Civic Space Regional Synthesis Report

In the Kremlin’s Shadow: Civic Space and Russian Influence in Europe and Eurasia

Samantha Custer, Divya Mathew, Bryan Burgess, Emily Dumont, Lincoln Zaleski, Kelsey Marshall, and Vera Choo

May 2023

[Skip to Table of Contents] [Skip to Chapter 1]

Executive Summary

This regional synthesis report monitors trends in the health of civic space across Europe and Eurasia (E&E) over time (2015 to 2021) in the lead up to Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. It examines restrictions of civic space actors and citizen attitudes toward civic participation in order to assess the domestic environment for citizens to assemble peacefully, express their views, and take collective action without fear of retribution or constraint. It also monitors Russian state-backed financing and in-kind support, along with state-run media coverage related to civic space, to assess two channels by which the Kremlin exerts malign foreign influence to promote pro-Russian sentiment and discredit voices wary of its regional ambitions.

In conjunction with this historical data, we draw upon the results of a 2022 AidData survey to capture contemporary insights on perceptions of civil society organizations across the E&E region and identify the best avenues to further strengthen the capacity of these domestic actors without undercutting their credibility. This report aims to complement, not duplicate, the extensive context-specific information provided in a series of accompanying 17 country and 7 occupied or autonomous territory profiles.

Below, we summarize 10 top-line findings and 3 promising future avenues for action from our regional analysis.

The Domestic Environment for Civic Space

• Finding #1: Civic space actors across Europe & Eurasia have been navigating more restrictive environments at home since 2015, with Belarus and Kazakhstan being particular hotspots.
• Finding #2: Domestic actors were most often the initiators of civic space restrictions, but Russia and Turkey were the most prolific foreign governments involved in restrictions against civic groups abroad.
• Finding #3: Passive interest in politics does not always translate into active participation in civic life, but Armenia and Montenegro rise above the rest as stronger performers in this area.
• Finding #4: Citizens across the E&E region are volunteering, giving, and helping others at higher rates than seven years ago, but membership in voluntary organizations remains low.
• Finding #5: CSOs are seen as best positioned to influence change from the outside by leveraging information and convening power, rather than working via government channels.
• Finding #6: CSOs enjoy high confidence from both staff and constituents, but this manifests as willingness to participate in discrete activities rather than provide substantive support to operations.

External Channels of Kremlin Influence

• Finding #7: Russia has doubled down on closer ties with pro-Kremlin civic space actors and regulators in a relatively small number of cities and occupied territories across the region.
• Finding #8: The Kremlin places an outsized emphasis on working with CSOs across the region on four themes: youth, the Great Patriotic War, religion, and Eurasian integration.
• Finding #9: Ukraine was the main driver of Russian media mentions, as the Kremlin used coverage as a bully pulpit to shape domestic and international attitudes about the country.
• Finding #10: Kremlin media promoted similar narratives as its civic space projects: advancing Eurasian integration, Russia as a natural security partner, and sowing doubts about the West.

Pathways to Build Civic Space Resilience Without Compromising Domestic Credibility

• Avenue for Action #1: CSO staff and constituents feel funding from domestic governments undercuts their credibility, but are open to technical assistance or invitations to speak.
• Avenue for Action #2: Staff and constituents agree that foreign actors could best help civic space in their country by providing aid and technical assistance to CSOs.
• Avenue for Action #3: Foreign actors have a role to play in promoting the work of CSOs, as well as educating government counterparts and the public about the importance of civil society.

Acronyms

In the context of this report, we sometimes use short-form three-letter ISO codes to refer to individual E&E countries for ease of inclusion in tables, figures, and underlying data. Please consult the table below as needed.

ISO Code	Country Name
ALB	Albania
ARM	Armenia
AZE	Azerbaijan
BIH	Bosnia & Herzegovina
BLR	Belarus
GEO	Georgia
KAZ	Kazakhstan
KGZ	Kyrgyzstan
MDA	Moldova
MKD	North Macedonia
MNE	Montenegro
SRB	Serbia
TJK	Tajikistan
TKM	Turkmenistan
UKR	Ukraine
UZB	Uzbekistan
XKX	Kosovo

Acknowledgements

This report was prepared by Samantha Custer, Divya Mathew, Bryan Burgess, Emily Dumont, Lincoln Zaleski, Kelsey Marshall, and Vera Choo. John Custer, Sariah Harmer, and Sarina Patterson contributed editing, formatting, and supporting visuals. Our research assistants provided invaluable support in collecting the underlying data for this report, including: Jacob Barth, Kevin Bloodworth, Callie Booth, Catherine Brady, Temujin Bullock, Lucy Clement, Jeffrey Crittenden, Emma Freiling, Cassidy Grayson, Annabelle Guberman, Sariah Harmer, Hayley Hubbard, Hanna  Kendrick, Kate Kliment, Deborah Kornblut, Aleksander Kuzmenchuk, Amelia Larson, Mallory Milestone, Alyssa Nekritz, Megan O’Connor, Tarra Olfat, Olivia Olson, Caroline Prout, Hannah Ray, Georgiana Reece, Patrick Schroeder, Samuel Specht, Andrew Tanner, Brianna Vetter, Kathryn Webb, Katrine Westgaard, Emma Williams, and Rachel Zaslavsk.  

This research was made possible with funding from USAID's Europe & Eurasia (E&E) Bureau via a USAID/DDI/ITR Higher Education Solutions Network (HESN) cooperative agreement (AID-A-12-00096). The findings and conclusions of this country report are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of our funders and partners.

We owe a debt of gratitude to the numerous external experts that kindly shared their time and insights at various stages throughout this three-year project to advise on definitions, indicators, and methods for data collection and analysis. We want to acknowledge the important roles being played by human rights defenders, independent journalists, and civic space advocates throughout the E&E region, as this project benefited greatly from structuring, aggregating, and synthesizing their diligent documentation of events in the region, particularly instances of restrictions of civic space actors. Last, but certainly not least, we want to thank the respondents to the 2022 CSO Census and Constituency Survey for sharing their invaluable insights on the state of civic space in their region.

The findings and conclusions of this synthesis report are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of our funders, partners, or other contributors.

A Note on Vocabulary

The authors recognize the challenge of writing about contexts with ongoing hot and/or frozen conflicts. Nevertheless, it is necessary to consistently label groups of people and places for the sake of data collection and analysis. We acknowledge that terminology is political, but our use of terms should not be construed to mean support for one faction over another. For example, when we talk about an occupied territory, we do so recognizing that there are de facto authorities in the territory who are not aligned with the central government. Or, when we analyze the de facto authorities’ use of legislation or the courts to restrict civic action, it is not to grant legitimacy to the laws or courts of separatists, but rather to glean meaningful insights about the ways in which institutions are co-opted or employed to constrain civic freedoms.

Citation

Custer, S., Mathew, D., Burgess, B., Dumont, E., Zaleski, L., Marshall, K. and Choo, V. (2023). In the Kremlin’s Shadow: Civic S pace and Russian In fluence in Europe and Eurasia . Williamsburg, VA: AidData at William &  Mary. May 22, 202 3.

1. Introduction

How strong or weak is the domestic enabling environment for civic space across Europe and Eurasia? To what extent do we see Russia attempting to shape civic space attitudes and constraints within other countries to advance its broader regional ambitions? To answer these questions and more, AidData (a research lab at William & Mary’s Global Research Institute) collected and analyzed vast amounts of historical data on civic space and Russian influence across 17 countries in Eastern Europe and Eurasia (E&E), including 7 occupied or autonomous territories. ^[1]  In this report, we synthesize top-line findings from across the region based upon a novel dataset which monitors four barometers of civic space from 2015 to 2021 ( Figure 1 ), ^[2]  along with the results of a survey of civil society organization (CSO) staff and constituents conducted by AidData across 16 countries in April-May 2022.

A three-year undertaking, this research included extensive original data collection to assess domestic trends within E&E countries—public attitudes towards civil society and civic participation, as well as restrictions of civic space actors. It pioneered novel methods to track Russian financing and in-kind assistance to civil society groups and regulators, media coverage targeting foreign publics, and perceived influence over civic space in other countries.

Our goal was to produce data that yields country-specific insights, preserves the ability to aggregate and compare trends across the region, and facilitates replication and extension to additional countries and years in future. This data was designed to help policymakers, practitioners, and scholars assess the domestic enabling environment for civic space in the region, monitor risks for countries in the face of Russia’s civilian influence tactics that seek to sow discord or disrupt democratic norms, and identify entry points to build the resilience of civil society without undermining their credibility. It was designed to support multiple use cases from retrospective evaluation and ongoing monitoring to future funding and programming.

For the purpose of this study, we define civic space as: the formal laws, informal norms, and societal attitudes which enable individuals and organizations to assemble peacefully, express their views, and take collective action without fear of retribution or restriction. This definition acknowledges a spectrum of civic actors, from informal groups of individuals to formal organizations, operating in political and apolitical spheres. It understands that the practical space for actors to form and operate is shaped by societal rules, norms, and attitudes related to civic participation and individual freedoms. It recognizes that the fear of retribution or restriction can create a chilling effect in deterring individuals, organizations, and groups from engaging in civic activities.

The remainder of this report is organized as follows. In section 2, we focus on the domestic enabling environment (or lack thereof) for civic space within and across E&E countries. In section 3, we examine two channels of external influence used by the Kremlin to manipulate  public opinion via media narratives, as well as co-opt the activities of civic space actors and regulators in order to advance Russia’s national interests. In section 4, we distill insights from a survey of CSO staff and constituents in E&E countries and their recommendations on  ways to support civic space in the region.

Figure 1 provides a brief introduction to the historical indicators monitored in this synthesis report, along with the companion country and occupied territory profiles. Box 1 introduces the sample and approach for the AidData CSO Census and Constituency Survey conducted in April-May 2022. A detailed appendix is also available in section 6, with more extensive information on the methodology to produce the historical indicators, along with the questionnaire and implementation notes for the 2022 survey.

Figure 1. Quantifying Civic Space Attitudes and Constraints Over Time

Civic Space Barometer	Supporting Indicators
Restrictions of civic space actors (January 2015–March 2021)	Number of instances of harassment or violence (physical or verbal) initiated against civic space actors Number of instances of legislation and policies (newly proposed or passed) advanced by the government (or de facto authorities) that include measures to further limit the ability of civic space actors to form, operate or speak freely and without retribution Number of instances of legal action brought by the government (or de facto authorities) against civic space actors in an effort to intimidate citizens from assembly, speech or activism
Citizen attitudes toward civic space (2010–2021)	Percentage of citizens reporting that they are interested in politics Percentage of citizens reporting that they have previously engaged in civic actions (e.g., petitions, boycotts, strikes, protests) Percentage of citizens reporting that they might be willing to engage in civic actions (e.g., petitions, boycotts, strikes, protests) in future versus those who say they would never do so Percentage of citizens reporting that they engaged in apolitical civic engagement (e.g., donating to charities, volunteering for organizations, helping strangers) Percentage of citizens who reported trust/confidence in their public institutions
Russian state financing and in-kind support relevant to civic space actors or regulators (January 2015–August 2021)	Number of projects directed by the Russian government to institutional development, governance, or civilian law enforcement (or de facto authorities) in the target country (or territory) Number of projects directed by the Russian government to support formal civil society organizations or informal civic groups within the target country (or territory)
Russian state media mentions of civic space actors (January 2015–March 2021)	Frequency of mentions of civic space actors operating in the target country by Russian state-owned media Sentiment of mentions of civic space actors operating in the target country by Russian state-owned media Frequency of mentions of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the U.S., and the European Union, as well as the terms “democracy” and “West,” in the target country by Russian state-owned media Sentiment of mentions of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the U.S., and the European Union, as well as the terms “democracy” and “West,” in the target country by Russian state-owned media

Notes: Table of indicators collected by AidData to assess the health of domestic civic space and vulnerability to Kremlin influence. Indicators are categorized by barometer (i.e., dimension of interest) and specify the time period of data coverage  in the subsequent analysis.

2 . Domestic Risk and Resilience: Restrictions and Attitudes Towards Civic Space in Europe & Eurasia

Civic space is a dynamic rather than static concept. The ability of individuals and organizations to assemble, speak, and act is vulnerable to changes in the formal laws, informal norms, and broader societal attitudes that can facilitate an opening or closing of the practical space in which they have to maneuver. In this study, we consider three aspects of the domestic enabling environment for civic space across 17 E&E countries (including 7 occupied or autonomous territories) : (i) restrictions of civic space actors (section 2.1); (ii) the degree to which citizens engage in a range of political and apolitical forms of civic life (section 2.2); and (iii) staff and constituent perceptions of civil society organizations (section 2.3).

