Abstract
Over the last two decades, governments have increasingly been adopting legislative measures that limit civil society and human rights organizations. While several studies explored the response of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in nondemocratic regimes to such measures, the literature on the response of NGOs in liberal democracies remains scarce. We examine this by analyzing the case of Israel. We conducted in-depth interviews with 30 position holders in 13 human rights NGOs, as well as lengthy ethnographic participant observations in two of these organizations. Our findings show that organizational responses varied significantly, ranging from minor to very significant changes. Furthermore, the direction of these changes was not uniform. While some organizations chose to intensify and radicalize their message, others preferred to depoliticize and appease domestic audiences. We reflect on the possible drivers of such strategic organizational differences and discuss the more general effects of repressive legislation in liberal democracies.
Introduction
The last two decades have seen various governments increasingly put pressures and restrictions on civil society organizations. Laws imposing limitations on human rights nongovernmental organizations (henceforth HR NGOs) were proposed or enacted in more than 60 countries (Dupuy, Ron, and Prakash 2016). Scholars who examined this legislation in autocratic regimes such as Russia, Ethiopia, and China, have documented harsh repression, designed to suppress oppositional challenges. This repression often results in financial challenges and dramatic changes to NGOs’ objectives, operations, and strategies (Brechenmacher 2017; Carothers 2006, 2016; Cooley et al. 2017).
However, it remains unclear what happens when repressive legislation is pursued by more democratic regimes, ones characterized by a tradition of democratic institutions and liberal norms. Over the last decade, Israeli conservative legislators have been promoting legislation that targets HR NGOs, similar in spirit and form to laws adopted in less-democratic settings. In this article, we examine how Israeli HR NGOs responded to this legislation in the context of tensions between liberal and illiberal tendencies.
While former studies have mostly treated the passing of laws as the starting point for their investigation, we adopt here a wider perspective and examine the legislative processes as a whole, including the lengthy deliberations over proposed bills. We argue that it is important to examine the process of legislation not only as a prelude to procedural outcomes, such as laws or regulations, but also as a battlefield over meaning, where policymakers attempt to redefine civil actors and their supporters. Our study responds to calls by social movements scholars seeking to emphasize indirect and nonviolent forms of political repression. These include practices such as channeling (Earl 2011; Eskridge 2001; McCarthy et al. 1991), where state agencies use both threats and incentives to encourage or discourage certain types of action, rather than directly prohibiting it. Although indirect and nonviolent forms of political repression have significant consequences for mobilization and social movements, these repertoires of repression remain largely understudied (Earl 2011). We therefore examine legislation processes as a form of political repression that could potentially deter HR NGOs from engaging in specific types of political action. More specifically, we examine the coping strategies adopted by HR NGOs targeted by such legislation.
The study of legislation processes and their impact on the work of targeted NGOs is of considerable interest to sociologists and political scientists because it examines the power of discourse and norms in shaping political debates and collective action. Few former studies have examined the impact of repressive legislation on organizations’ agendas, the strategies they adopt, their goals, and the public image they nurture. Within this narrow literature, the focus has mostly been on very repressive regimes, such as Egypt, Russia, and China, where harsh laws were often accompanied by a significant amount of direct violent coercion, including imprisonment, intense police harassment, physical aggression, and even murder. Such violent tactics, however, are rarely present in more democratic settings. The experiences of HR NGOs in Israel may thus teach us about the responses of collective actors in settings where they face growing legislative pressures and public hostility, yet still enjoy relative freedom of speech and action, such as in Italy, Hungary, and Poland.
Furthermore, as recently demonstrated by Smidt et al. (2021), when government restrictions target local NGOs, international bodies often find it hard to hold governments accountable and apply pressures to cease violations. Thus, beyond its academic merit, the findings of this study may be of interest to thousands of dedicated people around the world who work within social movements and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to create political, legal, and public spaces that can empower marginalized and oppressed populations.
Theoretical Framework: NGOs’ Potential Responses to Repression and Delegitimization
The social movements literature indicates that collective actors could adopt various strategies to cope with external pressures. Some collective actors might reduce the contentious elements of their activity and even resort to in-group purification to avoid delegitimization. They may also rebrand their organization and avoid actions that create unfavorable ramifications (Dupuy and Prakash 2015; Goldberg 2003). In contrast, others might adopt a “siege mentality” and radicalize their activities (Cohen 1972; Gitlin 2003; Schock 2015). A third potential strategy is that of a “business-as-usual” approach, where organizations just attempt to ignore external pressure and continue with their daily routines. We elaborate on each of these three general strategies below.
Radicalization
Sociological Labeling theories (Cohen 2002; Lemert 1951) suggest that once actors are framed as deviant, they are perceived as being worthy of attention and a punitive response. Deviants are often segregated, isolated, and alienated from conventional society, resulting in more deviance and greater sanctions. T. Gitlin (2003) demonstrated this cyclical process in his study of the struggle of the American Student Democratic Society (SDS) against the Vietnam War. The SDS was labeled deviant by the media and by conservative politicians and public figures. Consequently, the factions within the movement that best fitted the role of deviant and extremist were bolstered, and the movement increasingly defined itself according to the deviant role in which it was cast.
Radicalization has also been found in less-democratic settings. I. Franceschini and E. Nesossi (2018) examined the impacts of state repression on labor NGOs in China. They found that substantial forms of state oppression, such as threats of violence, eviction from office buildings, and criminal punishment, pushed some activists to be more proactive in their struggles. In some areas of China, the number of NGOs dedicated to workers’ struggles increased after waves of arrests and evictions, and some NGOs switched to more confrontational forms of activism, such as strikes and collective bargaining.
In Israel, certain protest groups that were marginalized and ostracized by the authorities and the public developed forms of protesting that were at times intentionally illegal and provocative, resulting in a violent response by the security forces. For example, Anarchists Against the Wall (AAW), a group that protested against the construction of the security barrier on Palestinian private lands in the West Bank, often refused to comply with the demands of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), leading the Israeli mainstream media to frame them as violent extremists and the IDF to use violence against them (Lamarche 2009). However, this deviant framing and violent response did not deter AAW activists, who continued their protests and turned to the international community for support (Feinstein 2009).
Depoliticization
While entrenchment and extremism are possible outcomes of sanctions and censorship, social movements facing challenges may instead choose to reposition themselves within the cultural and political mainstream rather than at the margins (Cohen 2002). For example, nuclear disarmament groups during the 1980s attempted to increase their credibility by recruiting former members of the defense establishment to appear at demonstrations and press conferences. This strategy was designed not only to strengthen the claims of the movement but also to help reposition it in the mainstream instead of the social fringes (Haines 2006).
