The Resilient Civil Society Project
Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) such as NGOs, charities, citizen groups, unions, associations of professionals and businesses – play a key role in democracies. This essential function can be strained significantly during crises, which can inhibit the political activities of these organisations, disrupting their ability to mobilise members, engage in advocacy and lobbying, and attract funding.
The challenge of bringing these activities back up to ‘full capacity’ may last well beyond the crisis, potentially producing bias in the participatory democracy process, in which only the strongest organisations are best-equipped to compete. Therefore, CSOs’ resilience amid crisis circumstances, viewed as their ability to survive crises and restore their representation capacity, is an essential element of a healthy participatory democracy.
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The Resilient Civil Society Project (ReCiv) therefore examines CSO resilience in times of crisis.
With a survey-based analysis of CSOs’ activities in nine European countries and the EU, as well as a series of elite interviews and focus groups with CSO representatives in four countries, this project aims to answer the following research question: How does the European community of CSOs survive and adapt to different types of crises?
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For more information about the project and project team, see the project's website.