While the individual country and ter ritory profiles provide deep-dive insights within a particular geography, this regional synthesis report surfaces trends, similarities, and differences between countries and across four subregions: Eastern Europe (Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine), Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia), Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia), and Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan).

2.1 Restrictions of Civic Space Actors

Restrictions of civic space actors can take various forms, but to facilitate systematic comparison across countries and over time, we focus here on three common channels which can effectively deter or penalize participation in civic life. Harassment or violence, refers to physical or non-physical acts initiated against civic space actors in ways that hurt, humiliate, intimidate, threaten or otherwise inhibit their actions. Restrictive legislation considers the proposal or passage of new laws and policies by governments that hinder, control or curtail the activities of civic space actors generally or for specific sub-groups. State-backed legal cases refers to the prosecution of civic actors in civil and criminal courts by governments in ways that impede their operations or intimidate them from assembly, association or expression. Although we also capture information on restrictive “legislation” and “legal cases” in occupied territories, we do so for the purpose of comparability only and not from any intent of conferring legitimacy to the de facto authorities in these localities.

AidData collected, triangulated, and classified unstructured information on instances of these three types of restrictions from three primary sources: (i) CIVICUS Monitor Civic Space Developments; (ii) RefWorld database of documents and articles pertaining to human rights and interactions with civilian law enforcement operated by UNHCR; and (iii) Factiva Global News Monitoring and Search Engine operated by Dow Jones. We then supplemented this data with country-specific information sources from media associations and civil society organizations who report on such restrictions.

Finding #1. Civic space actors across Europe & Eurasia have been navigating more restrictive environments at home since 2015, with Belarus and Kazakhstan as particular hotspots.

Between January 2015 and March 2021, we documented 6,020 restrictions of civic space actors across the E&E region. ^[3]  This research spotlights a sobering trend: consistent with concerns of eroding democratic norms, the environment for civic space actors has indeed become more restrictive since 2015. One quarter of recorded restrictions occurred in 2020 and, based upon the high volume of activity captured in just the first quarter, 2021 is on a similar trajectory (Figure 2). ^[4]  

These imperfect estimates are based upon publicly available information either reported by the targets of restrictions, documented by a third-party actor, or covered in the news. ^[5]  This data is best understood to be event-level data in that it records reported episodes of violence and harassment, restrictive legislation, as well as legal cases, as opposed to a count dataset that attempts to capture the universe of how many individuals were affected.

Figure 2. Restrictions of Civic Space Actors, by Type, 2015 to Q1 2021

Instances of harassment or violence were most common (3,823 instances) among the three types of restrictions tracked across all years. Although there were fewer instances of restrictive legislation (282 instances), formal laws and policies can have a multiplier effect, creating a legal mandate for a government (or de facto authorities) to pursue other forms of restriction. Most frequently, restrictive legislation focused on censoring speech (126 instances) and curbing financing or other operations (166 instances) of civic actors.

Governments (or de facto authorities) throughout the E&E region made extensive use of state-backed legal cases (1,915 instances) to punish past behavior, discourage future action, or otherwise undercut public confidence in civic actors. These cases were most often directly tied to fundamental freedoms (e.g., freedom of speech, assembly). There were also some indirect charges such as drug trafficking or bribery, used by regimes to discredit the reputations of civic space actors. ^[6]  

Figure 3 visualizes the time series for each type of restriction (harassment/violence, restrictive legislation, state-backed legal cases) for only the subset of years for which we have data for all 17 countries: 2017 through the first quarter of 2021.

Figure 3. Timeline of Restrictions of Civic Actors, by Type, 2017 to Q12021

Harassment / Violence

Restrictive Legislation

State-backed Legal Cases

That said, the region is not monolithic. Eastern Europe consistently charted a higher volume of restrictions of civic space actors relative to other sub-regions, heavily driven by higher numbers of instances of harassment or violence and state-backed legal cases (Figure 4). Comparatively, Central Asia did not see big surges until late 2019 and 2020, particularly harassment or violence and instances of restrictive legislation. There were also observable differences at the country-level as well. Instances of harassment and violence were most often visible; however, countries such as Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Kazakhstan were more litigious than their regional peers in leveraging the judiciary to crack down on civic space activity and actors (Figure 5).

In Figure 6, we rank each of the 17 E&E countries from highest to lowest number of restrictions by type (harassment/violence, restrictive legislation, state-backed legal cases) and overall. ^[7]  Belarus and Kazakhstan ^[8]  were the most restrictive environments for civic space actors, falling consistently within the top-3 overall and in each sub-indicator. Central Asian countries such as Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan were somewhat more prominent on indicators that make use of the legal system (legal cases or restrictive legislation) to harass civic space actors. It is particularly noteworthy that Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Ukraine ranked so high in these measures of restrictiveness, despite having relatively fewer years of data coverage, as data for all three countries was captured only starting in January 2017.  

Figure 4. Restrictions of Civic Actors, by Sub-Region & Type, 2017 to Q12021

Harassment / Violence

Restrictive Legislation

State-backed Legal Cases

Figure 5 . Restrictions of Civic Actors, by Type & Country, 2015 to Q1 2021

Figure 6. Most Restrictive Countries, by Type & Overall, 2015 to Q1 2021

Rank	Overall	Harassment/ Violence	Restrictive Legislation	State-backed Legal Case
1	Belarus	Belarus	Ukraine*	Belarus
2	Kazakhstan*	Kazakhstan*	Belarus	Kazakhstan*
3	Azerbaijan	Ukraine*	Georgia	Azerbaijan
4	Ukraine*	Azerbaijan	Kazakhstan*	Kyrgyzstan*
5	Georgia	Serbia	Kyrgyzstan*	Tajikistan*
6	Serbia	Georgia	Moldova	Ukraine*
7	Armenia	Armenia	Tajikistan*	Armenia
8	Moldova	Moldova	Albania*	Georgia
9	North Macedonia	North Macedonia	Armenia	North Macedonia
10	Kyrgyzstan*	Turkmenistan*	North Macedonia	Serbia
11	Tajikistan*	Kyrgyzstan*	Azerbaijan	Moldova
12	Turkmenistan*	Bosnia & Herzegovina	Serbia	Uzbekistan*
13	Uzbekistan*	Kosovo	Montenegro*	Turkmenistan*
14	Kosovo	Tajikistan*	Uzbekistan*	Albania*
15	Bosnia & Herzegovina	Uzbekistan*	Kosovo	Kosovo
16	Albania*	Albania*	Turkmenistan*	Montenegro*
17	Montenegro*	Montenegro*	Bosnia & Herzegovina	Bosnia & Herzegovina

Finding #2. Domestic actors were often the initiators of civic space restrictions, but Russia and Turkey were the most prolific foreign governments involved in restrictions against civic groups abroad.

Domestic governments were most often the initiators of restrictions against civic space actors, though countries varied as to whether this was concentrated within law enforcement (police and security forces) versus parliamentarians and executive branch officials. Unidentified assailants, often suspected of being policemen or other law enforcement officials operating incognito, were involved in 463 incidents. Non-government actors were initiators in 453 incidents.

Eighteen foreign governments were involved in 73 restrictions against civic space actors abroad. Eight governments from the E&E region ^[9]  were complicit in actions against civic space actors in another E&E country, while the remaining 10 foreign governments were out-of-region. Russia and Turkey were the worst offenders in engaging in civic space restrictions abroad (Figure 7). Tajikistan, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan attracted the highest number of foreign government restrictions of their civic actors (Figure 8).

It should be noted that the circumstances of these restrictions involving foreign governments are quite varied. Most often, foreign governments worked in cooperation with domestic authorities on joint actions, such as in cases of legal extradition or asset seizure of individual civic actors against their will using a range of justifications, some highly questionable (i.e., listing activists deemed critical of the authorities as terrorists or threats to national security). Less frequently, foreign governments appeared to be operating in isolation, engaging in extra-legal means, without the consent or visibility of domestic authorities. Examples include disruptive, non-lethal forms of harassment such as suspected Russian trolls hacking individual social media accounts, employing denial of service attacks against websites run by civic actors in another country, and engaging in verbal attacks to discredit critics. There were also more serious instances of physical harassment and outright violence.

We also identified 178 restrictions that involved the de facto authorities in 8 occupied or autonomous territories including: Georgia’s Russia-occupied Abkhazia, Crimea, self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic, self-declared Luhansk People’s Republic, Nagorno-Karabakh, Republika Srpska, ^[10]  Georgia’s Russia-occupied South Ossetia, and Transnistria. These restrictions were classified as “de facto authorities-occupied territory.” For more more information please refer to the occupied territories profiles.

Figure 7. Most Prolific Foreign Government Initiators of Civic Space Restrictions, 2015 to Q1 2021

Rank	Foreign Government Initiator	Number of Incidents	Targeted Countries
1	Russia	28	Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, North Macedonia, Tajikistan, Ukraine
2	Turkey	16	Albania, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kosovo, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine

Figure 8. Foreign Government Restrictions of Civic Actors, by Sub-Region and Country, 2015 to Q1 2021

The two most frequently targeted civic space actors—journalists and political opposition—were quite consistent across countries, particularly within instances of harassment and violence as well as legal cases (Figure 9). There were two noteworthy exceptions: formal civil society organizations (CSOs) in Moldova and looser community groups (e.g., religious congregations, labor unions/clubs) in Turkmenistan surpassed the usual suspects in terms of attracting the brunt of restrictions during the monitoring period. More generally, CSOs and community groups were popular targets of restrictive legislation as g overnments sought to disrupt their operations and activities.

For a subset of countries—those in Eastern Europe, Balkans, and the Caucasus—we probed further to understand patterns in the targeting of restrictions against individuals and groups categorized by political ideology or affiliation (Figure 10). ^[11]  Pro-democracy organizations and activists were identified in 2,679 of the restrictions during this period. ^[12]  Pro-Western organizations and activists were mentioned 1,646 times as targets of restrictions. ^[13]  There were 667 instances where we identified the target organizations or individuals to be explicitly anti-Kremlin in their public views. ^[14]  

It should be noted that this classification does not imply that these groups were targeted in whole or in part because of their political ideology or affiliation, merely that they met certain predefined characteristics. In fact, these tags were deliberately defined narrowly such that they focus on only a limited set of attributes about the organizations and individuals in question.

Figure 9. Most Common Targets of Restrictions, 2015 to Q1 2021

Figure 10. Restrictions of Civic Space Actors by Political or Ideological Affiliation, Excludes Central Asia, 2015 to Q1 2021

2.2  Attitudes Towards Civic Space

Citizen attitudes towards political and apolitical forms of participation provide another important barometer of the practical room that people feel they have to engage in collective action related to common causes and interests or express views publicly. In the country profiles, we triangulated data across several citizen surveys ^[15]  to inform six proxy indicators of citizen attitudes towards civic participation in the E&E region. ^[16]  

Given high variability in coverage by year and country, in this synthesis report we focus on the World Values Survey Wave 6 (2011-2014), ^[17]  the Joint European Value Survey/World Value Survey (2017-2021), ^[18]  and the Civic Engagement Index from Gallup World Poll (2010-2021). ^[19]  To assess the relative health of civic space across the region we further emphasize two areas: (i) political interest and participation (e.g., petitions, boycotts, strikes, protests); and (ii) apolitical  civic participation (e.g., charitable donations, volunteering with organizations, helping strangers).

Finding #3. Passive interest in politics does not always translate into active participation, but Armenia and Montenegro rise above the rest as consistently stronger performers.

Interest in politics is an important indicator of citizens’ openness to engage in public discourse and decisions about their country’s governance that affect their daily lives. ^[20]  In the E&E region, c itizens’ interest in politics was somewhat muted, ranging between one-third to just under one-half depending upon the country (Figure 11), according to the most recent public opinion polling available from the Joint European Values Study/World Values Survey (2017-2020).

Respondents from Tajikistan reported the highest level of interest (47 percent) ^[21]  across 13 countries in the region for which we have data  (Figure 11). Armenia and Belarus were noteworthy for being among the most improved, with respondents reporting an increased interest in politics by +10 and +3 percentage points, respectively since the prior 2011-2014 survey (Figure 12). Azerbaijani respondents also reported an uptick in interest (+7 percentage points) between the two surveys; however, the country still lags far behind the mean. Kyrgyzstan had the greatest upset, with citizen interest in politics plummeting from a fairly sizable 65 percent of respondents in 2011-2014 to only 30 percent in 2017-2020 (-35 percentage points). More in-depth information on these insights are available in the individual country profiles.