Some groups attempting to regain mainstream legitimacy may even resort to in-group purification. For instance, during the McCarthy era in the United States, The Workers Alliance was facing highly publicized congressional investigations and was accused of embracing communism and collaborating with the Soviets. In response, some of the less-stigmatized segments of the movement publicly denounced the more radical fractions of the Alliance (Goldberg 2003). Similarly, during the 1940s, the U.S. pacifist organization Women’s International League (WIL) was labeled by the U.S. government and by conservative groups as antipatriotic and dangerous. In response, WIL leaders chose to drop more radical members from its executive board, eliminate suspect groups from its membership, and appease the nationalist groups that speared the attack (Snider 2005). Such purification efforts could, in turn, lead to purges and the vilification of some to save the group.
Moving to HR NGOs, the literature suggests that dependency on state funding often leads to depolitization and compliance with normative trends (Berkovitch and Gordon 2008; Chahim and Prakash 2014). According to S. A. Soule and B. G. King (2008), resource scarcity often pushes NGOs and social movements to look for alternative means to promote their agenda or to frame their claims. S. J. Klees (1998) has further argued that HR NGOs that traditionally succeeded in obtaining funding were “those which took a more compromising, apolitical stance, if not openly right-wing” (p.50). Indeed, funding concerns may drive HR NGOs toward compliance and mainstreaming, partly because many legislative efforts directly target the funds available to them.
Empirical case studies in Ethiopia, China, and Russia demonstrate these claims. In Ethiopia, severe state restrictions on foreign funding to NGOs defined as “political” were able to crash most human rights groups, as these heavily depended on foreign aid. The remaining organizations were forced to rebrand their activities and conceal their work on human rights issues (Dupuy, Ron, and Prakash 2015). Similarly, in China, state repression drove many labor rights organizations to step away from “risky” events, such as picket lines and demonstrations, and instead led them toward safer forms of activism, such as the provision of services to workers. Finally, in Russia, repressive legislation drove NGOs to adopt two opposing strategies of coping: complete internationalization on one hand and embracing a purely domestic context on the other hand. E. Moser and A. Skripchenko (2018) found that some NGOs moved abroad and became less publicly visible, attempting to operate within international networks addressing transnational institutions such as the European Court of Human Rights. Others, who depend on Russian state grants as their main source of funding, significantly tuned down their political involvement and critiques.
Of note, Russian, Chinese, and Ethiopian NGOs operate in a context of direct and severe repression, with activities often directly targeted and outlawed and “foreign funding” increasingly deemed illegal for NGOs that adopt a critical stance toward the regime. Furthermore, the lives and freedoms of human rights activists may be at risk and workers of oppositional NGOs regularly face violence and harassment. NGOs in more democratic settings, such as Israel, mostly face discursive attacks rather than direct violence and persecution, and while their funding is challenged and threatened by the legislators, it is mostly not declared illegal. Thus, the conclusions drawn from past studies cannot be easily generalized to liberal democracies. Still, recent anecdotal reports show that in liberal democracies such as Slovakia, Austria, and the United Kingdom, where civil society organizations have been targeted and vilified, NGOs actively work to diversify their sources of funding, recruit new members, and build mutual solidarity coalitions (Simsa 2019; Svidroňová 2019). It remains unclear, however, whether these tactics entail more profound and long-term strategic changes.
Business as Usual
Finally, particularly in the context of a liberal democracy, where NGOs are not forced to shut down or find alternative funding, it is also possible that repressive legislation does not really change much. Partitioning theory in the field of organizational ecology assumes that organizations are inertial and do not rapidly innovate. Therefore, unless organizations are explicitly forced to modify their structures and goals, organizational change occurs primarily at the population level through selection (Soule and King 2008). Furthermore, the neo-institutional literature on world society (Boli and Thomas 1997; Meyer and Rowan 1977; Watkins, Swidler, and Hannan 2012) shows that NGOs gain stability and security and derive legitimacy from world cultural models. Most domestic human rights NGOs are closely supported by international donors and ground their claims in international human rights frameworks. They therefore achieve stability by adhering to and reinforcing global understandings of what policy and participation should look like, “hence the remarkable isomorphism of these organizations’ agendas and strategies across very different contexts” (Watkins et al. 2012:294). Thus, the ability of NGOs to significantly alter their message or repertoire of action may be limited.
The notion of “path dependence” also points to the constraints that NGOs face when attempting to dramatically shift their strategies. Path dependence implies that institutional arrangements are not flexible and cannot rapidly change in response to disturbances in the environment. Organizations are embedded in their founding conditions (values, audiences, resources, existing expertise, and knowledge) and movement to alternative modes of action is very challenging (March 1994; Ramanath 2009; Stroup and Murdie 2012). It therefore remains unclear whether HR NGOs can truly change, given the well-defined scripts that dictate what they are expected to be and to do.
Finally, organizations may refrain from substantially changing their strategies and operations because the legislation itself may not be perceived as truly threatening and requiring adjustment. Previous research has shown that laws often serve merely as inconsequential window-dressing or gesturing, designed to gain domestic political capital, appease certain interest groups, or sway public opinion, even while legislators lack the will or the capacity to enforce them (Grattet and Jenness 2008; Krebs and Jackson 2007; Shor et al. 2016; Zeegers, Witteveen, and van Klink 2005). Studies on legislation related to a wide variety of issues, including hate crimes, sex offending, occupational safety, counterterrorism, and environmental protection acts, have demonstrated that such laws often serve merely a symbolic function and have had limited or no actual effects (Hironaka and Schofer 2002; Jacobs and Potter 1998; Page, Munsing, and Probs 1973; Sample, Evans, and Anderson 2011; Shor 2016, 2017). Similarly, legislation that targets HR NGOs but remains modest and primarily declarative might have little to no impact on the strategies or day-to-day operations of these organizations.
The Israeli Case
Israel presents an interesting case for our study, due to the ongoing value conflict between liberal and illiberal forces within it. At the onset of this study (in 2015), Israel was ranked as a liberal free democracy by various democracy indexes (e.g., Houser Tov 2024). Israel is characterized by democratic institutions and norms, such as multiparty political system, has free and impartial elections, and has solid traditions in terms of the separation of judicial, legislative, and executive powers and the upholding of freedoms of speech, gathering, and press. Israeli legislators are well aware of international norms and have often been weary of international pressures and sanctions pressures. However, due to its geopolitical importance and its close relations with the United States, Israel has often been able to bypass these pressures and carry out repressive policies with U.S. approval (Shor 2008a).
