Democratization Archives - Importing Democracy

Revitalizing A Democratic Civil Society

January 17, 2025 by Julie Fisher

"Civil society remains robust in America. Just as in Tocqueville’s day, our tendency to form committees and associations to accomplish things is in our national DNA. Expect existing groups and new ones yet unborn to organize to preserve and strengthen the rule of law, fight against corruption and for free speech."

Mona Charen, The Bulwark

"Outsider movements win. Washington parties don’t."

Mat Bai

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/06/

How can we strengthen the broader democratic civil society in the United States, including its ties with the Democratic Party? The election of Donald Trump has caused me, as a retired political scientist, to re-examine the relevance to the United States of my own work on civil society and democracy in two struggling democracies and one authoritarian regime. Suddenly, and sadly, we are not so different from the rest of the world.

Eleven years ago I published Importing Democracy: The Role of NGOs in South Africa, Tajikistan, and Argentina, available here in a complimentary e-copy.

I used Marcos Perez Diaz’s definition of civil society as “markets, associations, and a sphere of public debate.” Within that definition are organizations promoting democracy locally or nationally, as well as an emerging media, increasingly online, that support discussions of democracy. And, not to leave out markets, If the Trump economic agenda increasingly focuses on support for large corporations and the oligarchs who lead them, it may be that smaller independent businesses will also become attracted to supporting democracy through civil society networks. They, as well as civil society organizations and the media, should be a target of outreach by the Democratic Party as it enlarges and re-thinks its mission.

I begin with the associational heart of American civil society. After the election, I heard Dr. Ruth Ben Ghiat, a historian at NYU who has written about autocracy, describe how the opposition to Trump since 2016 had helped create a massive pro-democracy movement in the United States, something that did not, she pointed out, arise in response to Mussolini in Italy in the 1920s.

In a conversation with former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, who is running for DNC Chair, Simon Rosenberg of Hopium Chronicles focused on the need for the Democratic Party to be connected to this wider democratic civil society. This should not mean, however, that everybody be connected to everybody. That would be a recipe for confusion and even failure. The Never-Trump Republicans, for example, may not want or need to connect with the Democratic Party. But networking does require greater awareness and strategic thinking about the most powerful and effective ties and alliances within this larger arena that wants to protect democracy.

There are hundreds of nonprofit organizations, both national and local, either more or less partisan, that are involved in promoting, and, now, trying to save democracy. Not all of them are effective, and not all use their online donations wisely, so the job of researching what they can achieve becomes more and more crucial.

Public Citizen, for example, in the face of a second Trump administration, will publicize and highlight conflicts of interest, ethical breaches, activate coalitions with other organizations to defend the rule of law, lobby to help block legislative agendas, legally challenge the new administration to obtain documents and block illegal actions, confront the use of emergency powers and violations of impoundment control act in court, and publicize the use of administrative law rules for “arbitrary and capricious” purposes. Another massive legal strategy is being developed by Michael Popok, a lawyer affiliated with the Meidas Plus Network. You can view it by clicking here.

State Democratic Party leaders such as Ben Wickler in Wisconsin, Anderson Clayton in North Carolina, and Martin O’Malley in Maryland are increasingly aware of the need for a more local civil society role. Law Forward in Wisconsin, for example, plans to continue its work on gerrymandering and flip the script on overly complicated voting rights. These leaders have been strongly supported by Simon Rosenberg, who leads Hopium Chronicles, an online network of over 154,000 members, many of whom donated to or volunteered for Democrats during the election.

State and local party leaders can work with Democratic governors as well as civil society organizations as they strengthen and refine their strategies for challenging the Trump administration. There are also national nonprofit organizations such as Run for Something and Dirt Road Democrats that target local activity but in many parts of the country.

Other major allies in the fight for democracy may not be so obvious. The many organizations that comprise the environmental movement are sharpening their legal strategies and pointing out that environmental groups won the vast majority of legal cases they brought against the first Trump administration. As Manish Bapna, CEO of the Natural Resource Defense Fund, observed about the first Trump Administration, “We brought 163 cases against Trump…We won 90%. Representing smaller [environmental] nonprofits in court may need to include training.”

The third part of this larger democratic civil society is the media or “sphere of public debate” that has emerged recently and, perhaps belatedly, in response to the extreme right takeover of online spaces and, even more recently, the MAGA containment of the mainstream media. New or strengthened democratic outlets such as Meidas Touch (now ahead of Fox News in Youtube ratings), Courier Newsroom, The Guardian, Daily Kos, Resolute Square, Crooked Media, and The Bulwark have recently been boosted by the new X rival Blue Skies. Other established media sources such as The Guardian also seem to be gaining prominence, as well as other kinds of outlets such as Deep State Radio. How both the Democratic Party and the associational parts of civil society respond to and support these outlets strategically, without trying to control them, will be important to watch.