Figure 11. Interest in Politics by Country, 2017-2020

Figure 12. Change in Political Interest by Country, 2011-2014 Versus 2017-2020

Recognizing that political interest does not always translate into practical action, we leveraged the two survey waves to assess levels of reported past participation in common forms of political activity (e.g., boycotts, strikes, demonstrations, petitions), as well as future willingness to participate in such activities. ^[22]  In Figure 13, we visualize the percentage of respondents by country who said they had either previously participated in each political activity or would consider doing so in future. In Figure 14, we rank each E&E country from highest to lowest in terms of their population’s openness to active participation in political activities.

Strikingly, the picture looks quite a bit different from the earlier measure on passive interest alone. Central Asian countries like Tajikistan and Kazakhstan who were near the top on political interest drop to the very bottom in acting upon that interest, perhaps reflective of the highly restrictive environments in which they live. ^[23]   Armenia and Montenegro  were consistently strong performers, charting in the top-5 overall on both interest and willingness to participate in politics. Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia are noteworthy for their citizens’ willingness to participate at high levels across all four activities asked about in the survey. It should be noted that these results emphasize cross-national comparisons, so it is possible that some countries backslid in performance relative to itself on this measure.

Figure 13. Willingness to Engage Politically, by Country and Type of Participation, 2017-2020 EVS/WVS

Figure 14. Willingness to Engage Politically, by Country and Type of Participation, 2017-2020 EVS/WVS, Relative Rank

Finding #4. Citizens across the region are volunteering, giving, and helping others at higher rates than they were seven years ago, but membership in voluntary organizations remains low.

The Gallup World Poll’s (GWP) Civic Engagement Index measures the proportion of citizens that reported giving money to charity, volunteering at organizations, and helping a stranger annually on a scale of 0 to 100. ^[24]   Citizen participation in these areas rose across the region in 2020 and 2021 (the last two years of data available for most countries) as people rallied in response to COVID-19, even in the face of lockdowns and limitations on public gatherings. This enthusiasm for apolitical civic engagement may not be a reaction to the pandemic alone. The average civic engagement score for the region steadily grew from 29 in 2015 to 39 by 2021 (+10 points).

Central Asia generally had the highest civic engagement scores between 2015 and 2019, though other sub-regions nudged ahead in 2020 and 2021 (Figure 15). ^[25]  Balkans countries, on average, charted the greatest improvement over the period (+18 points), followed by Eastern Europe (+16 points). However, the majority of this ground was gained in the last two years and it remains uncertain as to whether this can be sustained in future. Comparatively, the Caucasus sub-region had a lower score in 2019 than it did a decade prior and these countries did not seem to have had the same upswing in participation as their regional peers.

In Figure 16, we rank each of the E&E countries from highest to lowest based upon their Civic Engagement scores throughout the period. Higher-ranked countries were relatively better off than their regional peers, as a greater share of citizens contributed to civic organizations and communities by giving their money (donating), time (volunteering), and support (helping). Uzbekistan started the period strong in 2015, consistently staying within the top-5 performers for the first several years, but was among the largest backsliders by 2021. Belarus dropped to the bottom of the regional rankings in 2019, the last year of data available for the country. Conversely, Serbia jumped from the bottom to the top of the regional rankings (+15), while Ukraine, ^[26]  Bosnia and Herzegovina, and North Macedonia all charted major gains (+8).

Figure 15. Civic Engagement Index Scores, by Sub-Region and Country

Balkans, 2010-2021

Caucasus

Central Asia

Eastern Europe

Figure 16. Change in Civic Engagement Index Rank, by Country

A related measure of citizens’ engagement beyond politics is the rate of membership in voluntary organizations—from cultural and religious groups to labor unions and charitable organizations—as captured by the World Values Survey (2011-2014) and Joint WVS/EVS (2017-2020). ^[27]  Central Asia had some of the highest rates of membership in voluntary organizations in the region (Figure 17). Ukraine is noteworthy, not only for ranking 2nd overall in the most recent survey, but charting the greatest improvement since the previous round (+6 percentage points). Armenia and Kazakhstan were the only other countries to see an increase in membership with voluntary organizations across the two surveys (Figure 18). Comparatively, Azerbaijan, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan all saw declines, with losses of between 1 and 10 percentage points. Each country does see variation in membership between different types of voluntary organizations, such as environmental organizations, sports or recreation groups, religious organizations, and professional associations among others.

Figure 17. Citizen Membership in Voluntary Organizations, by Country

Figure 18. Change in Membership in Voluntary Organizations, by Country, 2011-2014 versus 2017-2020

2. 3 Attitudes Towards Civil Society Organizations

Civil society organizations (CSOs) are an integral element of a country’s civic space. They can serve a critical function in reducing barriers for citizens to organize themselves around a common interest, cause, or pastime. AidData’s 2022 CSO Census and Constituent Survey provided deeper insights into the state of civil society across the E&E region and the degree to which CSO staff and their constituents align in how they view the mission, strengths, and performance of these organizations in their country.

Finding #5. CSOs across E&E are seen as best positioned to influence change from the outside by leveraging information and convening power, rather than working via government channels.

CSO staff were more politically oriented, with over half (59 percent) identifying lobbying and advocacy as their organization's highest priority (Figure 19), ^[28]  particularly advancing specific policies or priorities. By contrast, constituents viewed protecting freedoms (62 percent) and educating the public (60 percent) as the most CSO-like behaviors (Figure 20). Constituents saw CSOs as most effective in influencing change from outside via op-eds, petitions, protests, and publications. This is fairly consistent with the activities that CSO staff most frequently reported being engaged in: publishing reports and blogs (62 percent), giving interviews and sharing information with journalists (59 percent), and writing op-eds in local or international media (42 percent). Comparatively, constituents and staff agreed that CSOs were less well positioned to work within government channels—giving testimony in a parliamentary hearing, launching legal challenges or filing grievances via formal channels.

Contrary to accusations promoted by some political elites in the region that domestic CSOs are primarily vehicles for advancing the objectives of outsiders, CSO staff were less international in their orientation and relationships than expected. Over two-thirds of CSO staff respondents (79 percent) said their organization was not  a national chapter of an international organization and only 20 percent said their group worked at the international level. Only one-fifth of CSO staff identified “raising awareness of international actors” about their country’s policies as a key activity, though constituents felt this number was higher (+20 percentage points).

In an encouraging sign, CSOs appear not to be going it alone but instead are actively involved in building partnerships with like-minded organizations. Ninety-six percent of CSO staff said their organization had at least one external partner in the last year, most often local or foreign not-for-profits (60 percent), followed by government agencies (38 percent). Alignment of values (59 percent), ability to amplify their work (47 percent), or access to financial resources (44 percent) were the three primary drivers for CSO staff to broker external partnerships. Since CSO staff tended to represent smaller organizations in staff size (only 11 percent said their organizations had more than 50 employees)—it stands to reason that they may be motivated to expand their reach and impact through linking up with other organizations. ^[29]

Figure 19. CSO Census Survey: Objectives of Civil Society Organizations, April-May 2022

Figure 20. CSO Constituency Survey: Activities of Civil Society Organizations, April-May 2022

Finding #6. CSOs enjoy high confidence from both their staff and constituents, but this manifests as willingness to participate in discrete activities rather than substantive support to operations.

Given the absence of a strong tradition of homegrown civic space, there is often a concern that CSOs may lack sufficiently deep constituency bases within E&E countries. AidData’s snap poll shows mixed results on this score. Eighty-four percent of constituents had engaged with CSOs in some way over the past year. But these individuals were less likely to provide substantive support to CSO operations such as donating money or paying dues (19 percent), volunteering (18 percent), giving non-financial gifts (14 percent) or purchasing a good or service (9 percent). Instead, constituents most often said they had participated in CSO-organized activities (Figure 20), such as attending panels, discussions, or meetings organized by CSOs (58 percent). They were also prolific promoters of CSO events, activities or publications to their networks (47 percent).

If they did support a CSO in the past year, constituents were most likely to say that they did so for one of two reasons (Figure 21): the organization was making a positive impact (72 percent) and the desire to join with others who held similar values (44 percent). Although few constituents gave money to CSOs or volunteered themselves, the majority (56 percent) cited financial limitations as the biggest barrier for these organizations to operate in their country, followed by a lack of technical expertise (39 percent). ^[30]  

In spite of their difficult operating environments, CSOs appear to inspire a high degree of confidence on the part of both staff (99 percent) and constituents (75 percent). ^[31]  Respondents from Serbia, Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina (100 percent), and Georgia (82 percent) reported the highest level of confidence in their CSOs relative to their regional peers. When asked about the statements with which they most agreed, only 5 percent of constituents said CSOs did more harm than good, while 43 percent said that they actively work to solve problems (Figure 22). Central Asian constituents were more likely than their Eastern European peers to say that CSOs actively work to solve problems (+28 percentage points).

That said, CSOs may have a credibility deficit. Constituents felt that CSOs hold the government accountable for results (29 percent), but they had concerns about whether CSOs hold themselves to the same standards, citing a lack of impartiality (9 percent), funding transparency (9 percent), and public accountability (12 percent). In a similar vein, among constituents who did not support a CSO in the past year, 14 percent reported a lack of trust as the reason. Moreover, 25 percent of constituents said that CSOs were controlled by political elites. Co-optation of CSOs was a higher concern in Albania (+21 percentage points), Armenia (+26 percentage points), and Kosovo (+17 percentage points), and less so in Central Asia (-9 percentage points, on average).

Figure 21. CSO Constituency Survey: Most Common Types of Engagement with CSOs, April-May 2022

Figure 22. CSO Constituency Survey: Top Reasons They Engaged with CSOs, April-May 2022

Figure 23. CSO Constituency Survey: Perceptions of Civil Society Organizations, April-May 2022

3. External Influence Channels: Kremlin Civic Space Projects and Russian-State Run Media in Europe and Eurasia

In recent years, a growing number of governments have sought to co-opt, control, and curtail civic space in an effort to discourage political challenges, even in relatively democratic countries. But this is not strictly a function of domestic dynamics alone. Foreign state and non-state actors can also influence civic space beyond their borders which has been a source of concern in democracies over the ability of authoritarian regimes to export autocracy abroad (Diamond, 2019; Walker, 2018) . External actors may engage in measures that dilute democratic norms, weaken civic space, and stifle independent voices—co-opting civic actors, influencing government regulators, or swaying public perceptions to accept their preferred narratives.

Russia’s strong desire to “wall off [Eastern Europe and Eurasia] as its own unrivaled sphere of influence, free from external intervention” has long been a source of concern for the region’s democracies (Watts et al., 2020; Custer et al., 2022). As Moscow looks for entry points to exert malign influence abroad, Vojtíšková et al. (2016) identified non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and think tanks across the E&E region as priority targets for Russian external action, as these organizations can either promote and legitimize Russian policies abroad, or become vocal opponents or detractors to curb its regional ambitions.  

In this study, we consider three aspects of Russian influence on the region’s civic space: Kremlin financing and in-kind support channeled to  specific civic space actors or regulators (section 3.1); Russian state media mentions related to civic space—both specific actors and rhetoric about democratic norms and rivals (section 3.2); and perceptions of CSO staff and constituents about the influence of Russia relative to other foreign powers.  As in section 2, in this report we focus attention on trends, similarities, and differences on these indicators between countries and across four subregions: Eastern Europe (Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine), Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia), Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia), and Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan). For additional insights, we suggest consulting the 17 country and 7 occupied or autonomous territory profiles.

3 .1  Russian State-Backed Financing and In-kind Support to Civic Space Actors and Regulators

In this project, we tracked financing and in-kind support from Kremlin-affiliated agencies to: (i) build the capacity of those that regulate the activities of civic space actors (e.g., government entities at national or local levels, or de facto authorities  in occupied territories); and (ii) co-opt the activities of civil society actors within E&E countries (or occupied territories) in ways that seek to promote or legitimize Russian policies abroad.

AidData collected, triangulated, and classified unstructured information on instances of Russian financing and assistance to civic space identified in articles from the Factiva Global News Monitoring and Search Engine operated by Dow Jones between January 1, 2015 and August 30, 2021. Queries for Factiva Analytics pull together a collection of terms related to mechanisms of support (e.g., grants, joint training), recipient organizations, and concrete links to Russian government or government-backed organizations. ^[32]  In addition to global news, we reviewed a number of sources specific to each of the 17 target countries (and 7 occupied or autonomous territories) to broaden our search and, where possible, confirm reports from news sources.

