How to (NOT) Engage with Authoritarian States Recap
On Thursday, PartnersGlobal attended a talk on How to (NOT) Engage with Authoritarian States by Nicholas Cheeseman, Professor of Democracy and International Development at the University of Birmingham, UK, organized by the USAIDās Bureau for Democracy Rights and Governance Evidence and Learning Talk Series. Prof. Cheeseman pointed out important limitations and risks of current efforts by donors to bypass central governments, seen as the source of authoritarianism, and instead focus on strengthening civil society:
- Civil society actors do not always represent pro-democratic forces and can be co-opted or subverted by the state, in which case it would be counterproductive to support them.
- Donorās increasing focus on civic actors could encourage authoritarian leaders to further restrict and manipulate civic structures, for instance by introducing stricter anti-NGO legislation.
PartnersGlobalās USAID-funded Powered by the People project avoids these pitfalls by:
- Supporting a broader range of civil actors than just the traditional CSOs, such as trade unions, religious groups or journalists;
- Prioritizing social movements;
- Adjusting funding mechanism to provide social movements the flexibility and āno stringsā that they require.
- Encouraging civil society actors to work with, not against their governments, when pushing for democratic reforms.
PartnersGlobal looks forward to potentially collaborating with Dr. Cheesemanās to support nonviolent social movements to be more resilient.