Other pro-democracy communicators are on Substack, including, most prominently, Simon Rosenberg’s Hopium Chronicles, very important because it creates political activists who both contribute and volunteer. Rosenberg recently talked about fellow Substackers like Robert Hubbell, Heather Cox Richardson, and Yale professor Timothy Snyder. As Simon observed, “We’ve talked about the role we all have to play in working our networks each day, getting louder, and becoming more accomplished information warriors for our democracy. “

Here is more from Simon Rosenberg:

“First, the DNC and other state parties must become a central communications hub of the new opposition and produce high quality, modern, social, and YouTube content every day both advancing our ideas and leaders and challenging theirs. As some have mentioned here, elements of the social-based KamalaHQ should be brought into the DNC, and large gatherings of Dems along the lines of White Dudes For Harris should become a regular thing. Our party infrastructure simply has to take on a greater comms responsibility in the 20 months outside of the last 4 months of elections every two years, and large donors in our family should support this strategic evolution.”

When such measures are combined with greater awareness of the need for strategic networking, future victories for democracy will become more likely. Strategic networking needs to become a major priority for all of the actors in our democratic civil society, particularly the media. And it seems that the 2024 electoral defeat has brought this urgent priority to center stage.

* Here is an earlier overview of democratic civil society in the U.S. that I wrote, over a year before the election, called Dollars and Hours. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/can-you-help-save-democracy-julie-fisher-melton-ph-d-/

Democratization from Below: Civil Society in Tajikistan

March 20, 2023March 17, 2023 by Julie Fisher

Abstract

Over a decade ago, Fisher (2013) explored the role of NGOs in South Africa, Tajikistan, and Argentina. Despite continuing global autocratic trends since then, South Africa and Argentina have remained vibrant democracies with strong civil societies. Tajikistan, in contrast, remains autocratic, and civil society has apparently weakened in recent years. However, at the grassroots level, a combination of traditional grassroots organizations and internet organizing provides a more complex picture of the relationships between local participation, ties with other civil society organizations, democratization, and development. The purpose of this paper is to highlight both these relationships and the contrast between local democratization and national autocracy.

Introduction

From 1973, when the “Carnation Revolution” overthrew the fascist Estado Novo in Portugal, until the early 21st Century, democratization had a good run in much of the world. By the turn of the century, however, political scientists had already begun to write about the “global democratic recession”, a trend that has continued. Between 2005 and 2020 the number of “free” countries declined from 89 to 82 according to Freedom House (https://freedomhouse.org/countries/freedom-world/scores), while the number of “part free” countries (58-59) remained stable.

Based on extensive in-country fieldwork between 2005 and 2008, Fisher (2013) charted the emerging trends by investigating the contributions of civil society to democratization in two flawed democracies (South Africa and Argentina) and one autocracy (Tajikistan) on three different continents. She found that in all three countries, both intermediary democratization NGOs and grassroots organizations were strong and often connected with each other. Argentina and South Africa have since continued to benefit from lively civil societies, including continuing development of provincial civil society networks. In the absence of continuing democratization, Tajik civil society survives, albeit with altered contours, as described below.

The primary focus of this paper is participation at the grassroots level in Tajikistan, where traditional grassroots organizations, newer grassroots organizations, and internet organizing co-exist and can impact democratization. The paper also provides a complex and updated picture of the relationships between local participation and other civil society organizations. Both local participation and other civil society relationships can impact the relationship between democratization and development. The overarching purpose of the paper is to highlight the continuing contrast between local democratization and national autocracy.

In this paper I use Robert Dahl’s (1972) defining characteristics of democracy, based on: 1) Law-Based Civil Liberties; 2) Political Participation; 3) Loyal Opposition: as well as Fisher’s (2013) addition of 4) Democratic Political Culture. Democratization is thus defined as the long-term process advancing these characteristics.

Civil society is understood here as “markets, associations and a sphere of public debate.” (Perez Diaz, 1993: 56). Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) encompass many kinds of nonprofit organizations, including hospitals, theaters, religious institutions, some media, and universities, as well as trade unions, professional associations, other nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and grassroots organizations (GROs). NGOs, in turn, fall into two categories:

1) International NGOs (INGOs) based in a foreign country, or network of countries.

2) Intermediary NGOs, including national advocacy and welfare groups and Grassroots Support Organizations (GRSOs) working in communities other than their own. GRSOs may be provincial or national and primarily focused on democratization, development, or both. Fisher (2013) used the term “democratization NGOs” in order to group some national advocacy organizations such as those working on human rights with GRSOs.

Grassroots organizations (GROs) work in their own communities and are also known as CBOs (community-based organizations).

Why “Importing Democracy?”

October 23, 2019September 8, 2019 by Julie Fisher

“Exporting” democracy, whether done militarily or peacefully, doesn’t work. Every locality and country has to develop its own political system, although wide local participation and democratization tend to go together. A narrow, authoritarian government is not a democracy, no matter how it is labeled by its rulers.