Finding #7. Russia has doubled down on closer ties with pro-Kremlin civic space actors and regulators in a relatively small number of cities and occupied territories across the region.

The Kremlin supported 710 civic space-relevant projects across the E&E region between January 2015 and August 2021. Most of these activities emphasized cultivating relationships and joint programming with specific civic actors. A minority focused on capacity building and cooperation with government agencies or law enforcement that regulate civic space activities in their countries (or with de facto authorities in the case of occupied territories). Moscow’s revealed interest in such investments was consistent, as the number of identified projects rose for much of the period ( Figure 24 ), with a sharp drop off after 2019 likely due to COVID-19-related disruptions in 2020 and partial data for 2021 (through Q3). ^[33]

There are some stark differences, however, in how the Kremlin engages with countries across the region. Central Asia captured the greatest share of the Kremlin’s attention  (68 percent of projects), steadily building through 2019, before tapering off. Eastern Europe continued to receive an uptick in projects throughout that same time period, though substantially less. Involvement in the Caucasus was fairly stable, but engagement with the Balkans was in decline even pre-COVID (Figure 25) .

Figure 24. Kremlin Financing and In-kind Support to Civic Actors, Number of Projects by Type, 2015 to Q3 2021

Figure 25. Kremlin Financing and In-kind Support to Civic Actors, Number of Projects by Sub-Region, 2015 to Q3 2021

The number of projects a country receives is likely a combination of supply-side interest on the part of Kremlin-affiliated organs, and demand from prospective E&E counterpart organizations, though this is also likely influenced by restrictions on foreign funding or attitudes towards Russia. If we take population into account, as an indication of per capita exposure to Kremlin programming, three groups emerge: the “favorites,” the “strained,” and “the rest.”

• The “ favorites ,” including Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, have modestly sized populations, but receive a disproportionately high share of projects. This likely indicates that the Kremlin views support to civic space actors and regulators as a particularly powerful channel of influence in these contexts.
• The “ strained ,” including Uzbekistan and Ukraine, receive noticeably fewer projects, especially as a share of their larger populations. This does not necessarily indicate the Kremlin’s disinterest in these countries, particularly in light of the intensity of Russian media attention aimed at Ukraine in particular (see section 3.2), but it is an indication that Moscow sees the limits of working with civic space actors and regulators in these contexts.
• By far the largest group of E&E countries fall in the “ rest ,” receiving a middle-of-the road amount of projects per capita, suggesting that the Kremlin sees the benefits of using support to civic space actors and regulators as useful, but only to a degree.

There were 112 Kremlin-affiliated agencies and organizations identified as supporting at least one civic space project with a counterpart in an E&E country. Not all of these Russian state organs were equally important. Four heavyweight organizations—Rossotrudnichestvo, ^[34]  the Gorchakov Fund, ^[35]  Russkiy Mir, ^[36]  and the Russian embassy or consulate system—were collectively involved in 92 percent of projects (Figure 26). The “big four” Kremlin suppliers serve an important brokerage function in introducing other Russian agencies to promising E&E counterpart organizations and vice versa. Countries with higher project counts generally have more varied connections across Kremlin-affiliated organs (Figure 27).

Figure 26. Kremlin-affiliated Projects by Supplier, 2015 to Q3 2021

Figure 27. Kremlin Civic Space Projects, Suppliers, & Recipient Organizations, by Country (or Territory), 2015 to Q3 2021

Country (Territory)	Number of total projects	Number of unique Russian suppliers	Number of unique identified recipient organizations
Albania	12	3	10
Armenia	49	16	37
Azerbaijan	9	5	11
Belarus	30	13	19
Bosnia & Herzegovina	3	2	1
Bosnia & Herzegovina (Republika Srpska)		1	1
Georgia	46	12	22
Georgia (Russia-occupied Abkhazia)		10	13
Georgia (Russia-occupied South Ossetia)		2	4
Kazakhstan	249	33	150
Kyrgyzstan	165	21	78
Moldova	47	16	30
Moldova, (Transnistria)		12	10
Macedonia	3	3	3
Serbia	19	12	19
Tajikistan	46	14	28
Turkmenistan	2	2	2
Ukraine	5	4	7
Ukraine, (self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic)	1	1	2
Ukraine, (self-declared Luhansk People’s Republic)	2	3	1
Uzbekistan	22	12	16

When we remove the arbitrary distinction of national boundaries, Moscow clearly has interests in particular types of subpopulations. ^[37]  Kremlin projects were overwhelmingly directed to capital cities, ^[38]  ostensibly seats of political power and home to a larger share of educated elites. Similar to what we have observed with Beijing’s deployment of its public diplomacy portfolio (Custer et al., 2021), the preponderance of the Kremlin’s support to civic space actors and regulators are highly concentrated within a very small club of communities and organizations. The top 10 city-level  recipients accounted for 65 percent of the Kremlin’s portfolio, with individual cities outstripping entire countries  (six of them) in terms of their share of projects (Figure 28). Seven of the ten top recipient cities were in Central Asia. Yerevan, Minsk, and Chisinau were also major beneficiaries of the Kremlin’s attention on this indicator.

There was also a surprisingly high concentration of Kremlin activities with a subset of individual E&E counterpart organizations that were the most frequent collaborators. The top 10 organization-level recipi ents were referenced in 30 percent of Russia’s civic space projects. ^[39]  This included several educational and cultural organizations in Kazakhstan: Old Oral Museum (40 projects), Center for Russian Culture (28 projects), Yesenzhanov Regional Library for Children and Youth (15 projects), Bylina (12 projects), Tatar Cultural Center (12 projects), M.A. Sholokhov Memorial Museum (11 projects). Kyrgyzstan also had several high frequency collaborators, including: Moscow Classics (38 projects), Russian Cultural Center Harmony (23 projects), Chingiz Aitmatov Russian Drama Theater (14 projects). Tajikistan Coordination Council of Russian Compatriots (KSORS) was also the recipient of 14 projects.

Figure 28. Top 10 Cities Receiving Russian Civic Space Projects, 2015-2021

Rank	City	Country	Region	Project Count	% of Region Total
1	Bishkek	Kyrgyzstan	Central Asia	127	18%
2	Oral	Kazakhstan	Central Asia	81	11%
3	Nur-Sultan	Kazakhstan	Central Asia	58	8%
4	Almaty	Kazakhstan	Central Asia	51	7%
5	Dushanbe	Tajikistan	Central Asia	34	5%
6	Yerevan	Armenia	Caucasus	28	4%
7	Osh	Kyrgyzstan	Central Asia	22	3%
8	Tashkent	Uzbekistan	Central Asia	21	3%
9	Minsk	Belarus	Eastern Europe	20	3%
10	Chisinau	Moldova	Eastern Europe	16	2%

Countries with occupied or autonomous territories also saw these regions receive ample attention from Moscow. Yet, the Kremlin does not have a one-size-fits-all strategy (Figure 27). In some cases, most evidently in Georgia, the majority of the Kremlin’s support is oriented to Georgia’s Russian-occupied territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia which received a combined 34 projects, compared to only 12 oriented to the rest of the country. Russia’s projects in Moldova were more evenly distributed between the occupied territory of Transnistria (21 projects) and the rest of the country (26 projects). The Kremlin focused 2 of its civic space projects on Republika Srpska, an autonomous region, versus 1 in the rest of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Finding #8. The Kremlin places an outsized emphasis on working with E&E civil society organizations on four themes: youth, the Great Patriotic War, religion, and Eurasian integration.

Moscow’s engagement with E&E civic space actors is extremely opaque but examining its project-specific activities, the Kremlin does not typically directly transfer money to its chosen recipients. In fact, only 31 of the Russian state-backed projects identified between 2015 and 2021 were explicitly coded as providing “funding” to an E&E counterpart institution (Figure 29). Instead, the Russian government relies more extensively on supplying non-financial “support” such as training, technical assistance, and other in-kind contributions to its E&E partners.

The lion’s share of the Kremlin’s assistance to individual civic space actors since 2015 has been in the area of event support, which was the case in 566 projects (80 percent) and the preferred modality across most sub-regions (Figure 30). Russian institutions offer to co-sponsor activities with a counterpart CSO, school or compatriot union in an E&E country to undertake a specific event, frequently focused on promoting Russian values, supporting youth politics, and creating youth unions. ^[40]  The Kremlin’s “support” is typically in the form of space, materials, or other logistical and technical contributions to its E&E partners. Political skills building for youth had a somewhat greater emphasis as a share of the Kremlin’s projects in the Caucasus (16 percent) and Eastern Europe (13 percent). Comparatively, this type of activity made up only 5 and 2 percent of projects, respectively, for the Balkans and Central Asia sub-regions.

Figure 29. Kremlin Civic Space-Relevant Projects with E&E Counterparts, by Type of Support, 2015 to Q3 2021

Notes: This figure shows the breakdown of projects by type of Kremlin support provided to counterpart organizations across the 17 E&E region countries (and 7 occupied or autonomous territories) between January 2015 and August 2021. Sources: Factiva Global News Monitoring and Search Engine operated by Dow Jones. Data manually collected by AidData staff and research assistants.

Figure 30. Kremlin Civic Space-Relevant Projects with E&E Counterparts, by Type of Support and Sub-region, 2015 to Q3 2021

Civil society organizations were by far and away the most common recipients, being involved in 75 percent of identified Russian-backed projects across the E&E region (Figure 31), though there were some subtle differences across sub-regions that may be indicative of population demographics. Many of the Kremlin’s preferred partners were organizations or cultural bodies like museums and theaters that had both mandate and facilities to co-host events. Local Russian compatriot unions (14 percent), ^[41]  schools (7 percent), and government agencies or de facto authorities (8 percent) were also popular recipients of the Kremlin’s attention. The Kremlin paid less attention to compatriot unions in Central Asia (11 percent of projects), where Russian language and culture remains deeply rooted, but this was more of an emphasis in the Balkans and Caucasus, as these groups benefited from 30 and 19 percent of projects, respectively.

Figure 31. Recipients of Kremlin-Backed Civic Space Projects, by Organization Type, 2015 to Q3 2021

The Kremlin places an outsized emphasis on four themes central to much of its programming with counterpart organizations throughout the E&E region (Figure 32). Youth-focused projects were by far the largest thematic focus in half of all identified Kremlin-backed projects. Georgia, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan received disproportionate attention in this thematic area (Figure 33).

This revealed interest in youth-oriented programming could be an indication of the Kremlin pushing back against the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) growing influence in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, particularly in the area of language and cultural promotion, also often focused on youth (Custer et al., 2021) . It also comes at a time when many countries have already begun, or are considering, a transition away from Cyrillic to Latin scripts, as well as demonstrating openness to experimenting with other foreign languages in schools, beyond Russian (ibid).

The Great Patriotic War (WWII) was a second popular theme, as the   Kremlin seeks to portray its enemies as contemporary Nazis, creating a pretext for Russian intervention. Moscow celebrates the heroism of Soviet forces against Nazi Germany to prime counterpart audiences to accept that anti-Kremlin forces are fascists and cultivate public sympathy for future Russian actions. Programming related to stressing the Nazi threat, WWII imagery, and Russia’s role as protector of the region was most heavily concentrated in Central Asia, ^[42]  but also Albania and Belarus.

Promoting shared religious ties is a third frequent topic of the Kremlin’s programming, particularly in leveraging connections with local Orthodox churches within E&E countries. If common language is the Kremlin’s entry point in Central Asia, religion was a primary focus in the Balkans, accounting for 24 percent of projects, despite being a relative afterthought in other sub-regions (2-8 percent). In a similar vein, churches were a somewhat larger recipient of Kremlin projects in the Balkans (16 percent), as compared to other sub-regions. Eurasian Integration is also a recurring theme as Russia seeks to  socialize new political norms across the region to bring countries into closer economic and political integration with the Kremlin.