Despite this democratic tradition, the Israeli radical right has become a central political force over the last few decades, more so than in most other liberal democracies (Pedahzur 2012). This has led to the promotion of populist and nativist agendas, claiming that Jews are the only ethnic group deserving political representation. This populist-nativist discourse rests on xenophobia, exclusion of the “other” (Arabs and their allies, leftist Jews), nationalism, securitization, a “law and order” approach to social issues, and an antiliberal understanding of democracy (Filc 2018; Shor and Filkobski 2024). Within this framework, for over a decade now, radical right politicians, journalists, and extra-parliamentary organizations have launched fierce attacks against the judicial system, the Supreme Court, universities, intellectuals, and the media, all termed as “elites” (Roznai and Cohen 2023). Right-wing agendas have further materialized with the continuous expansion of Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories, the collapse of the peace process, and systematic attacks against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank (Allegra and Maggor 2022; Milner and Kedar 2023).
Within this context, Israel regularly violates human and civil rights, including those of Palestinians in Gaza, the Arab citizens of Israel, migrant workers, and other ethnic minorities. The Israeli Human Rights NGOs that address these violations are normally perceived by the general public as “politically left.” While Israel has a vibrant and large third sector, Israeli HR organizations that focus on the rights of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories find it challenging to obtain financial support, apply for state grants, or recruit the support of the Jewish Diaspora. They therefore rely heavily on foreign state funding, mainly from the EU and its Member States (Berkovitch and Gordon 2008; Efrat and Yair 2024; Gordon 2014; Harpaz 2015).
Over the last decade, conservative NGOs and politicians have initiated more than 25 bills that targeted these NGOs and led to vivid public debates (Efrat and Yair 2024; Harpaz 2015; Shor and Filkobski 2024). Many of these bills focused on issues of funding, reporting, and registration, while others targeted acts like the commemoration of the Palestinian Nakba and calls for boycotting Israel or settlements and institutions in the Occupied Territories. Most of these bills were brought forward multiple times but failed to become laws or were substantially revised and softened following input from committees and professional legal experts. However, six of the bills did end up turning into laws. Table 1 provides a list of these six laws with a short description of each.
Israeli Laws That Target HR NGOs, 2011-2019.
Previous studies on the erosion of human rights in liberal democracies have shown that perceived threats to state sovereignty or to national security are often used by governments to persuade publics that human rights violations are necessary (Liese 2009; Shor 2008b, 2010). Yet, most democracies are careful not to deny the validity of human rights norms, recognizing that such denial may result in loss of legitimacy (Shor 2008a). During the legislative processes, Israeli politicians from centrist-left parties fiercely defended Israel’s image as the “only democracy in the middle east” and many within the Israeli general public argued that they hold dear liberal values, such as basic freedoms and human rights (Herman et al. 2014).
Elsewhere, we showed that the Israeli legislative process as a whole (regardless of whether bills eventually turned into laws) produced a political and public discourse of delegitimization (Filkobski 2022). HR organizations and their supporters were accused of assisting terrorist groups, weakening the morale of IDF soldiers, inciting global anti-Semitism, and providing ammunition to campaigns of the Boycott, Divesment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement and to international tribunals. By focusing on the moral character of the NGOs, legislators bypassed the issue of human rights violations altogether, instead focusing on the organizations themselves and portraying them as an unreliable source of information about human rights violations.
The loss of legitimacy affected the capacity of HR NGOs to work with policymakers, constituencies, the public, and the media. The discourse also had significant organizational effects, leading to the depletion of resources (personnel, time, and money), as well as personal effects on NGOs’ staffers. In this article, we examine the response of Israeli NGOs to this new climate of hostility and to the political attempts for legislative repression.
Methods
To examine how the legislative process and the discourse it generated impacted HR NGOs, we conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Israel between 2016 and 2019. This fieldwork included participant observation in two leading HR NGOs, as well as interviews with 30 position holders from 13 NGOs that were directly affected by the laws and bills.
Sample of NGOs
At the onset of this study, Israeli newspapers published a list of 27 Israeli organizations that received more than half of their funding from foreign states (Altman 2016; Lis 2016). We contacted via email the CEOs and senior staffers of all of these 27 NGOs, requesting to conduct interviews with position holders. Staffers of 13 NGOs agreed to be interviewed. Eight of the remaining organizations we contacted failed to reply to our request, and six of them declined our request (mostly citing time constraints). Out of the eight NGOs that did not reply, three appeared to already be inactive, and we could not find any information about them on the internet. We provide additional information on these 27 organizations in Part I of the Online Appendix.
It is possible that at least some of the NGOs we contacted did not respond or refused to participate in the study due to fear of persecution and drawing unwanted attention. Indeed, two of the NGOs that refused to participate wrote that they feared the study would provide ammunition to their adversaries by demonstrating that their attacks are successful in stifling the organization. While both of these organizations work on issues of discrimination and inequality between Jews and Arabs within Israel and focus on coexistence attempts, we note that other organizations that did agree to participate in this study also work on similar issues, suggesting that this segment of the Israeli NGO landscape was not excluded.
Overall, the sample of the 13 NGOs that agreed to participate in the study reflects the heterogeneity of the overall population of organizations in terms of their stated objectives, their institutional structure, their budgets, and their history. This sample includes both seasoned and relatively new organizations, as well as larger organizations with higher budgets and smaller ones with modest budgets. Some of them rely more heavily on foreign funding, while others also have substantial local funding. While many of the organizations focus on human rights violations in the Occupied Territories, most also engage with other rights, including health and mobility rights, the rights of prisoners, and the rights of migrant workers and refugees. Most have several divisions, combining public services, information gathering and dissemination, advocacy, and public outreach. We refrain from revealing further identifying information on these organizations due to confidentiality considerations.
Data Collection and Analysis
In Depth Interviews
We contacted at least two position holders in each of the 13 NGOs in the sample, focusing mainly on directors, spokespersons, fundraisers, and heads of departments. We conducted in-depth semistructured interviews with 30 position holders from these NGOs. Nine interviewees identified as men and 21 as women. Nearly all of them were Jewish. Thirteen held managerial positions, such as directors and heads of departments. Interviews were all conducted in Hebrew, mostly in person, and then transcribed and translated into English. To protect the privacy of the participants, all names were changed to pseudonyms in our reporting. We asked interviewees to reflect on what they saw as the tangible consequences of the bills and laws in terms of the NGO’s operations and the lives of individuals within the NGO. We also explored how they perceive the future prospects of their organizations in light of the bills and laws and how they coped with the various threats posed by the legislation process. We provide the full script of our semistructured interview guide in Part II of the Online Appendix.
