Description
This panel is composed of five papers that discuss civil society in the context of localisation of experiences and narrowing of civil society spaces through for example raising of external barriers with long term consequences for how CSOs operate. The papers seek to explore what this means by showcasing a range of case studies that focus on individual experiences and global policy procedures – the papers ask not only whether INGOs, as global actors, are being excluded from valuable public dialogues, but also whether they themselves inadvertently act as those doing the excluding.
The first paper on the securitization of civil society space in the aftermath of Kenya’s terrorist attack in 2013 looks at the potential implications of this policy in countering violent extremism. The second paper discusses a case study of how an authoritarian regime, Venezuela, can function as a constrain (or empower) transnational campaigns tracing how frames are transferred from advocacy networks to global governance networks and what effect this may have on campaign outcomes. The third paper shifts the focus inwards with a thick description of NGOs moral quality based on individual’s social experiences of ethical development. The fourth paper is a case study of Cameroon that explores marginalised voices in development and evaluates trusting relationships between Western and local actors. The fifth and final paper looks at the importance of democratic norms from external actors using Hungary and Czech as case studies to explore the role civil society organisations played during EU accession.
