Research framework and broader academic knowledge base
Serbia: documented application of the same framework
How can government-controlled organizations appear to represent citizens?
The government can establish, finance or privilege an organization bearing the name of a civic initiative, professional association or independent movement. Such a group receives media space, participates in public debates and says that the government listens to society, while at the same time suppressing authentic organizations that ask unpleasant questions.
Members do not all have to be dishonest; the organization can also do useful work, but its border becomes visible when it should oppose the financier or protect critics. State funding in itself is not proof of control and many independent groups legitimately use public money. One should look at who chooses the leadership, whether the sources and criteria are public, whether the organization can change its attitude and what happens to it when it publishes a finding that the authorities do not suit.
State money does not automatically prove that the government controls the organization. It is important who makes the decisions, how much funding is public and what happens after the criticism.
Works supporting this answer, with their evidence type and an explanation of how they relate to the claim.
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Toepler, S., Zimmer, A., Fröhlich, C. i Obuch, K. (2020), „The Changing Space for NGOs: Civil Society in Authoritarian and Hybrid Regimes“, VOLUNTAS 31: 649–662.
- Contribution to this answer
- Toepler and co-authors show how selective policy towards civil society changes what the public sees as a “civil society” in general: regime-loyal organizations and service providers can gain support and access to power, while politically demanding organizations are suppressed. Thus, public space can be full of organizations, and the most independent voices have the least space.
Explain how the system works
Teets, J. C. (2014), Civil Society under Authoritarianism: The China Model, Cambridge University Press.
- Contribution to this answer
- Teets shows how the government can open real channels of consultations with citizens and organizations, and still maintain control over the borders of this participation. The organization can therefore authentically convey some of the needs of citizens, but without being able to decide for itself which political borders it can cross.
Analysis of the work of organizations in China
Spires, A. J. (2011), „Contingent Symbiosis and Civil Society in an Authoritarian State: Understanding the Survival of China’s Grassroots NGOs“, American Journal of Sociology 117(1): 1–45.
- Contribution to this answer
- Spires is more important here as a fence: an organization that works under authoritarian rule is not an automatic regime organization. Its Chinese grassroots NGOs can be really independent and useful to citizens, but they survive until they turn their actions into open democratic demands. It is only from the fact that the state suffers them that we can not conclude that they are completely free or that they are “false voice of citizens”.
review more research
Rutzen, D. (2015), „Authoritarianism Goes Global (II): Civil Society Under Assault“, Journal of Democracy 26(4): 28–39.
- Contribution to this answer
- Rutzen shows how limiting funding and registration can change which organizations can speak out. His work is not about organizations that the government has made, but explains how a repressive environment can leave more space for those who are more willing to accept it.
research in universities
Yan, X. (2014), „Engineering Stability: Authoritarian Political Control over University Students in Post-Deng China“, China Quarterly 218: 493–513.
- Contribution to this answer
- Yan shows how the Chinese state builds the entire institutional infrastructure within the university to produce political obedience and control student space. It is a useful example that formal structures of student participation exist within a system designed for political control but the work is not primarily the study of organizations that present themselves as independent “voice students”.
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