The ‘dark side’ of organizational resilience: The civil society sector in Croatia

ABSTRACT

This article explores the challenges experienced by civil society organizations (CSOs) in Croatia, as magnified during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the strategies they use to mitigate their effects. ‘Organisational resilience' is discussed based on interviews with CSO representatives from four fields: contemporary arts and culture, environmental protection, women's rights, and educational/youth organizations. Three themes are developed: the ‘normality' of crisis, established practices of resilience, and emergent practices of resilience. Although the pandemic was experienced as a major disruption, there is a lingering sense of persistent crisis in the civil society sector which is constituted by many tribulations: wars and economic crises, piercing insecurity due to lack of stable funding and an antagonistic political climate. Established practices of resilience that help organizations stay afloat encapsulate financial ingenuity, caring about one's work, and good relations within and outside of the organization. Emergent practices include strengthening technology infrastructure and use, establishing a trade union for CSO workers, but also charging for services. The advocacy role of CSOs seems dimmed and their ability to help others comes at the expense of their founding values and personal wellbeing. This suggests a ‘dark’ side to organizational resilience, a concept frequently used to signal a positive ability.

KEYWORDS:

• Civil society organizations
• crisis
• COVID-19
• resilience
• established practices of resilience
• emergent practices

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data Availability Statement

The data are not publicly available due to ethical concerns. Interviewees consented to the interviews provided the transcripts are only made available to the research team. This work has been supported by the Croatian Science Foundation under the project number IP-CORONA-2020-04-2044.

Notes

1 This particular small town is not named for the sake of the CSO’s anonymity.

2 The interviewee refers to the Homeland war in Croatia (1991–1995).

3 The interviewee refers to Franjo Tuđman (centre right party president from 1992 to 1999), first president to be elected after the fall of socialism, as well as former President Stjepan Mesić (social-liberal party president from 2000 to 2010), current President Zoran Milanović (social democratic party) and current Prime Minister Andrej Plenković (centre right party).

4 In particular the migrant wave from Middle Eastern, African and South Asian countries towards the European Union that started in 2015, spurred particularly by the war in Syria. This was the first time that Croatia experienced mostly transit migrations in great numbers, which prompted a humanitarian crisis managed both by the state and CSOs. Floods hit Croatia and other South-European countries in 2014 and earthquakes hit the central regions of Croatia in March and December 2020.

5 This resonates with research from Austria which reports financial ingenuity and flexibility in recovery from pandemic-caused financial stress (Meyer et al., 2021). Although the Austrian government secured emergency funding for the civil sector, because of bureaucratic ambiguity and lack of transparency, some CSOs had to fend for themselves, which included, among other things, offering new services and finding new funding sources (ibid.). However, there is no account of financial struggle as a continuous practice in Austria, which seems to be a permanent state for Croatian CSOs.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Hrvatska Zaklada za Znanost: [Grant Number IP-CORONA-2020-04-2044].