Recent decades have witnessed a global cascade of restrictive and repressive measures against nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). We theorize that state learning from observing the regional environment, rather than NGO growth per se or domestic unrest, explains this rapid diffusion of restrictions. We develop and test two hypotheses: (1) states adopt NGO restrictions in response to nonarmed bottom-up threats in their regional environment (“learning from threats”); (2) states adopt NGO restrictions through imitation of the legislative behavior of other states in their regional environment (“learning from examples”). Using an original dataset on NGO restrictions in ninety-six countries over a period of twenty-five years (1992–2016), we test these hypotheses by means of negative binomial regression and survival analyses, using spatially weighted techniques. We find very limited evidence for learning from threats, but consistent evidence for learning from examples. We corroborate this finding through close textual comparison of laws adopted in the Middle East and Africa, showing legal provisions being taken over almost verbatim from one law into another. In our conclusion, we spell out the implications for the quality of democracy and for theories of transition to a postliberal order, as well as for policy-makers, lawyers, and civil-society practitioners.

中文翻译：

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非法规范扩散：政府如何学会限制非政府组织？

近几十年来，全球出现了一系列针对非政府组织的限制性和压制性措施。我们认为，国家是通过观察区域环境来学习的，而不是非政府组织本身的增长或国内动荡，这说明了限制的迅速扩散。我们提出并检验了两个假设：（1）州针对非武装自下而上的威胁在其区域环境中采取非政府组织限制（“从威胁中学习”）；（2）州通过模仿其他州在其区域环境中的立法行为来采用NGO限制（“从示例中学习”）。在25年（1992-2016年）的时间内，我们使用了96个国家/地区中NGO限制的原始数据集，通过负二项式回归和生存分析检验了这些假设，使用空间加权技术。我们发现从威胁中学习的证据非常有限，但是从示例中学习的证据却是一致的。我们通过对中东和非洲通过的法律进行严格的文字比较来证实这一发现，表明法律规定几乎逐字逐句地从一部法律转移到另一部法律。在我们的结论中，我们阐明了对民主质量，向后自由秩序过渡的理论以及决策者，律师和公民社会实践者的影响。