These themes are not mutually exclusive and are often designed to be mutually reinforcing in the Kremlin’s programming. The most poignant example of this is Moscow’s support to Suvorov Military School which it funded and furnished in Transnistria, an occupied territory in Moldova. The de facto authorities emphasized the importance of the school, with “President” Vadim Krasnoselskiy saying that it would help ensure that the occupied territory’s future leaders will have “a good ideological background” and “a clear understanding of...the Dniester region.” ^[43]  

The Tiraspol-based school also began accepting students from farther afield, noticeably from Moldova’s autonomous region of Gagauzia, as early as 2018. The Kremlin has a complementary investment in running a summer leadership school for youth aged 16 to 30 years old in Gagauzia, which emphasizes political and leadership training, and frequent lectures from Russian guest speakers on topics such as Eurasian integration. ^[44]

Figure 32 . Kremlin Civic Space-Relevant Projects with E&E Counterparts, by Most Popular Thematic Areas of Focus, 2015 to Q3 2021

Figure 33. Kremlin Civic Space Projects, by Thematic Focus and Country (Territory)

3.2 Russian Media Mentions Related to Civic Space Actors and Democratic Rhetoric

Russian state-run media is a global enterprise, spanning two international news agencies and seven television networks (Custer et al., 2022) . However, the Kremlin’s broadcasting efforts have historically had the greatest comparative advantage within its “near abroad” of Europe and Eurasia, particularly within Russian-language speaking minority communities (ibid). Since E&E countries are exposed to a high concentration of Russian state-run media, we analyzed how the Kremlin may use its coverage to influence public attitudes about civic space actors (formal organizations and informal groups), as well as public discourse pertaining to democratic norms or rivals.

To bound this analysis, we focused on two of the Kremlin’s flagship outlets: Russian News Agency (TASS) and Sputnik News. AidData developed queries to isolate and classify articles from these outlets using the Factiva Global News Monitoring and Search Engine operated by Dow Jones. Articles published prior to January 1, 2015 or after March 31, 2021 were excluded from data collection. These queries identified relevant articles, from which AidData was able to record mentions of civic space actors or democratic rhetoric targeted towards each of the 17 E&E countries (and 7 occupied or autonomous territories). Each recorded mention was assigned a sentiment according to a five-point scale: extremely negative, somewhat negative, neutral, somewhat positive, and extremely positive. ^[45]  

Finding #9. Ukraine was the main driver of Russian media mentions, as the Kremlin used coverage as a bully pulpit to shape domestic and international attitudes about the country.

Between January 2015 and March 2021, TASS and Sputnik referenced civic actors operating in Europe and Eurasia 10,586 times from January 2015 to March 2021. Two-thirds of these mentions (7,078 instances) were of domestic actors, while the remaining one-third (3,508 instances) focused on foreign and intergovernmental actors operating in E&E countries. Russian state media covered a variety of civic actors, mentioning 1,102 organizations by name and 473 informal groups. To understand how Russian media may undermine democratic norms or rival powers in the eyes of foreign publics, we also analyzed 12,297 mentions of five keywords in coverage related to the 17 E&E countries: North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the United States (U.S.), the European Union (EU), democracy, and the West.

On the surface, the ratio of the 22,883 recorded Russian state-media mentions was roughly equitable between civic space actors (46 percent) versus democratic rhetoric (54 percent). However, this aggregate picture obscures a striking temporal shift in which channel of influence the Kremlin emphasized most often. Figure 34  showcases how the distribution of Russian state-media mentions of civic space actors and democratic rhetoric has varied over time. Coverage tends to concentrate around significant events including those that are: important in the civic life of a given E&E country, that affect bilateral relations with Russia, and/or pertain to relations with other powers or membership blocs such as the EU or NATO.

2016 and the early part of 2020 were relatively quiet periods on our two measures. By contrast, 2015, 2017, and the latter part of 2020 through the first quarter of 2021 were periods of more concentrated Russian media mentions. Almost akin to bookends, the Kremlin paid greater attention to domestic and external actors operating in E&E countries near the beginning (2015) and end of the period (late 2020). In between, Russian state-media used its megaphone far more regularly to shape broader narratives about democratic norms and rivals, than call out specific civic space actors.

Figure 34. Kremlin State Media Mentions Targeting E&E Civic Space, by Mention Type and Month of Publication, 2015 to Q1 2021

Eastern Europe attracted the lion’s share (72 percent) of the Kremlin’s overall media mentions (Figure 35), as well as more negative coverage (25 percent) than other sub-regions. Russian state media was less interested in spending column inches on civic space and democracy-related topics in Central Asia and the Caucasus. The Balkans is an interesting case that bucks the trend, attracting only a modest 17 percent of the region’s mentions overall, but the Kremlin oriented more of its coverage towards shaping narratives regarding its democratic rivals at a higher rate (69 percent of mentions) than observed in other parts of the region.

Figure 36 ranks each of the 17 E&E countries based upon the volume of Russian media mentions overall and disaggregated by category. Higher-ranked countries (lower numbers) experienced greater external pressure from the Kremlin (either positive pressure if deemed a pro-Kremlin ally or negative pressure if deemed in opposition to Moscow’s interests), relative to regional peers, at least via this influence channel.

The five countries that each captured 5 percent or more of the Kremlin’s media mentions overall include: Ukraine (55 percent), Belarus (12 percent), Serbia (7 percent), Georgia (5 percent), and Moldova (5 percent). Russian media mentions tended to concentrate around significant events and advance particular interests. For example, in Belarus, the preponderance of civic actor mentions coincided with the 2020 presidential elections and anti-government protests, with an uptick in coverage continuing into early 2021. Russian media coverage became more negative across both indicators as the Kremlin grew more concerned of a potential color revolution and losing a staunch pro-Russian ally in President Lukashenko.

In Serbia, Russian state media was very focused on Serbia’s accession to the EU as a recurring topic, orienting more negative coverage to pro-European parties and organizations on the one-hand, while aiming to promote Eurosceptic parties and pro-Russian institutions on the other. Forty-three percent of Georgia’s civic space actor mentions occurred in just two months—June to July 2019—in relation to a series of anti-Russian protests. The Kremlin used both civic actor and democratic rhetoric to discredit pro-European or Western-affiliated organizations, promote pro-Kremlin voices, and deter Georgia’s aspirations to join NATO and the European Union.

Even in the case of Ukraine, which received more sustained interest over the period, Russian state media mentions spiked during significant events in Ukraine’s civic life: the one-year anniversary of the Odessa Trade Union House fire (2015), aggressions towards Russian banks and social media sites in 2017, the 2019 Ukrainian presidential elections, as well as Crimean blockades, and Ukrainian bans on Russian media. Our data underscores that the Kremlin used state-run media as a bully pulpit to sway local narratives about civic space actors and democratic norms both within Ukraine’s domestic population, as well as shape international attitudes about Ukraine to drive a wedge between the authorities in Kyiv and its Western allies.

Figure 35. Intensity of Russian media attention by Mention Type and Count, by Sub-region, 2015 to Q1 2021

Figure 36. Intensity of Russian media attention by Mention Type and Count, by Country, 2015 to Q1 2021

Finding #10. Kremlin media promoted similar narratives as with its civic space projects: advancing Eurasian integration, Russia as a natural security partner, and sowing doubts about the West.

The list of the most frequently mentioned civic space actors of any E&E county was dominated by those related to Ukraine in various ways (Figure 37). Yet, examining the specific coverage of these organizations has a broader relevance as they showcase several of the Kremlin’s preferred narratives in action with E&E publics.

Right Sector, a Ukrainian nationalist organization, was the most frequently mentioned and attracted overwhelmingly negative coverage. Kremlin-affiliated media blamed the group for the alleged “Odessa Massacre of 2014,” which resulted in the deaths of 48 activists—a conspiracy theory later debunked by multiple international organizations. Right Sector was one among many nationalist organizations Russian media highlighted within stories to promote the idea that rampant far-right nationalism was spreading throughout the region, with neo-Nazi activists able to freely engage in provocations with impunity. This thematic focus of Russian media coverage was synergistic with the efforts to highlight Russia’s role in the “Great Patriotic War” in various co-hosted events across the region, as discussed in the previous section.

Coverage of Donetsk News Agency, the third most frequently mentioned group, illustrates another focus of Russian media coverage throughout the region—bolstering the credibility and visibility of de-facto authorities in occupied territories to facilitate their path to greater autonomy and alignment with Moscow. The main newspaper for the Russian-occupied Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Donetsk News Agency was one of the Kremlin’s preferred sources to cite for local coverage of events such as the War in Donbas and protests in Kyiv. The Kremlin similarly amplified other local pro-Russian newspapers, both within and outside of occupied territories.

The remaining three top-mentioned groups—the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission, and Russian “peacekeepers”—were external actors relevant to Ukraine, but mentioned more broadly in the context of other E&E countries. Coverage of these groups tended to be neutral and best understood in the context of how the Kremlin co-opts coverage to advance its preferred narratives—from corroborating Russia’s view of events in Donbas or Crimea to positioning Russian “peacekeepers” as a natural extension of the Kremlin’s role as the region’s traditional protector and security partner.

Figure 37. Most Frequently Mentioned Formal Civic Groups, External and Domestic

Formal Civic Group	Extremely Negative	Somewhat Negative	Neutral	Somewhat Positive	Extremely Positive	# of Mentions
Right Sector	148	119	30	0	0	297
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)	2	10	147	5	4	168
Donetsk News Agency	0	0	117	0	0	117
Russian “peacekeepers”	0	2	72	24	19	117
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Special Monitoring Mission (OSCE SMM)	0	0	103	4	0	107

In addition to mentions of civic space actors, we also monitored coverage related to five keywords related to democratic norms and the Kremlin’s democratic rivals. Of the 12,297 mentions in this category, the U.S. received the majority (30 percent), followed by the EU (28 percent), NATO (20 percent), and the West (19 percent), with mentions of democracy trailing by quite a large margin (3 percent) over the entirety of the tracking period (Figure 38). The majority of mentions of the U.S., NATO, and the West were negative. The EU and democracy received slightly more neutral mentions.

Looking across the keywords, it is possible to pinpoint several preferred narratives that were fairly consistent across the region. The Kremlin used state media to portray Russia as a partner of choice for E&E countries, employing positive references to Moscow’s efforts to promote Eurasian integration alongside less flattering portrayals of Western democracies (e.g., U.S., EU) and coalitions (NATO). It used the vague term “the West” to fan the flame of disapproval among E&E countries for Western countries’ purported meddling in their domestic affairs, most often elections, or having ulterior motives. The Kremlin had a dual-use approach to democracy: Russian state media used the term positively when seeking to legitimize its policy positions (i.e., accepting Crimea’s referendum or the electoral win of a pro-Kremlin ally) and negatively when Russia sought to discredit democratic voices that it argued were co-opted by the West.

Figure 38. Frequency and Sentiment of Democratic Rhetoric Mentions

Informal Civic Group	Extremely Negative	Somewhat Negative	Neutral	Somewhat Positive	Extremely Positive	# of Mentions
NATO	352	905	1033	126	3	2419
EU	153	1331	1737	240	5	3466
U.S.	328	1587	1653	161	9	3738
Democracy	13	58	174	61	6	312
West	353	1411	542	56	0	2362

3 . 3 Perceptions of External Influence and Civil Society Organizations

The limited history of independent space for civil society in the former Yugoslavia and post-Soviet states has given rise to concerns that CSOs in Eastern Europe and Eurasia face unique vulnerabilities. Absent a strong tradition of homegrown civic space in their countries, citizens and politicians are apt to associate civil society organizations with Western democracies and as heavily subsidized by foreign donors with only shallow levels of domestic support. This raises questions about not only the resilience of CSOs in the face of government intimidation at home but also from malign influence abroad.

Recognizing that foreign actors are not monolithic, AidData’s 2022 CSO Census and Constituency Survey asked respondents to assess whether they viewed the influence of foreign countries as harmful, beneficial, or neutral to civic space in their country. There was a high degree of consensus among CSO staff and constituents (Figure 39). Respondents viewed the influence of Western powers on their country’s civic space most positively including the European Union (90-97 percent beneficial), United States (85-88 percent beneficial), and the United Kingdom (76-82 percent beneficial).

Comparatively, Russia’s influence on their country’s civic space was most likely to be viewed negatively by both CSO staff (68 percent harmful) and constituents (73 percent harmful). This antagonism towards Russia is consistent with other civic space trends which point to the Kremlin’s aggressiveness towards particularly pro-democracy or pro-Western voices but we acknowledge that the strength of these feelings was likely impacted by the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine just a few months prior to the survey being fielded in April-May 2022.

CSO staff and constituents took relatively more neutral stances (neither harmful, nor beneficial) on actors such as the United Arab Emirates (49-54% neutral), Saudi Arabia (49-50% neutral), and Turkey (40% neutral). Respondents also frequently selected “don’t know or unsure” for these three foreign actors.

