Shrinking Space for Civil Society
Shrinking Space is a term which is coined more and more often among Civil Society Organisations and even some government departments in some countries dare to confirm there is a shrinking space for Civil Society to operate. The organisations then mainly talk about situations in the so-called less developed countries of the world.
Interesting is also the countermovement which is slowly coming up. In this counter movement organisations, nations and international institutions are promoting an "enabling environment".
Much has been written already about Shrinking Space for Civil Society. Below you will find some interesting sources regarding the topic:
- Civicus has written a report in 2013: "Global trends on civil society restrictions; Mounting restrictions on civil society: the gap between rhetoric and reality". And following that report, they started the Civic Space Initiative, hosted by ICNL (more info can also be found with CIVICUS), which aims at protecting and expanding civic space by fostering an enabling legal environment for civil society.
- Transnational Institute has written (7 April 2017) a framing paper in order to clarify the terminology surrounding Shrinking Space.
- This year (in June 2017), Partos (The Spindle) and The Broker published the trend report 'Activism, Artivism and Beyond: Inspiring initiatives of civic power'.
