Civil society under pressure: historical legacies and current responses in Central Eastern Europe

The Covid-19 pandemic places us in a position, in which not only our body’s immune system but also the very foundations of liberalism and liberal democracy are endangered. The rigorous emergency measures globally implemented by governments have made existing ruptures visible. The corona crisis exposes the fragility of national constitutions, the insufficiencies of supranational decision-making and the limits of regional cooperation, as well as the conflicting understandings of the rule of law and democracy among member states of the European Union (EU). The longer this crisis continues, the more we realize the crucial role of civil society in evaluating the measures implemented by elites, channelling social discontent in the public sphere, and demanding civic participation, irrespective of the pandemic. Observing controversial legislation and empowerment, particularly in Central East and South East Europe during the high-speed dynamics of the corona crisis, we need to understand the long-term developments and historical contexts shaping present challenges. The editors and the authors here attempt to analyse the historical legacies of current weaknesses of civil society in Central Eastern Europe (CEE), as well as to identify strategies to improve its resilience.

Evidence of strong civic participation in CEE throughout the 1980s as well as positive prognoses after the countries’ EU accessions led to short-term optimism about developments in the region, a late-born child of modernization theories. The recent illiberal turn of governments challenges these normative concepts on directional developmental paths. Political and opinion leaders in EU member states such as Hungary, Poland, and Bulgaria contest civil society participation and oversight of democratic institutions with increasing intensity. Through disinformation campaigns and digital pillories, the voices of environmentalists, human/gender rights and democracy advocates and their organizations have been defamed. Their efforts to assure social equalities are described as abnormal and against the interests of the nation. Liberal democratic values such as tolerance, humanism, and respect for civil society actors are being replaced by illiberal ideas of isolation, national superiority, and the exclusion of minorities. A popular rhetoric of denial and marginalization looms large, reducing public sensitivity towards pressure against entire sectors of civil society. Pejorative hate-speech labels like foreign agents, Sorosoids, green racketeers, liberasts or EuroGays are spreading within, and increasingly, beyond social media platforms and digital media outlets thereby establishing a counter-public against the so-called “traditional media”. Various legal measures, targeted controls, and skewed relocation of state funding severely undermine the existence of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in these countries (Mesežnikov, Gyárfášová, and Smilov 2008; Kabakchieva and Kurzydlowski 2012; Vandor et al. 2017; Warso and Godzisz 2016; Wessenauer and Hunyadi 2016; Human Rights First 2017). Ostracism against civil society is not new in European history, though.

Not only does it resurface in various circumstances but it also follows the scope for action delimited by historically embedded practices and path-dependent institutional settings. Along with various crises of the liberal narrative, the notion of civil society has followed a long and bumpy road. Governments of both western and eastern countries have tried to silence demands for transparency and civil rights, be it to permit the undisturbed strengthening of oligarchical structures, or in the course of fighting terrorism effectively. But it was CEE which was singled out for the deficiencies of the post-soviet civil sector, explaining weaknesses through the historical legacies of state-socialism that among other things hamper the development of political and social trust (Narozhna 2004; Arndt and Gawin 2008). An alternative narrative has underlined the robustness of alternative civil society in the final years of state socialism (Lomax 1997; Staniszkis 1999; Howard 2003). However, more recently, attention has shifted to a more multi-factor analysis pointing precisely at unintended consequences of the attempts to mitigate the post-soviet legacy from outside, on the one hand, and at the robustness of that bygone legacy on the other.

In CEE, the history of the involvement of foreign donors and the agency of transnational bodies has taken its toll in the present difficulties of civil society. Social detachment of donor-driven organizations is grist to the mill of populist re-assertion of state sovereignty. By examining cross-border networks and identifying strategies of pressuring and alliance-building, it became clear that the unsettling of non-profit organizations (NGOs) can develop further as a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the channels between the state and its domestic actors are blocked, a “boomerang pattern of influence” may emerge: “domestic NGOs bypass their state and directly search out international allies to try to bring pressure on their states from outside” (Keck and Sikkink 2014, 20). Nationalist self-assertion willingly builds upon local cultural resources and identities potentially hostile to foreignness and difference. No wonder then, that foreign pressure is rendered as an encroachment against national values and dignity. Thus, the current tendencies of top-down renationalization create a contradictory situation in which civil society actors are positioned against the nation (allegedly embodied by the state).

Other studies examine activities not fitting into the idealized picture of associational life or of NGOs proselytizing liberal values. Commentators have pointed out the excessive “NGOization” fuelled by externally implemented schemes but have also exposed the blind spots of civil society research by focusing more on groups that stayed aside (Jacobsson and Saxonberg 2013). Various forms of “uncivil society” and contentious politics entered the scope of interest (Kopecky and Mudde 2012), along with intensified study of the legacies left by associational life during socialism (Rittersporn and Behrends 2003; Lane 2005; Ekiert and Kubik 2014). Also, the historical legacies were brought back in, however predominantly as narrow case studies (Lewis 1992; Hildermeier, Kocka, and Conrad 2000; Götz and Hackmann 2003; Rittersporn and Behrends 2003; Pollack and Wielgohs 2004; Hackmann and Roth 2011). Even if warnings of backsliding and shrinking spaces increase (Szuleka 2018), scholars seldom address comparative long-term developments or suggest lessons learned from previous experiences (Jacobsson and Korolczuk 2019).