Despite rampant speculation in popular discourse and the media over whether Russia is colluding with the People’s Republic of China to advance shared geostrategic aims, respondent attitudes indicated substantially more uncertainty about Beijing’s influence as compared to Moscow. Similar to the dynamic with UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, CSO staff and constituents were relatively more negative towards the PRC’s influence (36-43 percent harmful) on their country’s civic space as compared to that of Western powers. However, respondents clearly viewed Russia’s malign influence as a relatively greater threat, while they were more likely to select don’t know/not sure for the PRC.

Figure 39. CSO Census vs Constituency: Attitudes to Foreign Influence on Civic Space, April-May 2022

4. Looking Ahead: Building Capacity Without Compromising Credibility

There is a growing body of literature on the factors that induce governments to restrict civic space, measures to monitor civil society development; and anecdotal evidence on the role of external actors. However, there is a relative blindspot when it comes to actionable intelligence on how best to support CSOs in the E&E region in a way that avoids undercutting their credibility with domestic constituencies.

This regional synthesis report, along with a series of companion country and occupied or autonomous territory profiles, provides a step forward in closing these data gaps. It pinpoints areas of resilience and risk for civic space across the region in the face of eroding democratic norms at home and malign influence from abroad. Our analysis unearthed sobering truths: civic space actors are increasingly experiencing greater restrictions of their activities, most often at the hands of their own governments (or de facto authorities) but also foreign powers like Russia and Turkey. Yet, there are bright spots of hope, such as a rise in civic participation across the region and the insight that CSOs enjoy high confidence from both their staff and domestic constituents.

With the benefit of hindsight, we can see clearly how the Kremlin invested its media, money, and in-kind support to promote pro-Russian sentiment across E&E countries and discredit voices wary of its regional ambitions in the years leading up to the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Our analysis demonstrates how Russia disproportionately emphasized cultivating closer ties with pro-Kremlin civic space actors and regulators in a relatively small number of cities and occupied territories. Moreover, it illuminates how the Kremlin exploited synergies across its investments in civic space projects and state-run media to promote reinforcing narratives about Eurasian integration, Russia as the partner of choice, and the unreliability of the Western democracies and membership blocs as alternative allies.

This leaves us with a critical and, as yet, unanswered question: how can we best bolster the capacity of civil society in the E&E region to withstand pressure from those actors at home and abroad that seek to undercut or co-opt their efforts? Fortunately, AidData’s 2022 CSO Census and Constituency Survey posed a series of relevant questions along these lines directly to CSO staff and their constituents. Respondents shared their views of how the provision of various types of substantive support by domestic governments, foreign governments, and foreign private and nonprofit organizations would affect public confidence in their own CSO or CSOs in general (in the case of constituents).

Avenue for Action #1: CSO staff and constituents feel that funding from domestic governments would undercut their credibility but are open to technical assistance or invitations to speak.

When it came to support from their own governments, CSO staff generally felt that the benefits outweighed the costs to their perceived credibility in all but one area: financial assistance. In fact, CSO staff and constituents agreed that domestic government financing of CSOs would cause more harm than good. ^[46]  Alternatively, CSO staff identified two channels of domestic government support—technical assistance and invitations to speak at an event—as having the smallest reputational downsides. Only 18 percent and 13 percent of CSO staff respondents, respectively, felt that such assistance would negatively impact their organization’s reputation. Constituents (36 percent) were more concerned than staff (26 percent) about the reputational downsides of their government promoting a CSO’s work in its communications, echoing an earlier concern expressed by respondents that CSOs are vulnerable to elite capture.

Avenue for Action #2: Staff and constituents agreed that foreign actors could best help civic space in their country by providing aid and technical assistance to CSOs.

In most cases, substantive support to CSOs was considered more helpful than harmful when performed by foreign actors (Figure 40), whether governments or private entities, as compared to domestic governments. Both CSO staff and constituents agreed that the two most helpful things foreign actors could do to help civic space in their country were to: provide aid to CSOs and provide technical assistance. Nevertheless, CSO staff and constituents were concerned about the prospect of foreign actors causing harm to civic space in their country if they provided aid to the government. This view may reflect a view among respondents that regulators are often associated with restrictions on civic space, ^[47]  such that they saw increasing the capacity of domestic governments as merely increasing the state’s ability to constrain CSO operations.  

Avenue for Action #3: Foreign actors have a role to play in promoting the work of CSOs, as well as educating government counterparts and the public about the importance of civil society.

Foreign actors could be far more helpful, in the view of CSO staff, if they advocated for civil society in high level diplomatic meetings (41 percent). Over 70 percent of CSO staff felt foreign governments could bolster confidence in their CSO by promoting the organization or its content, inviting the organization to speak, or providing technical training. Co-sponsoring events (63 percent) and financial contributions (55 percent) were somewhat less popular forms of support, though they still attracted a majority of CSO staff respondents.

Comparatively, constituents warned against senior foreign leaders viewing this as carte blanche to name and shame CSOs (25 percent) or publicly criticize civic space restrictions in international media (18 percent). One more palatable role for foreign actors in the eyes of CSO constituents was in educating government counterparts or the general public about the importance of robust civil society (36 percent).

Respondents were optimistic about the prospect of substantive support for CSOs from foreign private or nonprofit entities, with one noticeable difference: negative responses were substantially lower across the board when it came to concerns that support would undermine a CSO’s credibility. Constituents tended to report greater hesitancy (22 percent negative) towards foreign funding than their CSO staff (8 percent negative).

Figure 40. CSO Census vs Constituency: Most Helpful or Harmful Contributions of External Actors to CSO Credibility, April-May 2022

It is more critical than ever to have better information to monitor the health of civic space across countries and over time, reinforce sources of societal resilience, and mitigate risks from autocratizing  governments at home and malign influence from abroad. We hope that the country reports, occupied or autonomous territory profiles, regional synthesis, and supporting datasets produced by this multi-year project is a foundation for future efforts to build upon and begin to close this critical evidence gap.

5. Works Cited

Custer, S., Baehr, A., Burgess, B., Dumont, E., Mathew, D., Hutchinson, A. (2022). Winning the Narrative: How Russia and China Wield Strategic Communications to Advance their Goals. Williamsburg, VA: AidData at William & Mary.

Custer, S., Schon, J., Horigoshi, A., Mathew, D., Burgess, B., Choo, V., Hutchinson, A., Baehr, A., and K. Marshall (2021). Corridors of Power: How Beijing uses economic, social, and network ties to exert influence along the Silk Road . Williamsburg, VA. AidData at William & Mary.

Diamond, L. (2019). Democracy Demotion: How the Freedom Agenda Fell Apart. Foreign Affairs , Vol. 98, No. 4 (JULY/AUGUST 2019), pp. 17-25.
d oi: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26798222

Vojtíšková, V., Nov otný V., Schmid-Schmidsfelden, H., Potapova, K. (2016). The Bear in Sheep’s Clothing Russia’s Government-Funded Organisations  in the EU. Brussels: Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies.

Walker, C. (2018). What Is "Sharp Power"? Journal of Democracy   29 (3), 9-23.   doi:10.1353/jod.2018.0041 .

Watts, S., Beauchamp-Mustafaga, N., Harris, B., and C. Reach. (2020). “Appendix A: China and Russia in Contemporary Ideological Competition”. (Pp. 1-32). IN: Alternative Worldviews. RAND. doi: https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR2900/RR2982/RAND_RR298 2.appendixes.pdf

6. Technical Appendix: Methods Documentation

Version 1.4 | Updated May 2023

A-1. Introduction A-2. Conceptualizing and Quantifying Civic Space A-3. Barometer 1: Restrictions Against Civic Space Actors A-4. Barometer 2: Attitudes Towards Civic Space A-5. Barometer 3: Russian Support to Civic Space Actors and Regulators A-6. Barometer 4: Russian State Media Mentions Relevant to Civic Space A-7. AidData 2022 CSO Census and Constituency Survey A-8. References

A-1. Introduction

This methodology document distills the methods and approaches used by AidData, a research lab at William & Mary’s Global Research Institute, as part of a three-year project (October 2019- September 2022) to produce novel data to help policymakers, funders, and scholars better monitor long-term trends in the health of civic space in 17 Europe and Eurasia (E&E) countries (and 7 occupied or autonomous territories) between 2015-2021, as well as field a survey of civil society organization staff and constituents.

The remainder of this methodology document is organized as follows: conceptualizing and quantifying civic space (Section A-2), restrictions towards civic space actors (Section A-3), citizen attitudes towards civic space (Section A-4), Russian financing and in-kind support to civic space actors and regulators (Section A-5), Russian media mentions of civic space actors and democratic norms or rivals (Section A-6), and CSO Census and Constituency Survey (Section A-7). Additional information on the structure of the accompanying datasets are included in the ReadMe file.

A-2. Conceptualizing and Quantifying Civic Space

Before we can conceptualize the domestic enabling environment for civic space or a country’s risks and resilience in the face of malign external influence, we first need a working definition of what we mean by civic space  in practice. While it is common for scholars and practitioners to use “civic space”, “civil society”, and “civil society organization” interchangeably, in reality, each of these terms have different connotations that would substantially affect the scope of this project. AidData’s research team conducted expert interviews and consulted the broader literature to weigh the options for how we might define civic space and then propose a working definition to guide our efforts to measure it.

In this section we provide a brief overview of how we constructed: a working definition of civic space; (b) a conceptual framework of how domestic and external actors  may influence civic space either positively or negatively; and (c) a set of 15 proxy indicators mapped to 4 barometers of civic space resilience for 17 E&E countries. Section A-2.1 deals with definitional issues, Section A-2.2 examines civic space as a dynamic not static concept, and Section A-2.3 articulates how we moved from mechanisms of influence to proxy indicators that are quantifiable, comparable, and replicable over time and space.

A-2.1 Defining Civic Space

Civic space is sometimes conflated with the spectrum of informal groups or formal organizations operating within it. In this actor-centric paradigm, civic space is ‘closing’ when groups or organizations are attacked or restricted. Nonetheless, scholars and practitioners vary in how narrow or broadly to draw the boundaries of which groups and organizations to include in this notion of civic space.

On the narrow end of the spectrum, one might emphasize only formally registered non-governmental organizations or those with an explicit mandate for collective action. A more inclusive view would argue that civic space comprises any organized civilian life that is above the basic family unit, but below the level of the state. In this paradigm, soup kitchens and sports clubs are equally important parts of civic space. Notably, in the context of extremely repressive regimes, these apolitical groups may take on additional importance as the only permitted venues for citizens to come together.

The World Movement for Democracy Secretariat at the National Endowment for Democracy and the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law in their Defending Civil Society  report (2012) exemplify this more inclusive view saying that:

" Civil society is made up of various types of organizations, which may include associations, foundations, non-profit corporations, public benefit companies, development organizations, community-based organizations, faith-based organizations, mutual benefit groups, sports clubs, advocacy groups, arts and culture organizations, charities, trade unions and professional associations, humanitarian assistance organizations, non-profit service providers, charitable trusts, and political parties. These organizations are often referred to as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), not-for-profit organizations (NPOs), or civil society organizations (CSOs). "

Alternatively, other scholars and practitioners favor an environment-centric view which emphasizes the physical or metaphorical ‘room’ that people have to individually or collectively take action and exercise their rights. As Lilja (2015) argues, civic space is to be viewed “as a process, rather than as a structure”. Similarly, Malena (2015) defines civic space as:

“ [T]he set of conditions that determine the extent to which all members of society, both as individuals and in informal or organised  groups, are able to freely, effectively and without discrimination exercise their basic civil rights .”

The legal and regulatory environment (both de jure  and de facto)  within a country is an important part of this conception of civic space, as well as socio-political norms regarding the acceptability of contesting the state either via institutional (e.g., lobbying, advocacy, voting) or extra-institutional (e.g., social movements, civil disobedience) means. Van der Borgh and Terwindth (2012) hold a similar view which argues that civic space consists of three dimensions: (i) institutions (e.g., laws, regulations, policies); (ii) normative discourse (e.g., the power to label and frame); and (iii) practical capacity (e.g., to maintain and create new spaces for contestation).

The actor-centric and environment-centric views each have their strengths and limitations for the purposes of this project. The former is more bounded and allows for a focus on the specific ways in which external actors might directly influence formal civil society organizations (more narrowly defined) or civic groups (more broadly defined). However, this approach would leave us with two important blindspots about entry points for external actors to indirectly influence civic space through shaping socio-political attitudes and the institutional environment which can make it easier or more difficult for citizens to take action.

A-2.1.1 An Inclusive Definition Capturing Both the Actors and Enabling Environment

For the purposes of this project, we chose to define civic space as follows:

Civic space refers to the formal laws, informal norms, and societal attitudes which enable individuals and organizations to assemble peacefully, express their views, and take collective action without fear of retribution or restriction.

