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Abstract
Although civil societies in Central and Eastern Europe are often portrayed as similar, united by a shared communist past, they have developed along increasingly divergent trajectories over the past three decades. This article investigates the current state of civil society in the region and the role the institutional context plays in it. Drawing on historical institutionalism and the process of European integration, we classify the 14 countries under investigation into three distinct groups and analyze data from a survey of more than 350 local civil society experts. We find that, together with domestic governments, international donors and the EU are perceived as the most influential institutional actors for civil society organizations. Their respective influences, however, depend largely on a country’s stage in the EU accession process. Overall, the study provides a differentiated mapping of civil society in this region and a better understanding of how the institutional context relates to a country’s civil society.
Highlights
Over the last three decades, civil society in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has developed with unprecedented dynamism
The legacy of the Euoprean Union (EU) accession process is still visible in the institutional context, but domestic institutions are slowly emerging as significant players
We have directed our attention toward the role of both domestic and foreign institutional forces, and identified patterns common to groups of countries
Summary
Over the last three decades, civil society in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has developed with unprecedented dynamism. While it has experienced strong growth throughout the region, with the number of civil society organizations (CSOs) increasing sharply, the trajectories and roles of the different civil societies (CS) have varied significantly since the collapse of communist regimes (Ekiert and Kubik 2014; Vandor et al 2017).. Despite the large number of studies investigating the state of CS in individual CEE countries, there has been little comparative research offering a contemporary perspective on the role of CS across the region (Salamon et al 2004; Toepler and Salamon 2003), and even less work that tries to understand the divergent developments. We still find rather homogenous depictions of CS across CEE
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