Participant Observations
In addition to interviews, we also participated in events, lectures, and tours organized by these NGOs, observed their daily operations and routines, and carefully reviewed 238 annual reports and 50 newsletters produced by these NGOs, as well as written information on their websites. This complimentary data collection was designed to triangulate the information coming from the interviews and achieve a deeper understanding of the organizations and their actions. We furthermore sought and received the consent of two of these 13 organizations to conduct more extensive participant observations in them. To preserve confidentiality, we henceforth refer to these two organizations as “Alpha” and “Beta.” The lead author entered Alpha as an intern in the research department and worked full days two to three times per week, mainly cataloging visual footage, while sharing a space with other staff members and participating in various events. The lead author also joined Beta as a volunteer responsible for various administrative tasks. In both cases, staff were informed about the research and its goals.
The choice of Alpha and Beta as sites to conduct our fieldwork was partly guided by their many similarities. Both organizations were established by prominent Israeli politicians, public figures, and academics. They often also adopt similar tactics to address related issues, such as the annexation of Palestinian lands, house demolitions and evictions, and forced resettlement. Both Alpha’s and Beta’s primary function is to monitor, document, collect, and distribute information on the implications of the Israeli occupation. Consequently, both are dependent on Israeli authorities to access information, and at the time, we began the study, both interacted closely with Israeli authorities and the Israeli mainstream media, attempting to disseminate the information and advocate for policy changes. These close interactions with state authorities and the mainstream media might suggest that when faced with a delegitimization campaign, both NGOs would try to regain legitimacy by tuning down their messages and depoliticizing their daily work, as some former studies have suggested (Goldberg 2003; Haines 2006; Snider 2005).
However, despite their similarities, Alpha and Beta also have two important differences. First, Alpha, established in the 1980s to document and inform the Israeli public about the violation of human rights in the Occupied Territories, is a relatively affluent organization relative to the Israeli human rights sector. Conversely, Beta is a smaller and younger NGO, with a lower budget and a more local municipal focus. Second, while Alpha draws its legitimacy from the framework of international law and human rights treaties, Beta refers to itself as a local professional organization rather than an HR NGO. Beta therefore relies on domestic legitimacy to influence negotiations and local policies. We provide additional details on Alpha and Beta in Part III of the Online Appendix.
Our comparative fieldwork within these two organizations sought to assess whether despite the many similarities between Alpha and Beta, their different size and age, as well as their diverging bases of legitimization, might lead to diverging strategic choices when facing the new legislative challenges. Does a larger budget and reliance on a framework of human rights and the international community open a wider set of potential responses? Does a lower budget and primary reliance on domestic publics and political institutions limit this response repertoire?
Analysis
We used thematic analysis methods (Guest, MacQueen, and Namey 2011) to analyze the data coming from our interviews, fieldwork observation notes, the content of the websites, and the NGOs’ mission statements. We recoded the themes and subthemes that originally emerged from the data into more general themes in a three-stage process, focusing on the various strategies that NGOs adopted in response to the legislation. For examples, when an interviewee explained in detail that their organizations attempted to remain “stately” to avoid drawing attention, we (1) recoded the full statement into a more concise one, then (2) further condensed this into broader terms “The respectability of an organization as a form of protection,” and finally (3) coded this under a more concise general theme: “Strategies of coping: Framing of the organization.” We provide several additional examples of this process in Part IV of the Online Appendix.
Notably, several of the general themes we found during this process were beyond the scope of the current manuscript. For example, some quotes were primarily concerned with the effects of the legislation process on funding (particularly foreign funding). We note examples for this in Part IV of the Appendix but did not include these in our findings to maintain focus on organizational coping strategies. Similarly, during the fieldwork, we found that it was important to differentiate between NGOs as an organizational unit and the individuals that work within these organizations, as the latter might experience significant consequences regardless of the trajectory of the organizations in which they work. This is also not discussed in this article.
Given space limitations, we present below only a very select number of quotes from our interviews with staffers in the larger sample of 13 organizations. These interviews provided us with a general picture on the reaction of NGOs to the change in their working environment. We then engage more intensively with data from our extensive fieldwork in Alpha and Betha trying to draw a more nuanced and detailed account regarding the particular coping strategies and tactics and the reasons for adopting these particular steps.
Findings
“Business as Usual”?
When asked directly about the effects of the legislation, most NGO staffers reported little immediate change in the daily functions of their organizations. While they saw the legislative process as an unfortunate distraction and raised significant concerns about its future effects, they also told us that it did not have a significant effect on their current circumstances and strategies. Most maintained that it was “business as usual” and some were even critical of the actions of those NGOs that became engulfed in struggles against the legislation. They saw such struggles as both futile and a distraction from more important organizational goals. One staffer told us that [unlike some organizations,] we were quite successful in “keeping our eyes on the prize”; and the “prize” happens to be the [occupation of the] West Bank . . . We [human rights organizations] are relatively insignificant victims here and must not be preoccupied [with ourselves and the new legislation].
Two of our interviewees even questioned the severity of the situation and described other NGOs’ outcries as exaggerated and opportunistic publicity stunts, aimed at drawing sympathy and funding. However, staffers from the other 11 NGOs believed that the legislative process raised substantial concerns. They described a tangible “chilling effect” on their daily routines and operational strategies and mentioned worries about being fined, threats of more restrictive laws to come, concerns about future funding, and fears of being attacked by conservative NGOs. These common concerns reveal that the narrative about “business as usual” may be questioned.
Some NGOs were worried about losing funders. Sabrina worked with various European donors applying for grants and fundraising for a feminist NGO that struggles against the occupation. She said that potential donors were bombarded by right-wing activists, who accused her NGO of BDS support. Maya, the director general of Sabrina’s NGO, told us that the legislative process had a significant “chilling effect” on the NGO’s activities due to apprehensions of both direct fines and losing funders. As a result, the NGO did not appeal for the renewal of grants for collaborative projects with Palestinian organizations. Silvi, the director of another NGO that focuses on housing rights, similarly told us that the fear of losing donors following the legislative process led the organization to self-censor and regularly “police” its employees: When people at the office talk about “transfer” [ideas promoted by right-wing politicians and activists about the expulsion of Palestinian populations from the Occupied Territories] I ask them to use the less charged term “forced relocation . . .” I am constantly thinking very carefully about what I say and whether it’s the right thing to say in conversations with both strangers and colleagues. When talking among ourselves, we are well aware that we are self-censoring.