First, this definition acknowledges the importance of a spectrum of “civic” actors in a society, from informal groups of individuals to formal organizations, being able to join together in common cause (e.g., collective action, speech, assembly). We do not artificially limit the domain of civic space to engagement in the political sphere, as social and cultural organizations may facilitate civic participation in debate and discourse, particularly in the context of repressive regimes where few alternatives are available.

Second, this definition recognizes that the extent to which civic actors have space to form and operate is shaped by the confluence of a society’s rules, norms, and attitudes relating to civic participation and individual freedoms. Laws, rules, and policies are critical to this space, in terms of rights on the books (de jure), but also the extent to which these protections are carried out consistently in practice by state actors without selectivity (de facto). Beyond this, however, informal norms and societal attitudes towards civic participation and public discourse can be equally important in protecting space for citizens to take collective action. For example, countries may have a deep cultural tradition that emphasizes civic participation which creates a protective insulation for civil society actors to operate even absent explicit legal protections.

Finally, this definition recognizes that the ability of groups and organizations to engage in activities without fear of retribution (e.g., loss of personal freedom, organizational position, or public status) or restriction (e.g., frictions or constraints to their capacity to organize, resource, operate) is critical to the practical room they have to conduct their activities. If fear of retribution and the likelihood of restriction are high in a society, this is likely to have a chilling effect on the motivation of citizens to form and engage in civic groups and organizations.

A-2.2 Civic Space as a Dynamic, Not Static Phenomenon

Countries vary greatly in the practical room that citizens have to assemble peacefully, express views and opinions, and take collective action without fear of retribution or restriction. In Figure A-1 , we visualize this as an idealized continuum of open (left) to closed (right) civic space, recognizing that countries likely do not fall on either extreme—allowing some freedoms, along with restrictions—but rather somewhere along the spectrum. This raises a critical question regarding the mechanisms by which state and non-state actors can influence changes to laws, norms, and attitudes that would instigate movement along the continuum either towards greater openness or closure of civic space.

Figure A-1. Continuum of Open to Closed Civic Space

Open Civic Space         Free and diverse press and media                                                                                 Freedom to critique and question government action and policies Freedom to forge alliances, form and join unions and associations Freedom to conduct peaceful protests Freedom for NGOs and CSOs to raise funds from different sources Trust in institutions Free and fair elections Respect and space for diversity of opinions and experiences

Closed Civic Space Propaganda masquerading as press Fear of prosecution when being critical of government Attacks on journalists and NGO workers Restrictions on assembling in groups Ban on protests of any kind International NGOs not being allowed to operate Shell NGOs or GONGOs that occupy the civic space and shape civic discourse Laws restricting from where and how NGOs receive their funding No elections or farcical elections where the opposition does not win any seats

A-2.2.1 Domestic Influence on Civic Space

Since it is often viewed as the arena of public discourse and civic participation between the family unit and the state, domestic government or quasi-government actors can have substantial ability to influence the extent of civic space within their own countries. This domestic influence can be positive if it expands the space within which informal groups and formal organizations can form and operate to advance their collective interests. Conversely, this domestic influence is negative if it constricts the practical room these groups have to maneuver.

Buyse (2018) identifies three broad strategies that domestic governments use to restrict civic space: (i) engaging in inflammatory and/or threatening discourse towards civil society; (ii) placing hurdles to undercut the practical capabilities of civil society actors to organize or operate; and (iii) imposing institutional measures to limit the potential of civic space. These strategies may be carried out overtly and visibly by the state itself (e.g., civilian government officials, security forces), or covertly via non-state actors (e.g., paramilitary groups, private contractors, gangs) working at the behest of the state.

Domestic actors can engage in malign discourse either selectively, by targeting groups and organizations seen as being in opposition to the interests of the state in order to undermine their public credibility, or more broadly in seeking to erode trust or interest among citizens to engage in or support civic participation more generally.

Domestic actors can also hinder the practical capabilities of groups and organizations to form and operate such as through threats or use of physical violence, verbal harassment and surveillance, shutting down or disrupting websites, hacking files or data, as well as other threatening digital engagement on social media. This behavior, which aims to disrupt or intimidate the operation of civil society, can be deployed selectively towards those seen as working in opposition to the state’s interests or indiscriminately against all forms of civil society.

Finally, state actors can put into place institutional restrictions (e.g., laws and regulations) to limit the ability of groups and organizations to formally register themselves, raise funds, disseminate their views or carry out regular business procedures. The state may design and enforce laws and rules in ways that either constrict space for specific civil society actors (e.g., based upon ideology, demography, mandate, sector) or else introduce blanket restrictions for all groups.

Scholars and practitioners familiar with Eastern Europe and Eurasia largely agree that there is a limited tradition of voluntary civic engagement and an independent space for civil society in the former Yugoslavia and post Soviet states (e.g., Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine). Some argue that citizens in the region would unlikely be able to define civic space, though there may be greater familiarity with engagement in public activities or grassroots political opposition.

This has created unique vulnerabilities for civic space across the region in several respects:

• Absent a historical practice within their countries, citizens and politicians are apt to view civic space as a foreign construct, particularly when defined in terms associated with Western democracies (e.g., fundamental freedoms, political contestation)
• There is a perceived lack of “rootedness” of civil society organizations seen as being heavily subsidized by foreign donors and having shallow levels of domestic support
• This dynamic makes it less likely that the public will rally behind and insulate civil society organizations from pressure and intimidation by the government

A-2.2.2 External Influence on Domestic Civic Space

Based upon our literature review and expert interviews, there is broad acknowledgement of the fact that external actors can also influence domestic civic space in other countries, either positively or negatively. Nevertheless, there are major blindspots in the data that policymakers, practitioners, and scholars have to assess the means, intensity, and downstream consequences of external influence on domestic civic space.

This data gap is problematic in light of growing activity among authoritarian regimes such as Russia and China to shape norms, institutions, and public discourse in other countries. Better understanding the tools these actors use, with whom, and to what effect is critical for policymakers, practitioners, donors, and activists to mitigate threats to, and bolster the resilience of, open civic space in a timely fashion.

For the purpose of this project, we define external actors as foreign state actors (e.g., government or quasi-government institutions) or foreign non-state actors working at their behest. These actors may exert direct influence via their engagement with specific civil society organizations or indirect influence via shaping popular attitudes and the legal/regulatory environment. Specifically, we view these external actors as having three target audiences:

• Politicians and bureaucrats with de jure and de facto power to make it easier or more difficult for civil society groups to form and for open discourse to thrive
• The general public,  whose willingness to finance, volunteer, and participate is essential to insulate civil society organizations to withstand pressure
• Existing or nascent civic leaders  who seek to form civil society groups, ensure the ongoing operation of existing civil society groups, or otherwise promote public discourse

Similar to the discussion of host government actors, we recognize that external actors have heterogeneous motives in their efforts to exert influence on domestic civic space. We would argue that this external influence may be considered to be positive or negative depending upon whether it expands or constricts the practical room for informal groups and formal organizations to form and operate to advance their collective interests. We see three entry points (or activity sets) for external actors to exert influence on domestic civic space:

• First, external actors may engage in activities that   influence the design and enforcement of state laws, rules, and norms by which citizens   can   organize themselves, give voice to their concerns, and take collective action in line with their interest. An example would be the promotion of copycat legislation similar to Russia's 2012 law which required groups to register as “foreign agents” if they received any foreign funding or engaged in political activity.
• Second, external actors may engage in activities that influence popular attitudes and appetite to engage in public discourse, participate in civic groups, and trust non-governmental institutions. This could include efforts to leverage media to either educate or sow skepticism among local populations regarding the value of civic participation or the legitimacy of civil society organizations. Experts pointed to the proliferation of “false front” groups set up to create confusion about which groups were “real” versus “fake” to erode trust in institutions.
• Finally, external actors may engage in activities that influence the formation and operation of specific CSOs   (e.g., provision or withdrawal of financial resources, technical capacity, physical/digital security, or perceived legitimacy). For example, external actors might amplify the capacity and visibility of civil society groups seen as aligned with their interests, while intimidating or circumscribing the operation of those seen as working in opposition.

2.3 Quantifying Mechanisms for Domestic and External Actors to Influence Civic Space

Based upon our literature review and expert interviews, it is clear that there is a rich and growing number of measures of civil society development. Malena (2015) alone conducted a detailed inventory of over 30 existing measures and indices that “touch on elements and aspects related to civic space”.

The objective of this project was not to duplicate nor replace these ongoing efforts. Instead, AidData sought to produce complementary data points to help policymakers, practitioners, and scholars better assess attributes of civic space resilience in E&E countries. We aim to understand the ability of a country’s legal/regulatory institutions, popular attitudes/norms, and the capacity of the civil society sector to withstand malign influence (from within or outside) that would constrict or skew civic space.

Taken together, there are considerable opportunities and diverse means by which domestic or external actors might conceivably influence civic space in a given country (or territory), for better or worse. In Table A-1, illustrate how the activities of domestic or external actors can create both negative and positive pressure on domestic government officials, the general public, or specific civic groups in ways that affect the practice of civic space.

Table A-1. Mechanisms of Influence on a Country’s Civic Space

Activity Sets	Target Audiences	Type of Pressure	Illustrative Activities
Institutional rules, laws, and norms: Activities that influence the design and enforcement of state laws, rules, and norms by which citizens   can   organize themselves, give voice to their concerns, and take collective action in line with their interests	Politicians and bureaucrats with de jure and de facto power to make it easier or more difficult for civil society groups to form and for open discourse to thrive	Negative:   Constrict any form of civic space by making it more difficult for citizens to organize, assemble, and speak up	Promotion of "lateral learning" in the form of anti-NGO or foreign agent laws that seek to restrict all civil society operations (e.g., registration, financing, operation)
			Encouraging set up of GONGOs as an alternative competitor to independent civil society and/or to undermine existing civil society
			Encouraging selective enforcement of laws and rules related to registration, financing, or operation of civil society actors to penalize those seen as anti- the domestic or external actor's agenda
		Positive: Expand all forms of civic space by making it easier for citizens to organize, assemble, and speak up	Promotion of laws, rules, and policies which enshrine fundamental individual freedoms of speech and assembly which make it easier for citizens to organize and voice their concerns
			Promotion of laws, rules, and policies which reduce barriers to enabling domestic resource mobilization for civil society groups
			Promotion of laws, rules, and policies which remove barriers for civil society to register, mobilize resources, and operate without censorship or restriction
			Promotion of access to justice for civil society groups, without discrimination, to protect themselves from harassment, violence, or other injustices
Popular attitudes and beliefs: Activities that influence societal attitudes and appetite to engage in public discourse, participate in civic groups, and trust non-governmental institutions	The general public, whose willingness to finance, volunteer, and participate is essential to insulate civil society organizations to withstand pressure from state- or non-state actors	Negative:  Sow skepticism or pessimism towards the idea of civic participation and public discourse such that citizens are less likely to engage with, or protect, civil society institutions	Information campaigns promoting nationalism or xenophobia in an effort to sour public opinion towards democratic values or norms
			Information campaigns aimed at promoting scapegoating of societal groups or fraying of political discourse for the purpose of increasing fear or intolerance of divergent opinions
			Attempts to intimidate citizens through threats and behaviors that make them less likely to participate in informal initiatives (e.g., protests, rallies, petitions)
			Information campaigns aimed at decreasing public trust in civil society institutions or weakening interest in civic participation
		Positive:  Promote societal values of civic participation and public discourse such that citizens are more likely to engage with, or protect, civil society institutions	Information campaigns to educate citizens about the value of civic participation and public discourse
			Provision of safe physical or digital spaces for citizens to meet, organize, and dialogue without fear of retribution
			Exchange and education programs that aim to increase the exposure of citizens to examples of constructive civic participation and public discourse
			Information campaigns or exchange programs seeking to promote social inclusion, tolerance, and dialogue among those holding divergent political, social or religious views
Formation and Operation of Specific CSOs: Activities that influence the formation and operation of specific civil society organizations such as through the provision (or withdrawal) of financial resources, technical capacity, physical/digital security, or perceived legitimacy	Existing or nascent civic leaders who seek to form new civil society groups, ensure the ongoing operation of existing civil society groups, or otherwise promote public discourse	Negative:  Intimidate or undermine civil society seen as in opposition to an external or domestic actor's interests to threaten their long-term operation	Selective cyberattacks targeting the files, data, or websites of “antagonistic” civil society
			Selective harassment or violence against “antagonistic” civil society actors
			Selective intensified monitoring or surveillance of civil society actors seen as anti- the domestic or external actor's agenda
			Selective vilification or shaming of civil society actors seen as anti- the domestic or external actor's agenda via negative print, digital or social media
			Selective crackdown on the financing or leadership of civil society actors seen as anti- the domestic or external actor's agenda
		Dual-Use:  In-kind, financial or other support to civil society seen as sympathetic to the domestic or external actor’s interests. Can be used to co-opt organizations (negative) or strengthen independent civic space (positive).	Supporting the operations of civil society actors via official finance, in-kind support or other philanthropic flows
			Provision of technical advice or capacity building to strengthen the human capital of civil society actors
			Increasing the visibility of civil society actors through favorable print, digital or social media

Building upon this conceptual framework, as well as discussions with civic space and regional experts, AidData identified a focused set of proxy indicators in Table A-2 to monitor the domestic enabling environment for civic space and several ways in which our external actor of interest, Russia, might seek to exert influence. Notably, this is not an exhaustive list of all facets or features of civil society development or malign influence as this would be an unhelpful repetition of other existing indices. Instead, this approach allowed us to produce novel data on 15 proxy indicators that when combined with other information sources can help us systematically assess the risks to, and resilience of, civic space in ways that are comparable over space and time.

