Scholars and NGOs have been raising alarms about the increasing political restraints that civil society organizations face globally. In this paper, we argue that closure is in fact a selective mechanism: governments attempt to reorganize civic space through a dual process of selective in- and exclusion of civil society organizations. Civil society organizations identified as critical of or even anti-government face obstruction and restraints, whereas simultaneously the space and state support for organizations identified as pro-government is expanded. Governments instrumentalize certain civil society organizations to their own benefit: they are sponsored and used to influence the realm of civil society in ways that directly legitimize state power and maintain an appearance of democracy. We illustrate our claims by discussing the reorganization of civic space in some countries of Central and Eastern Europe through the case of women’s rights activism.

中文翻译：

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公民空间的选择性关闭

学者和非政府组织一直对民间社会组织在全球面临的日益严重的政治限制发出警告。在本文中，我们认为关闭实际上是一种选择性机制：政府试图通过选择性加入和排斥公民社会组织的双重过程来重组公民空间。被认定为批评甚至反政府的民间社会组织面临阻碍和约束，同时，被认定为亲政府的组织的空间和国家支持得到了扩大。政府利用某些民间社会组织为自己谋取利益：它们被赞助并被用来以直接使国家权力合法化并保持民主外观的方式影响民间社会领域。