Dvora, an international division coordinator for another NGO, noted that before attending meetings, conferences, and public events she carefully checks the background of the organizers: We do not need to risk extra scrutiny because all of this [individuals with ties to BDS] gets publicized and we are associated with support for BDS. So, I do research on the people involved, their opinions, and what they do, and it takes several hours before each of these events.
Some of the interviewees claimed that when they were interviewed by television and radio channels, the discussion always reverts to the question of foreign funding. Once this question is raised, it becomes the center of the interview and is used to question the organizations’ legitimacy to work on sensitive issues within Israel and in the Occupied Territories. This prevents NGOs from disseminating the data they collect and the messages they try to promote to a wider public. In addition, these tendencies often lead to self-censuring. For example, Bareket served as the head of the research department at a human rights NGO focusing on the Occupied Territories. Following the legislative process, Bareket observed a new tendency to invite HR NGOs’ staff to television and radio shows and then confront them with representatives of conservative organizations. In November 2018, Bareket’s NGO was invited to two prime time television panels to discuss an incident in which settlers attacked Palestinians in the West Bank. Conservative NGO representatives who vocally campaigned about the NGO were also invited to the panel. Following heated internal debates, the NGO decided not to participate in the panel because NGO members were concerned that the entire discussion would be devoted to the issue of foreign funding.
In some cases, other Israeli organizations, those perceived as less radical or political, decided to cut ties with the NGOs that stood in the eye of the storm, fearing that any collaborations would be too detrimental to their own causes. Several interviewees emphasized their hope that the longstanding respectable reputation of their NGO would protect it against the legislative and delegitimization campaigns. They believed that by maintaining a noninflammatory and neutral language they could avoid drawing fire and attracting media attention. Many NGOs added information to their websites, apologetically rebuking attacks on their legitimacy and emphasizing ties to “respectable” figures in Israeli society and to the IDF.
However, at least three of the organizations in our sample chose a strategy of defiance, taking declarative steps to question the current normative values of the Israeli government and of Israeli society more broadly. For example, in response to a 2017 law that requires NGOs to mention any foreign funding on their websites, these organizations used this mandatory declaration to criticize the government and the new legislation, with statements such as: In adherence with the law that the Israeli government passed in its attempt to target organizations that critique its policy, we state that most of our funding comes from foreign state entities.
Diverging Adaptation Strategies: The Cases of Alpha and Beta
Our extensive fieldwork in two Israeli HR NGOs—Alpha and Betta—further demonstrates that organizations were indeed proactive in coping with the new political climate. However, coping strategies diverged quite dramatically. While one of the two organizations embraced its deviant image as the “bad boy” of the Israeli human rights scene, the other attempted to become more mainstream and to distance itself from the negative branding. Our conversations with senior staffers in the two organizations suggest that these strategies were not coincidental. Rather, they were deliberate attempts to adapt to the changing and increasingly hostile political environment created by the legislative process.
Radicalization and Targeting the International Community: The Case of Alpha
In response to the legislative process, Alpha significantly intensified its messages and strengthened its focus on international advocacy at the expense of working with local publics. The NGO actively invested in establishing a unique image, differentiating itself from the rest of the Israeli human rights sector. Alpha has long been a contentious organization, simultaneously celebrated internationally while being harshly criticized by Israeli political leaders for its work in the Occupied Territories. Opponents have claimed that the NGO undermines the IDF, the Israeli state, and the Israeli people. With the initiation of the new legislation, Alpha was explicitly named as one its main targets.
In response, Alpha refused to stay put and let the dust settle. Instead, it took several active steps that many in Israel consider radical and provocative. For instance, the director of the organization addressed the United Nations Security Council and openly called the international community to intervene in order to end the Israeli occupation. The NGO also launched a public campaign calling Israeli soldiers to refuse orders to open gunfire against protesters in the Occupied Territories, challenging Israel’s military laws.
In several public addresses between 2016 and 2019, the outspoken director of Alpha said that the NGO is no longer satisfied with documenting the occupation and called for the intervention of the international community to end the occupation. These declarations represented a break from Alpha’s traditional cautious line. The former director of Alpha referred to working in the Israeli human rights sector as “navigating a minefield” and stated that such work demands constant readjustment to keep up with fluctuations in Israeli public opinion (Orr and Golan 2014:76). However, the new director seemed less concerned with appeasing Israeli public opinion and was determined to turn to international audiences, a move that was simultaneously praised and condemned by other NGO leaders during our interviews.
On its website, in press releases, and during conferences, Alpha personnel explained that the steps taken by the NGO reflected its deep frustration with the deteriorating conditions of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, and the realization that the occupation continues to expand. Our observations and interviews with staff members indicate that Alpha’s leadership strategically and consciously decided to adopt a new approach, focusing on the international community rather than on the Israeli public. Alpha’s new chief of public outreach embraced a public relations strategy adopted from the advertising world. He told us that when he tries to sell a product, about 50% of the target audience hates it, another 30% might like it, and 20% certainly like it. In the past, he claimed, Alpha invested great efforts in the 30% in order to make them like its product, but in the current climate, the strategy shifted to focusing on the 20% who already like the product. The NGO therefore spent considerable efforts to rebrand itself as a leader in the fight against the occupation, rather than just a source of information gathering.
The annual reports of Alpha, as well as our conversations with current and previous staffers of the organization, demonstrated the changes in both the NGO’s messages and its target audience. Before the start of the legislative processes, Alpha heavily engaged with domestic audiences. For example, in 2009, the NGO still sought recourse from Israeli law enforcement agencies and initiated campaigns directed at the Israeli public, which emphasized the damages of the occupation to both Palestinians and Israelis. These included the launching of a Hebrew-written blog intended to reach out to the Israeli public and rally up support for human rights, as well as organizing 80 guided tours for Israeli journalists, youth movements, and the general public.
A decade later, the outlook of Alpha has changed significantly. It publicly announced that it would stop notifying the Israeli relevant authorities and courts about the violations it monitors because these authorities rarely act to remedy these violations and collaborating with them merely legitimizes the Israeli occupation. Alpha’s 2019 annual report clearly demonstrates the shift in its policies. The NGO moved to target foreign diplomats, officials, and policy experts, think tanks, U.N. agencies, and other international organizations. Domestic engagement was reduced substantially and during our fieldwork we traced very few fruitful dialogues and meetings with the Israeli public, mostly limited to small extreme left audiences in Tel-Aviv.
