiple Institutional Pressures

• In Event: Institutional Theory and Civil Society Organizations in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

Between 2010 and 2019, populist political parties gained prominence in Central and Eastern Europe, while donor funding for civil society in the region stopped or decreased. Civil society organizations (CSOs) responded to hostile political rhetoric and decreased funding in three ways: reducing their activities and operations, replacing lost funding and operating in the same way, or reframing their mission and activities to increase legitimacy and resources. Yet it wasn’t the most precarious CSOs that reduced activities nor the most politically targeted that reframed. To understand these outcomes, I employ institutional theories on how organizations respond to multiple pressures. I find that specific combinations of four organizational attributes determined how CSOs responded: the organization’s identity; its strength and position in its field; its structure and governance; and the skills and prior knowledge of its leadership. My research is based on semi-structured interviews with 58 CSO representatives from a subset of 225 organizations across three countries that lost funding from a donor, the Trust for Civil Society in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE Trust). I profile CSOs from each country that exemplified reduce, replace, and reframe or fell outside these categories. The patterns I find contribute to studies of civil society resilience and sustainability as well as offer implications for scholars and practitioners about civil society’s role in hindering democratic erosion.

Author

• Merrill Sovner