The editors of this issue side with the literature which argues that what came after state socialism was not a rebirth of civil society from scratch, but a process within which “new and old organizational forms and types of civic engagement coexist, combine, and sometimes compete within a transforming political, social and economic environment” (Jacobsson and Korolczuk 2017, 6). Such a refocus stimulated the revisiting of theoretical categories in favour of a more descriptive, and non-normative understanding of civil society. Facing new challenges by illiberal pressures, civil society research requires more systematic reflection, cross-case, comparative and transnational perspectives, as well as historical background. Correspondingly, the authors of this issue seek to contextualize anti-civil society moves by identifying the historical roots of mobilization potentials and examining the different legacies of the public spheres in the region. Covering Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia this issue shows how multidisciplinary approaches, both comparative and case-oriented, foster an exposition of the historical unfolding of the present practices of civil society under pressure.

In this vein, Wiktor Marzec (Institute for Social Studies, University of Warsaw, Poland) refers the current discretization of NGO-based civil society in Poland, Hungary, and Bulgaria back to its historical development, from the emergence of the modern political sphere till today. In all three countries, civil society actors have been facing a long history of instrumentalization by competing elites. The author’s comprehensive analysis of the respective evolving public spheres reveals significant differences between the countries and deepens the understanding of the historical social cleavages behind current conflicts around CSOs. This paper provides also a broad historical review of existing knowledge on civil society in these three countries, serving as a background for other contributions, too.

As a follow up analysing the impact of historical legacies of civic participation in comparative perspective, István Kollai (Corvinus University, Budapest, Hungary) examines the diverging political traditions of Hungary and Slovakia since 1989/90. Long-term political divisions delimit the possibilities for civic initiatives and influence participation in elections. Whereas Hungary has developed a strong antagonism between traditionalism and modernism, such a binary dichotomy of political camps has not been dominant in Slovakia. Kollai shows how the electoral successes of “independent”, civic candidates in local elections are directly conditioned by historically entrenched ideological cleavages.

Other research registered an impact going in a different direction, too. Local civic candidates in Hungary did shape the popular resonance of civic ideas. The civil society master frame, which considers CSOs as agents of democratic transition can be dated back to the 1970s and is widely used in the interpretations of social movements in CEE. Nevertheless, the actual resonance of this frame within the Hungarian population has not been studied efficiently so far. Based on an opinion poll comprising a representative sample of 1,000 people Dániel Mikecz (Hungarian Academy of Science, Budapest, Hungary) shows a significant discrepancy between civil society’s political and civil roles as envisioned among citizens. His findings demonstrate that the civil society master frame is not widely spread within the population. This frame is indeed active but only among left-oriented citizens with a moderate level of education in mid-sized towns, where CSOs have been active in local politics since the transformation. With his study, Mikecz reveals a discrepancy with severe consequences for the mobilization opportunities of social movements in present-day Hungary.

In turn, Sophie Schmalenberger (Aarhus University, Denmark) reverses the perspective and studies the perceptions regarding the EU as a supranational opportunity structure among NGO practitioners in Hungary. Based on several qualitative interviews with civil society actors in Hungary, she identifies the extent to which the EU may serve as a resource and partner in counteraction against domestic anti-democratic backsliding. Not only does Schmalenberger’s research prove that the existing perceptions function in terms of dichotomies like periphery–centre but she also detects a lack of ideological identification with the goals and values of the EU among actors of CSOs. This reveals some crucial limits of reliability and effectiveness affecting EU processes and support measures for NGOs.

Summing up, the authors of this thematic issue reconstruct different paths of development of CSOs in the region, focusing on historical embedding and lessons learned, yet not neglecting their unintended contribution to the establishment of illiberal hegemony. The articles seek to explore long-term legacies as well as short-term changes and reshufflings throughout the system transformation and EU accession. By analysing public spheres, political labelling and rhetoric the authors question normative concepts that suggest the EU as a resource and partner. The authors also present the side-effects of an increasingly globalized and transnationally active civil society. The cleavages, dividing lines and continuities identified track east-west perceptions, centre-periphery relations as well as the antagonisms of elites in the region. With this thematic issue, the editors and authors hope to contribute to transnational and interdisciplinary debate and to foster a dialogue between previously disconnected areas of expertise.

Acknowledgments

The articles for this issue were gathered within the framework of the project “Remembering Europe: Civil Society Under Pressure Again”, implemented by the BlueLink Foundation with co-funding from the EU’s Europe for Citizens Programme. No responsibility for the content of the articles could in any way be attributed to the Education, Audiovisual, and Culture Executive Agency and the European Commission. The authors presented and discussed their papers during a workshop organized in December 2017 by the BlueLink Foundation, the Department of History of the Central European University and PASTS Inc. in Budapest. We would like to thank Pavel Antonov for the initial push and ideas which made this publication possible.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Wiktor Marzec

Wiktor Marzec was educated at the Central European University, Budapest. He is an Assistant Professor and project leader in The Robert Zajonc Institute for Social Studies, University of Warsaw, Poland. Currently he runs a comparative project on political trajectories of the late tsarist borderlands. He is the author of Rising Subjects. The 1905 Revolution and the Origins of Modern Polish Politics (Pittsburgh UP, 2020).

Daniela Neubacher

Daniela Neubacher studied Journalism and Communications in Graz and Saint Petersburg. After working in both fields, she completed a Masters in Central European Studies at the Andrássy University in Budapest. Currently, she is a Ph.D. candidate in history, focusing on cross-border protest movements and environmentalism in Central Eastern Europe during the 1980s. Since 2018 she has been working as a research associate at the Institute of the Danube Region and Central Europe (IDM).