Of note, Alpha was somewhat unique in this strategy. Most Israeli HR NGOs, even ones that were clearly targeted by the legislative process, maintained a dialogue with the Israeli authorities and the wider Israeli Jewish public. For example, Shovrim Shtika, arguably the poster child of the right-wing demonization campaign, routinely held information kiosks, hosted public lectures at public events, and continued to visit university campuses and music festival. Alpha’s unique strategy thus led to a rift with some Israeli HR NGOs, which did not take kindly to Alpha’s insinuations that they were conformists who “sold out,” and were even engaging in whitewashing the Israeli occupation.
The estrangement between Alpha and other NGOs was evident during the festive inauguration of the new office of Alpha. Among the guests in this reception were important representatives of funding agencies and several sympathetic left-wing MKs, alongside Palestinian field volunteers who work with Alpha. Notably missing, however, were representatives of other important Israeli civil society organizations. One of Alpha’s senior staffers told us that the reason for that was that there is “not much love between us these days.”
Of note, the strategies adopted by Alpha and its leadership were in some ways successful, as they managed to draw ample attention to the organization and bolster its international reputation and funding. However, the new strategy also came with a tangible price. The public hostility toward Alpha created a sense of siege among several of the employees, as the NGO’s offices had to be relocated for security reasons. Its new address remains confidential and visitors are required to preschedule meetings. Security cameras are now installed in every room and computer and phone passwords are regularly updated.
Rivka, who works in the international relations department at Alpha, said she was really concerned for her safety and the safety of her children. During our interview, which took place in a café in Jerusalem, she kept nervously glancing to the sides and was visibly concerned that people might hear our conversation. She also kept asking me if I noted whether people around us were looking at us with suspicion. She said that the way the government frames NGOs in debates about the laws provides a “license to kill.” This incident typifies our overall experience during our fieldwork at Alpha. We encountered a tangible sense of tension and suspicion throughout our time in the organization. Conversations would stop as soon as we entered the room and we were told that staffers were directed not to let us out of their sight. Workers often joked about possible spies, physical attacks, and lurking settlers (from the Occupied Territories) who might steal their computers.
Depolitization and Reaching Out to Domestic Audiences: The Case of Beta
Beta’s response to the legislative process was completely different from that of Alpha. Like Alpha, Beta also responded to the new hostile political climate by strategically searching for new target audiences. However, to achieve this goal, the organization fought hard to distance itself from a deviant label by systematically tuning down and depoliticizing its public messages. Much of Beta’s activity focuses on informational public tours designed to shift public views about Jewish-Arab coexistence. However, starting in 2011, the NGO began to change the nature of its activities, as Shoval, the former head of its public outreach department, explained to us: Up until that point, we spoke only “leftish” and identified ourselves only with leftist political organizations. But then we realized that we are also a local organization that basically seeks to improve the lives of everyone living here.
As with Alpha, several motivations shaped the changes in Beta’s strategies. According to Rafael, a current tour guide and a former employee of Beta’s public outreach department, the NGO was established to provide professional counseling during the negotiations over a two-state solution. When this process reached an impasse, it had to explore new ways to remain relevant. However, he argued, the hostility toward the organization following the legislative process motivated the desire to better integrate into Israeli mainstream civil society to deflect the heat away: When you are a target, blending in with those who are less of a target gives you legitimacy and puts them on your side. So that if dirt is flying in your direction, it also touches them, and they have an incentive to try and protect you.
To this end, Beta organized conferences and launched an invitation to other civil society organizations, trying to redefine its role. The organization co-produced events with other civil society organizations considered more mainstream and catered to a wide variety of community leaders rather than just those coming from the Israeli left. The NGO also provided yearly courses for a wide variety of civil leaders, solidifying personal relationships between Beta and these leaders. According to Shoval, these personal relationships were crucial in keeping Beta out of the “eye of the storm” unleashed by the right’s legislative campaign. Beta personnel also invested considerable efforts in revoking the negative image associated with being a “leftist” organization. As part of these efforts, the NGO dissociated itself from several other organizations that were targeted by the legislative process and seen as more radical, such as Shovrim Shtika.
Beta’s attempts to integrate into the Israeli mainstream generated a process of self-revision. As the public outreach department attempted to redefine the NGO as different from “the ‘leftists’ in the human rights sector who talk among themselves about the occupation,” it made a conscious effort to connect with various Israeli publics by tuning down controversial expressions and activities. In 2016, Beta revised the message on its website to clarify that while the NGO works on humanitarian issues, it is not a human rights organization. Beta’s guided tours began to target mainly Israeli audiences, including civil society organizations, premilitary groups, high-school students, and teachers, while fees for English-language tours were significantly raised.
Furthermore, the tours themselves were adapted to the sensibilities of various groups. For instance, on one occasion, we participated in a tour with a group of teachers from the southern periphery (where residents tend to be more politically conservative), which also included a few religious participants. The tour guides decided to “go very basic.” They toned down their language and refrained from using charged terms such as “settlements” and “the occupation.” The tour focused on historical developments and socioeconomic aspects rather than on more politically charged issues such as house demolitions and land annexation. Tour guides told us that they try to remain pragmatic and focus on facts, leaving participants to draw their own conclusions and trying not to alienate them by pointing fingers. We also watched tour guides make considerable efforts to reassure tour participants that they were not hostile to Israel, emphasizing that they are Zionists who primarily have Israeli interests in mind. The public outreach department then collected tour participants’ feedback and staffers continually debated whether certain tour guides were perceived as too provocative, angry, or harsh, and thus might alienate certain audiences. Guides who were perceived as too provocative were encouraged to correct their ways and, at times, were reprimanded.
Beta’s senior staffers were extremely concerned during the parliamentary debates over the legislation with the so called “Shovrim Shtika bill” that suggested to prevent access to high schools for NGOs that encourage refusal to serve in the army or call for the legal persecution of some IDF soldiers. The staffers decided to maintain a very low profile and avoid publicizing tours intended for high schools. Staff members were also discouraged from discussing these tours with anyone outside of the organization, including journalists. “We do not want our offices to suddenly catch fire” said the general director half-jokingly.
Beyond the tours, Beta also concealed its work on various issues to avoid negative attention. For example, during our fieldwork, the NGO provided a tour of East Jerusalem to a famous Hollywood actor. Beta’s director of international relations told us that they decided not to publicize this engagement on their website or in their newsletter. This was not an easy decision, given the potential visibility, prestige, and recognition associated with such a connection, and the opportunity to reach potential American donors. However, considering the legislative efforts and the rhetoric that accompanied them, he was concerned that it would brand Beta as “one of those organizations that bash Israel abroad.” Beta’s senior staffers also examined very carefully invitations to participate in international conferences and summits, declining them when panelists were affiliated with movements such as the BDS. This cautious approach was also evident during Beta’s annual event, which traditionally included conferences, lectures, and cultural events related to Palestinians’ lives. In 2017, several staffers advocated for a less “controversial” vision of the event, emphasizing a positive and optimistic tone. This approach prevailed and terms like “the occupation,” “division,” and “the settlements” were dropped from all publications of the event.
