The Associational Counter-Revolution: The Spread of Restrictive Civil Society Laws in the World’s Strongest Democratic States

Governments worldwide are using legal and extra-legal restrictions to limit civil society organizations' (CSOs) organizational autonomy. The conventional approach has studied this concerning global phenomenon in mostly autocratic and non-democratic societies. Those research designs produce many intuitive findings because we expect non-democratic governments to erect and impose illiberal policies. In this brave and refreshing analysis, Chrystie F. Swiney uses a robust legal approach to understand why and to what extent democratic governments—including consolidated democracies such as the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom—enact laws that restrict CSOs' ability to operate autonomously from government control. Swiney uses an interdisciplinary and multi-methodological approach to study consolidated democracies' use of CSO laws from 1990-2018. In so doing, she makes important theoretical and methodological contributions to the little-noticed but enormously consequential global phenomenon that could be fueling the democratic backsliding we are witnessing today. Her work also shows the value of both thoughtful case selection and using primary data to answer big and important research questions. Ideal for scholars, international development practitioners, human rights defenders, and students interested in global or international affairs, “The Associational Counter-Revolution” is a detailed analysis that provides rich data about government-CSO interactions in an accessible and original manner.

Dr. Anthony DeMattee

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, National Science Foundation

Political Science Department, Emory University