Advocates for local democracy, often members of civil society, typically “import” democratic ideas that strengthen their own goals. When combined with local democratic traditions such as village councils, imported ideas can be very powerful. My last book, Importing Democracy, tells the story of how “democratization NGOs” in South Africa, Tajikistan and Argentina combine imported ideas with local traditions to advance their cause. Since the book’s publication, however, it has become increasingly obvious that democracy is at risk in developed countries. Democratic Ideas imported from developing countries may become increasingly relevant to the survival of democracy in the developed world.

We are all Jews, and, God Help Us, We are all Americans

August 12, 2019October 29, 2018 by Julie Fisher

I was drinking my morning coffee on Saturday, reading the Santa Fe New Mexican, and wondering how this country would get through the bomb attacks and the midterms. And then we were all confronted with the worst anti-Semitic violence on American soil in history.

My first thought was “We are all Jews.” In my own case, this has a double meaning. My first husband, who died young, was Jewish and one of our sons and his wife are raising their two children as Jewish. My other son’s two children are an interesting mix of Jewish, WASP and Mexican American.

But, at a deeper level, I think we must all share in the pain inflicted on any group. A brilliant, irreverent friend of my father’s, confronted with an anti-Semitic remark, simply replied, “I am one. “

Spring in September

August 12, 2019June 20, 2018 by Julie Fisher

It was September 1961. I had just turned twenty and was high above the Pacific on a Braniff jet enjoying an eight-course meal with white wine, courtesy of a booking error. As a Pomona College junior I was excited about my forthcoming semester abroad in Chile.

Yes, I knew about fall being spring in the southern hemisphere, but nothing could have prepared me for the blossoming cherry trees on the taxi ride into Santiago. Another surprise was the high tea that awaited my arrival. Chileans, I learned from my host family, have an affinity for English customs, as well as pride in the influence of the British on their politics.

If Not Now, When do we Start a Brand New Congress?

August 12, 2019November 13, 2017 by Julie Fisher

As a political scientist who has focused on “democratization NGOs” (nongovernmental organizations) in South Africa, Tajikistan, and Argentina, I was intrigued by the recent emergence of similar organizations in my own country. After the 2016 election, I started volunteering for a new political organization, founded, prophetically, even before Trump was elected, in April of 2016 (brandnewcongress.org) by veterans of the Bernie Sanders campaign. It immediately attracted major volunteer and financial support, particularly from idealistic, young millennials, but also from older followers such as myself.

The founding “post- partisan” principle of BNC was to look for “extraordinary, ordinary” people in all walks of life who had already demonstrated their creativity by improving life in their own communities. They also had to subscribe to the major principles of the BNC platform, including environmental protection and revamping our energy infrastruture, getting money out of politics, protecting the Bill of Rights, immigration reform, combating stagnant wages, medicare for all, and ending foreign wars plus citizen activism in foreign policy.

Turning a Political Jungle into a Diverse Rainforest

August 12, 2019March 28, 2017 by Julie Fisher

In my last blog, I wrote that political sanity can emerge from political insanity. The wide, diverse opposition to Donald Trump, evidence of political sanity, has only become more apparent since his inauguration.

What we are seeing out there is a kind of wild political rainforest, containing a wealth of democratic organizations. While these include the big, endangered species such as the two parties, they also encompass smaller, more adaptable species, especially within the nonprofit sector, that focus on rescuing, preserving and strengthening democracy.

Some of these democratization organizations have been around for a long time, but have been revitalized by their opposition to Trump. The American Civil Liberties Union, for example, received millions of dollars in online contributions during its successful legal opposition to Trump’s first Executive Order on immigration. Other well-established organizations that have benefited from the reaction to the election are the Brennan Center for Justice, which combats state-level assaults on voting rights and The League of Women Voters. The National Popular Vote Compact was reactivated by Hillary Clinton’s popular vote margin. There are also organizations, such as Maine Citizens for Clean Elections, that focus only on their own state.

Does the Worst News Contain the Best?

August 12, 2019December 12, 2016 by Julie Fisher

In June I attended the International Society for Third Sector Research in Stockholm. Although I chaired an exciting panel on the suppression of civil society and presented awards, the most memorable moment for me was when a Swedish professor described the dramatic growth of civil society in Iraq, despite, or maybe even because of, the violence. When he first began studying Iraq, “you could count the indigenous NGOs on one hand. Now they are everywhere, doing everything- health, microenterprise promotion, women’s rights…

Fear of Civil Society: Governments, Repression and Zombie NGOs

August 12, 2019March 18, 2016 by Julie Fisher

More than two decades ago, I published a book about indigenous development NGOs in the Third World. At that time, my overall impression was that governments were largely unaware of the significance and dramatic growth of civil society in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. This remained true even after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the spread of civil society in Russia and Eastern Europe in the 1990s.

However, during the 1990s governments began to worry that civil society could threaten politics as usual. One reason for this concern was the increasing support for civil society by “official” foreign assistance. Whereas the major international support for Third World NGOs in the 70s and 80s had been “voluntary foreign assistance” provided by international NGOs, by the 1990s, governmental donors (U.S. and western European) had become more prominent, particularly in Russia and Eastern Europe.