CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 148Political Conflict and GovernanceInternational Relations and Foreign PolicyGlobalization and political ideologies

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 90 of the 90 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

The Assault on Civil Society: Explaining State Crackdown on NGOs

Chaudhry, Suparna·2022·International Organization
DOI 10.1017/s0020818321000473
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Nongovernmental organizations are central to contemporary global governance, and their numbers and influence have grown dramatically since the middle of the twentieth century. However, in the last three decades more than 130 states have repressed these groups, suggesting that a broad range of states perceive them as costly. When they choose to repress NGOs, under what conditions do states use violent strategies versus administrative means? The choice depends on two main factors: the nature of the threat posed by these groups, and the consequences of cracking down on them. Violent crackdown is useful in the face of immediate domestic threats, such as protests. However, violence may increase the state's criminal liability, reduce its legitimacy, violate human rights treaties, and further intensify mobilization against the regime. Therefore, states are more likely to use administrative crackdown, especially in dealing with long-term threats, such as when NGOs influence electoral politics. I test this theory using an original data set of administrative crackdowns on NGOs, as well as violent crackdown on NGO activists, across all countries from 1990 to 2013. To shed light on the strategic decision between violent or administrative crackdown, and how states may perceive threats from domestic and international NGOs differently, I provide a case study from India. I conclude by discussing the implications of this crackdown for the use of civil society actors by the international community, as well as donors and citizens in the global South.

Overview

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1017/s0020818321000473

Cites

90 of 90 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Citations

Cites

Research works printed but not linked: 8

  1. Hachhethu, 2008, Nepal in Transition: A Study on the State of Democracy
  2. Prasad, Shubha Kamala . 2020. State (In)Security: The Impact of Insurgencies on Foreign Policy. PhD dissertation, Georgetown University.
  3. Kamhi, 2006, The Russian NGO Law: Potential Conflicts with International, National, and Foreign Legislation, International Journal for Not-for-Profit Law, 9, 34
  4. Chenoweth, Erica , and Perkoski, Evan . 2018. Nonviolent Resistance and Prevention of Mass Killings During Popular Uprisings. Special Report Series, vol. 2. International Center on Nonviolent Conflict.
  5. Brechenmacher, 2017, Civil Society Under Assault: Repression and Response in Russia, Egypt, and Ethiopia
  6. Narula, Smita . 2008. The Story of Narmada Bachao Andolan: Human Rights in the Global Economy and the Struggle Against the World Bank. New York University Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers. Available at <https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1315459>.
  7. Krishna, 2011, India Since Independence: Making Sense of Indian Politics
  8. McCarthy, 1991, The Channeling of Social Movements in the Modern American State, Research in Social Movements, Conflict, and Change, 13, 45

Cited by

Sorted by citations

See all 148

Related

See all

Metadata

Authors
Chaudhry, S.
Corresponding author
Chaudhry, Suparna
ORCID
Chaudhry, Suparna
Venue
International Organization
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Published
2022
Volume
76
Issue
3
Pages
549-590
ISSN
  • 0020-8183 (ISSN-L)
  • 1531-5088
DOI
10.1017/s0020818321000473
OpenAlex
W4210287801
Cited by
148
References
90
Citations by year
2026: 35 · 2025: 56 · 2024: 35 · 2023: 15 · 2022: 7
FWCI
40.65
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
www.cambridge.org/core/terms (unspecified, 32 d)
Locations
  • International Organization (publishedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Political Conflict and Governance
  • Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › International Relations and Foreign Policy
  • Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Globalization and political ideologies
Keywords
non-governmental organizations, civil society, state legitimacy, human rights violations, political mobilization, electoral politics, global governance, India, international donors, Global South

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review