The coronavirus pandemic has placed acute stress and high expectations on governments around the world. Much has been written on a return to big government. The focus on government responses is understandable, as citizens have looked to authorities for effective responses—and often, these responses have made the difference between life and death. Yet, the pandemic has had a profound impact not only on government policies but also on societies. The crisis has played out at the public authority level and, equally, at the community and civil society levels. Somewhat unnoticed amid the focus on governments’ crisis responses, the coronavirus pandemic has sharpened and intensified the importance of organized civil society action.
This compilation examines the nature of these coronavirus-related shifts in global civil society. It is based on the contention that a deeper understanding is required of society-level responses to the crisis and the ways in which the pandemic is reshaping the relationship between states and societies. Across several regions and countries, the compilation asks a series of questions: How far has the pandemic galvanized new forms of civic activism? How far has it led governments to tighten control over civil society actors? To the extent that they have emerged, what do new forms of civic activism look like? Do they portend a different kind of global civil society, a remolded civic sphere likely to influence global politics in different ways in the post-pandemic world? If so, what are the political implications of this civic adjustment?
The compilation explores these issues through twelve chapters that cover Southeast Asia, Taiwan, India, the Middle East and North Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Ukraine, Georgia, Poland and Romania, the Western Balkans, Zimbabwe, the United States, and Latin America. The cases show that the pandemic has acted as a powerful catalyst for global civil society. In all regions, demand for civic activism has risen and new spaces have opened for civil society organizations (CSOs) to play prominent and multilevel roles in the crisis. The pandemic has given global civil society a new sense of urgency, unleashed a spirit of civic empowerment, and prompted CSOs to deepen their presence in local societies. In some countries, civic activism has also had to move up a gear and assume stronger defensive strategies because regimes have used the pandemic to attack critical civil society voices. The coronavirus pandemic period has seen heightened demand for, and an increased supply of, civic activism as well as a need for CSOs to push back against harsher government restrictions.