Not All NGOs are Treated Equally: Selectivity in Civil Society Management in China and Russia

Abstract

How do autocrats manage civil society? I develop a typology of authoritarian responses to civil society and show how leaders employ selective policies to adjudicate among risks and benefits in the third sector. Using data on laws managing foreign support of civil society in China and Russia, I find evidence of selective implementation that reveals which groups are seen as threatening or beneficial. While there are some similarities across the two countries, I find a divergence in their response to environmental groups, who are selectively repressed or neglected in Russia but selectively encouraged or co-opted in China. Using fieldwork interviews, I conduct a case study to show that while environmental groups in both countries pose some risk, the key difference is their perceived benefit.

Stay or exit: How do international nongovernmental organizations respond to institutional pressures under authoritarianism?

“…The regulatory crackdown is particularly salient in authoritarian regimes where organized periodic free and fair elections are absent and civil society's vertical linkages with the state rather than horizontal networks with society are encouraged (Heiss, 2019). Authoritarian regimes must balance the risks and benefits of civil society and thus face the dilemma between liberalization and control (Plantan, 2021). When the perceived threat outweighs benefits, the logic of control prevails.…”

Candidate Filtering: The Strategic Use of Electoral Manipulations in Russia

“…By disguising institutional manipulations as normal lawmaking, they make it harder for citizens to detect flaws in the electoral process, while also depriving challengers of legal recourse and focal points for co-ordinating collective action (Tucker 2007). Selectively rejecting challengers also encourages and supports regime loyalists, akin to how the Russian government regulates non-governmental organization activity (Plantan 2019). My argument builds on similar work by Klaas (2015) and Cheeseman and Klaas (2018) to argue that electoral exclusion can help a regime manage reputational risks when tampering with elections.…”