According to Beta’s staffers we spoke with, these efforts at mainstreaming and reaching new audiences proved successful. Beta managed to avoid the targeting and sanctions experienced by other HR organizations, while reaching growing audiences, including premilitary students, teachers, and university campuses, many of which stopped working with Alpha and other similar organizations. Beta also managed to receive invitations to various local and national organizations that typically remain closed to Israeli human rights activists. The NGO also managed to avoid the sense of siege and threat to personal security experienced by Alpha. Its offices remained at a central municipal location and staffers walked freely in and out of the premises without noticeable concerns. The ambiance at the office remained amicable and light, with collegial comradeship and personal friendships flourishing.
Discussion
In this article, we explored whether and to what extent HR NGOs in a relatively democratic setting shift their organizational strategies and daily activities in response to repressive legislative initiatives. Previous studies suggested various strategies adopted by NGOs when their environment becomes increasingly hostile, including radicalization, depolitization, and a “business-as-usual” approach. We found that staffers of Israeli human rights NGOs targeted by the legislative process mostly reported a “business-as-usual” approach. They claimed that they continued to carry on their regular activities and engage in the same issues as they did prior to the start of this process. Many also believed that spending time or resources to comprehensively engage with the legislation and its implications was wasteful and detracted from their primary organizational tasks.
However, despite this narrative of “business as usual,” most staffers reported serious concerns about the uncertain future of their organizations, resulting in self-censorship and the adoption of extra caution in their daily activities and public declarations. This “chilling effect,” coupled with constant work to maintain a “respectable” image, demonstrate the nuanced yet powerful effect of the legislative and discursive processes, which managed to influence the day-to-day realities of the organizations even as they claimed that they hardly had any effects.
These findings suggest that within the context of liberal democracies, the effects of repressive legislation on HR NGOs’ strategies and daily operations are not as dramatic as those documented in more autocratic regimes like Ethiopia, China, and Russia (Brechenmacher 2017; Carothers 2006, 2016; Cooley et al. 2017). NGOs in liberal democracies manage to maintain a narrative of “business as usual” and believe their operations are only marginally affected. However, the tangible effects we have documented in this study point to the danger of a slippery slope. The experiences of relatively democratic countries such as Hungary, Poland, and Turkey demonstrate that targeting HR NGOs is often only the first step in a process of democratic decline, which might culminate in full retreat from liberal democracy. Indeed, more recent attempts at massive legislative reforms in Israel threaten Israel’s very stance as a liberal democracy (Roznai and Cohen 2023). These legislative reforms often emphasize the perceived superiority of Jewish ethnic and nationalistic interests over the protection of human and minority rights, demonstrating the direct link to the earlier legislation that targeted and weakened HR NGOs.
In this study, we examined the consequences of subtle and indirect mechanisms of state repression (Earl 2011 2013). When HR NGOs integrity and morals are questioned during the legislative process, they become subject to powerful counter-narratives from both politicians and counter-movements. Snyder (2020) cautions that critiques by cultural outsiders often incite denial, as well as active resistance and backlash. In line with this observation, many of the HR workers interviewed for this study referred to themselves as lone voices crying out in the wilderness. Their faith in their ability to convince the larger Israeli public has been compromised following the delegitimization process. This process of marginalization serves as an important mechanism of state repression in a democratic setting. While the NGOs are not outlawed or directly coerced, the norms that justify their existence and their ability to influence policies and public opinion are significantly eroded.
Our fieldwork in two prominent organizations furthermore reveals that many NGOs did in fact make tangible changes in response to the uncertainty, hostility, and delegitimization brought about by the legislative process. While both organizations engaged in conscious efforts to reach out to new target audiences and to manage their image, these efforts took a very different form in each of them. The first NGO, Alpha, accentuated its messages, adopting measures that were deemed provocative and extreme by many Israelis and even by some other HR NGOs. While the previous directorships of Alpha attempted to depoliticize the organization by positioning human rights work as neutral, the new directorship actively worked to present itself as a force striving to explicitly fight the Israeli occupation. This shift strengthened the NGO’s international support and created new avenues for international action, while simultaneously closing off many local avenues, making domestic collaborations harder, and further eroding the NGO’s domestic legitimacy.
The second organization, Beta, adopted the opposite approach, repositioning itself as a mediator between the agendas of left-wing civil society organizations and the broader Israeli civil society. Such repositioning required Beta to reframe its public image, making it more palatable and approachable to wider Israeli publics. Thus, while the NGO spoke the language of “business as usual,” it invested considerable resources trying to “tune down” its messages, shield against damaging publicity, and connect with new domestic audiences.
The divergent strategies of Alpha and Beta call into question the potential push and pull factors that bring largely similar NGOs working in the same context to choose different trajectories and strategies. Alpha’s and Beta’s advocacy efforts focus on similar rights, including rights related to freedom of movement and the right to avoid discriminatory land and housing policies, community expulsion, and police brutality. Given these similarities, one might wonder why the two NGOs chose such divergent routes in response to the legislative process. While individual leadership styles and inclinations may have played a role here, below we offer three possible explanations for these diverging strategies that focus on organizational characteristics.
First, despite their many agenda similarities, the two organizations also have a few important differences. Most notably, unlike Beta, Alpha has also traditionally worked on physical integrity rights, documenting casualties, torture, ill-treatment in interrogations, and administrative detentions, with a wide geographical scope that includes East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza. The NGO would have to abandon some of its core tasks to adopt a similar strategy to that of Beta. Alpha’s amplification of its combative rhetoric and actions may therefore be seen as a strategic choice intended to cater to an international audience and maximize international support rather than fight a lost battle over Israeli public opinion.
Second, social movements scholars writing about political opportunity have argued that open political systems encourage activists to adopt cooperative tactics and work through existing institutions, while closed political systems encourage confrontation in the form of direct-action, public campaigns, and protest (McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1988; Tarrow 1996). As the Israeli political system moved closer to a closed political system, Alpha’s responses were in line with these theoretical insights. The NGO moved away from cooperating with Israeli policy makers and institutions such as the IDF and the Israeli Supreme Court. Instead, it actively called for public disobedience and pointed to alternative sources of authority, such as the international community and international courts.
