Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

9-2025

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Program

Political Science

Advisor

Julie George

Committee Members

Janet Elise Johnson

Heath Brown

Katherine Chen

Cristina Balboa

Subject Categories

Comparative Politics | Eastern European Studies | Nonprofit Studies | Organization Development | Politics and Social Change | Work, Economy and Organizations

Keywords

Democratic erosion, civil society, nonprofit organizations, Czechia, Hungary, Bulgaria

Abstract

In order for civil society organizations (CSOs) to perform essential functions to support democracy and prevent democratic erosion, they must operate sustainably, maintaining resources and legitimacy to carry out their missions. CSOs experience financial and political pressures when resources and legitimacy are withdrawn. CSOs facing both pressures may reduce their activities, replace lost funding, or reframe their work to engage new audiences. How CSOs respond in the face of financial and political pressures has implications for their role in hindering democratic erosion. Yet civil society organizations weather these pressures in ways that are not straightforward; the most targeted organizations may not depoliticize but in fact grow stronger, while organizations that lose significant funding may not close but adapt. What factors lead CSOs to respond in different ways? What do CSOs need to be resilient and sustainable in the face of financial and political pressures?

This dissertation examines the factors that contribute to CSOs’ responses to financial and political pressures. CSOs obtain resources and legitimacy from their environments and may experience the loss of funding and legitimacy to different degrees. However, environmental conditions or the extent of lost resources and legitimacy do not, on their own, explain CSO responses. Instead, responses also depend on CSOs’ willingness and ability to adapt, as determined by four attributes intrinsic to each organization: their mission and identity, their governance and staff structure, their leaders’ openness to alternative approaches, and their leaders’ ability to communicate with different audiences.

I develop theory on organizational responses to pressures through quantitative and qualitative analysis of a sample of CSOs in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Bulgaria that faced political pressures and funding withdrawal between 2010 and 2019. Through descriptive statistics and identifying patterns across fifteen organizational profiles, I find that CSOs with reserves of resources and legitimacy were most likely to replace lost funding and bounce back from political and financial pressures, while CSOs without such reserves were more likely to reduce staff and expenditures or reframe their work to find new bases of legitimacy. CSOs exhibiting more of the attributes that allow flexibility were able to adapt and reframe when faced with repeated setbacks.

This dissertation makes several original contributions. By synthesizing literatures across disciplines, I develop a comprehensive theoretical framework that brings resources, legitimacy, and organizational attributes together to understand civil society resilience and sustainability, building on concepts in organizational theory, nonprofit management, and international development. It shows how organizational analysis can contribute to understanding civil society’s role in hindering democratic erosion. Finally, it provides practitioners with guidance in how to better support CSOs experiencing financial and political pressures.

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