The social movements literature suggests that Alpha’s strategy of giving up on cooperation and negotiation with politicians and state institutions is not unique. When movements and NGOs become disillusioned with their ability to influence outcomes from within, they often turn to alternative strategies (Gitlin 2003; Potter 2011). For example, in the United States, undocumented immigrant youth organizations began with more standard political actions, such as lobbying and petitioning, but eventually moved to protest measures such as hunger strikes and seat-ins when they became disenchanted with institutional approaches to immigration reforms (Burciaga and Martinez 2017). In such cases, organizations often relinquish domestic audiences and instead seek support from the global civil society (Bob 2005; Feinstein 2009).
Unlike Alpha’s universalistic humanitarian approach, which made alliances with the global human rights scene more natural, Beta traditionally branded itself as an organization that deals primarily with local urban issues and with rights violations. It was thus able to reframe issues such as house demolitions, forced evictions, and the construction of new settlements as discriminatory municipal policies in housing and planning rather than issues of human rights. Consequently, Beta was able to gain access to a larger variety of domestic stakeholders and target audiences, thus maintaining a local stronghold.
Finally, the decision to pursue different routes may have also been affected by differences in organizational resources and the availability of alternative target audiences. Alpha is a large, well-established, and relatively wealthy organization. It is also internationally acclaimed and celebrated and has worked for many years not only with the global civil society but also with important foreign diplomats and representatives from the U.N. and the E.U. It was thus well positioned to take “risky” steps as it could focus almost entirely on international audiences. Interestingly, the case of Alpha is inconsistent with the argument frequently appearing in the literature that foreign funding leads to the depolitization of NGOs (Howell and Pearce 2001). Instead, the transnational human rights framework, combined with ample foreign support, allowed Alpha to politicize human rights and choose a more radical strategy.
Beta, in comparison, is a smaller and younger NGO that does not enjoy the historical clout of Alpha. Thus, a strategy of rhetorical amplification and accentuation, which would have likely led to the loss of domestic resources, might have been too risky. Furthermore, even beyond the question of resources and clout, the true fulfillment of Beta’s agenda seems to depend deeply on maintaining a working relationship with its domestic audiences. Tuning down the rhetoric was therefore both a pragmatic move and an act that reflected the desire of at least some staffers to maintain a fruitful dialogue with the wider Israeli society and its institutions.
Beta’s strategy of trying to appease audiences is consistent with the characterization of the Israeli human rights sector by former scholars (Gordon 2008; Orr 2012; Orr and Golan 2014). It is also consistent with observations of a “chilling effect” in social movements and organizations, which often depoliticize and “clean up” their act when facing persecution. For instance, Ethiopian organizations rebranded their human rights work as service provision or empowerment projects to retain their access to foreign aid following repressive legislation (Dupuy et al. 2015). Similarly, international organizations working in Russia tuned down their criticism of the government so that they could continue to provide their services (Heiss 2017; Moser and Skripchenko 2018).
To summarize, the response of Israeli HR NGOs to repressive legislation has ranged from waiting for the storm to pass, to attempts to regain public trust, to the radicalization and amplification of the contingent message. While NGOs manage to continue their work of monitoring, strategic litigation, research, and service provision, the intense process of delegitimization over the last decade has influenced their ability to educate, mobilize, and engage with the Israeli public.
The findings of our study also offer some broader insights into theories of organizational survival. Many of the staffers claimed that their business-as-usual approach was simply a function of their work on human rights issues, the nature of which cannot be dramatically adjusted even in the face of a quickly changing environment. Such inaction when facing a changing environment is in line with the literature that examines path dependency as an important factor shaping the strategic choices of NGOs (Ramanath 2009; Stroup and Murdie 2012). Path dependency approaches emphasize institutional stability and inertia. Indeed, workers of NGOs interviewed for this study, as well as ones cited in other research (Hovivyan 2014; Stroup and Murdie 2012) often used the metaphor of DNA to describe their organization. This DNA, they claimed, was comprised of core values, frames, and ideologies, a tried out and successful repertoire of actions and forms of expertise, and their alliances and networks. The DNA metaphor implies an inherent, deterministic, and intractable nature, which cannot be changed even as their work environment is going through rapid changes.
More generally, modern NGOs that are funded by governments or rely on governmental aid agencies tend to adopt fewer radical activities (Berkovitch and Gordon 2008; Chahim and Prakash 2014). According to Ebrahim (2005), this depoliticization is often necessary to secure funding, as donors tend to focus more on short-term ‘‘products.’’ Klees (1998) added that NGOs willing to adopt more compromising and apolitical approaches are more likely to secure funding. These concerns over funding could thus be a significant driver for both actions and incations. Scarce resources often push NGOs and social movements to look for unique means and approaches to promote their agenda or to frame their claims (Soule and King 2008).
Our findings echo Hirschman’s (1970) classic typology of responses to social processes (driven by the state in this case) that one defines as deteriorating or unjust. According to Hirschman, responses in such cases may take the form of withdrawal (“exit”) or the expression of grievances (“voice”). In turn, one’s commitment (“loyalty”) to the offending source could modify the choice between exit and voice and sometimes compel individuals or organizations to withstand egregious conditions and adjust to them. One can think of Alpha’s choice to disengage from traditional forms of more “legitimate” action as an “exit” strategy, driven by the sentiment that loyalty cannot be maintained given the state’s targeting of the human rights sector (as well as its continual repression of actual human rights). Hirschman further notes that such disengagement is particularly likely when alternative organizational memberships are available, as was the case for Alpha.
More generally, our study suggests a careful and nuanced approach to organizational strategies under the current global conditions of democratic backsliding. Similar to E. Shor’s (2008a) observation of diverging state tactics and trajectories in response to pressures to respect human rights, we suggest that careful attention to organizational structures, cultures, traditions, and ideologies must be exercised to better understand and predict their strategic choices in response to repressive state policies. Further research in additional democratic settings where restrictive legislation is being applied may help to expand our understanding of these nuances. It could also help civil society organizations to assess the repertoire of responses available to them and how these responses may help them navigate troubled waters while maintaining their core missions and continuing to assist those in need.
Supplemental Material
sj-docx-1-spx-10.1177_07311214241291550 – Supplemental material for “Business as Usual”? Human Rights NGOs’ Adaptation Strategies to Repressive Legislation
Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-spx-10.1177_07311214241291550 for “Business as Usual”? Human Rights NGOs’ Adaptation Strategies to Repressive Legislation by Ina Filkobski and Eran Shor in Sociological Perspectives
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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