The fifteen proxy indicators are organized into four barometers to monitor the relative health of civic space in the 17 E&E countries and with the potential for extension to additional years, countries, and external actors.    Barometers one and two—restrictions toward civic space actors and citizen attitudes toward civic space—assess the domestic environment for citizens to assemble peacefully, express their views, and take collective action without fear of retribution or restriction.   Barometers three and four—Russian support to civic space actors and Russian state media mentions of civic space actors—allow us to assess two channels by which the Kremlin may exert external influence that constrains or skews civic space in the region.

Table A-2 maps out how the 15 proxy indicators correspond to the four barometers of civic space resilience. In the remainder of this methodology document we provide in-depth discussion of how AidData operationalized these indicators in practice to systematically collect, code, classify, and document trends in civic space in 17 E&E countries between 2015-2021, though the specific time period varies somew hat by indicator and country based upon data availability. Beyond the 17 E&E countries, the research team also collected data on a subset of these indicators to analyze unique vulnerabilities to civic space in occupied or autonomous regions.

Table A-2. AidData Proxy Indicators to Monitor Civic Space Resilience in Europe & Eurasia

Civic Space Barometer	Supporting Indicators
Restrictions of civic space actors (January 2015–March 2021)	Number of instances of harassment or violence (physical or verbal) initiated against civic space actors Number of instances of legislation and policies (newly proposed or passed) advanced by the government (or de facto authorities) that include measures to further limit the ability of civic space actors to form, operate or speak freely and without retribution Number of instances of legal action brought by the government (or de facto authorities) against civic space actors in an effort to intimidate citizens from assembly, speech or activism
Citizen attitudes toward civic space (2010–2021)	Percentage of citizens reporting that they are interested in politics Percentage of citizens reporting that they have previously engaged in civic actions (e.g., petitions, boycotts, strikes, protests) Percentage of citizens reporting that they might be willing to engage in civic actions (e.g., petitions, boycotts, strikes, protests) in future versus those who say they would never do so Percentage of citizens reporting that they engaged in apolitical civic engagement (e.g., donating to charities, volunteering for organizations, helping strangers) Percentage of citizens who reported trust/confidence in their public institutions
Russian state financing and in-kind support relevant to civic space actors or regulators (January 2015–August 2021)	Number of projects directed by the Russian government to institutional development, governance, or civilian law enforcement (or de facto authorities) in the target country (or territory) Number of projects directed by the Russian government to support formal civil society organizations or informal civic groups within the target country (or territory)
Russian state media mentions of civic space actors (January 2015–March 2021)	Frequency of mentions of civic space actors operating in the target country by Russian state-owned media Sentiment of mentions of civic space actors operating in the target country by Russian state-owned media Frequency of mentions of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the U.S., and the European Union, as well as the terms “democracy” and “West,” in the target country by Russian state-owned media Sentiment of mentions of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the U.S., and the European Union, as well as the terms “democracy” and “West,” in the target country by Russian state-owned media

Notes: Table of indicators collected by AidData to assess the health of domestic civic space and vulnerability to Kremlin influence. Indicators are categorized by barometer (i.e., dimension of interest) and specify the time period of data coverage in the subsequent analysis.

---

A- 3. Barometer 1: Restrictions Towards Civic Space Actors

AidData produced novel data on three proxy indicators to assess the extent to which civic space actors in Eastern  Europe and Eurasia are the targets of restrictions including: harassment and/or violence, restrictive legislation, and state-backed legal actions. In this section, we outline how AidData’s research team operationalized these indicators to collect comparable data for 17 E&E countries from 2015-2021. Although we also capture information on restrictive “legislation” and “legal cases” in 7 occupied or autonomous territories, we do so for the purpose of comparability only and not from any intent of conferring legitimacy to the de facto authorities in these localities.

The remainder of this section is organized as follows: (i) key definitions and parameters for data collection (Section A-3.1); (ii) Stage 1: Identification of Reported Instances (Section A-3.2); (iii) Stage 2: Classification, Coding, and Documentation of Reported Instances (Section A-3.3); and (iv) Stage 3: Verification and De-Deduplication of Reported Instances (Section A-3.4).

A- 3.1 Definitions and Parameters

In this section, we define the following key terms to support identification and coding of relevant instances of restrictions towards civic space actors: (i) civic space and civil society actors; (ii) harassment and violence; (iii) restrictive legislation; (iv) state-backed legal cases; (v) direct and indirect charges; (vi) acted-on versus threatened harassment or violence; (viii) and pro-democracy, anti-Kremlin, and pro-Western.

A- 3.1.1  Civic Space and Civil Society Actors

As previously stated, for the purpose of the broader project, we define civic space  as the formal laws, informal norms, and societal attitudes which enable individuals and organizations to assemble peacefully, express their views, and take collective action without fear of retribution or restriction. Within this civic space are a broad spectrum of “civic” or “civil society” actors —from informal groups of individuals to formal organizations—joining together in common cause (e.g., collective action, speech, assembly). We do not artificially limit the domain of civic space to engagement in the political sphere, as social and cultural organizations may facilitate civic participation in debate and discourse, particularly in the context of repressive regimes where few alternatives are available.

This project is particularly interested in understanding the extent to which civic actors have “space'' to form and operate as determined by the confluence of a society’s rules, norms, and attitudes relating to civic participation and individual freedoms. Laws, rules, and policies are critical to this space, in terms of rights on the books (de jure), but also the extent to which these protections are carried out consistently in practice by state actors without selectivity (de facto). Beyond this, however, informal norms and societal attitudes towards civic participation and public discourse can be equally important in protecting space for citizens to take collective action. For example, countries may have a deep cultural tradition that emphasizes civic participation which creates a protective insulation for civil society actors to operate even absent explicit legal protections.

Finally, the ability of civil society actors to engage in activities without fear of retribution (e.g., loss of personal freedom, organizational position, or public status) or restriction (e.g., frictions or constraints to their capacity to organize, resource, operate) is critical to the practical room they have to conduct their activities. If fear of retribution and the likelihood of restriction are high in a society, this is likely to have a chilling effect on the motivation of citizens to form and engage in civic groups and organizations.

In operationalizing these definitions in our coding schema, we will include actions initiated against individuals or groups who voluntarily engage in some form of public participation (e.g., collective action, speech, assembly) around shared interests, purposes or values.

UNOCHR (n.d.) provides a helpful non-exhaustive list of such civil society actors:

• Human rights defenders, including online activists
• Human rights organizations (e.g., NGOs, associations, victim support groups)
• Issue or thematic-based coalitions and networks (e.g., women’s rights, environmental issues)
• Persons with disabilities and their representative organizations
• Community-based groups (e.g., indigenous peoples, minorities, rural communities)
• Faith-based groups (e.g., churches, religious groups)
• Unions (e.g., trade unions as well as professional associations such as journalist associations, judges’ and lawyers’ and bar associations, magistrates’ associations, student unions)
• Social movements (e.g., peace movements, student movements, pro-democracy movements)
• Professionals contributing directly to the enjoyment of human rights (e.g., humanitarian workers, lawyers, doctors and medical workers, journalists)
• Relatives and associations of victims of human rights violations; and
• Public institutions that carry out activities aimed at promoting human rights (e.g., schools, universities, research bodies)

A- 3.1.2  Harassment and Violence

Broadly speaking, harassment refers to: unwanted behavior directed towards a civil society actor (or their families) that seeks to humiliate, intimidate, threaten or otherwise restrict their actions. This definition has been adapted from sources such as UNOCHR’s  Practical Guide for Civil Society (n.d.) and the UK’s National Association of Citizens Advice Bureau (n.d.).

For the purpose of this project we are interested in both physical and non-physical forms of harassment and violence initiated against civil society actors. The Global Campaign for Violence Prevention (WHO, 2020) defines physical harassment and violence as: “the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against [another person, group or community], that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation."

The 2016 Civil Society Watch Report (Civicus, 2016) and UNOCHR (n.d.) provide helpful non-exhaustive examples of harassment and violence:

• Raids or closure of the offices;
• Attacks (e.g., intimidation, harassment, physical or sexual assault, torture, disappearance or assassination) on individual human rights defenders, leaders and staff of civil society organizations, journalists or bloggers, and individual protestors;
• Confiscation, vandalism or destruction of property (e.g., computers, documents, equipment, signs, billboards, windows);
• Graffiti on buildings or premises of civil society organizations, media houses, or homes of leaders/staff of these organizations;
• Disruption of essential services targeted towards civil actors’ offices or homes (e.g., electricity)
• Deprivation of employment or loss of income;
• Surveillance and physical limitations on the movements of individual human rights defenders, leaders and staff of civil society organizations, journalists or bloggers;
• Excessive or unlawful use of force (e.g., tear gas, rubber bullets, live ammunition, baton charges) on public assemblies by police);
• Mass arrests of peaceful protestors or unwillingness to protect peaceful protestors from violent counter-demonstrators
• Derogatory remarks made about human rights defenders and civic groups verbally or online.

Both UNOCHR (n.d.) and Civicus (2016) identify additional categories of harassment and violence; however, some of these are included under separate indicators related to restrictive legislation and state-backed legal actions.

A- 3.1.3  Restrictive Legislation

Restrictive legislation refers to the formulation and/or selective enforcement of laws and regulations that hinder, control or curtail the activities of civil society actors (or specific subsets of such groups). As described by UNOCHR (n.d.), this includes both “laws and regulations that limit the freedom and independence of civil society actors”, as well as “arbitrary measures” directed towards civil society actors that are deemed to be critical of, or opposed to, government positions, policies, ideologies or actions.

UNOCHR (n.d.) provide helpful non-exhaustive examples of restrictive legislation:

• Requiring registration without positive benefits;
• Limiting what types of activities can be done;
• Criminal sanctions for unregistered activities;
• Restrictions placed on the registration of specific associations, including international NGOs, or associations receiving foreign funding or groups working on particular issues or causes;
• Setting criteria for who or what can undertake activities or limiting those activities;
• Restricting sources of financing (i.e., foreign sources);
• Legislation governing freedom of peaceful assembly, association, and expression that contains discriminatory provisions or that disproportionately negatively impact some groups;
• Burdensome administrative procedures;
• Narrow or strict participation modalities in decision-making processes;  
• Arbitrary scrutiny of management and internal governance;
• Threats of, or actual, de-registration;
• Forced office closures;
• Search and seizures of property;
• Exorbitant fines;
• Spurious prosecutions;
• Arbitrary arrests and detentions;
• Bans on travel;
• Deprivation of nationality;
• Arbitrary limitations or cancellations of protests or gatherings

The International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (2006) provides a non-exhaustive list of examples of additional types of restrictive legislation related to funding and partnerships:

• Requirements to re-register or receive a special license to receive foreign funding, technical assistance, or in-kind donations (e.g., equipment, supplies);
• Requirement to file for, and be granted, government permission to receive foreign funding, technical assistance or in-kind donations on a case-by-case basis;
• All foreign funding received by civil society actors must be channeled via government or designated, monitored bank accounts;
• Prohibitions on foreign funding, technical assistance, or in-kind donations from any source;
• Taxation on foreign aid or  donations;
• Limitations on the percentage of total funding a civil society actor can accept from foreign sources (either foreign individuals or international organizations);
• Limitations on the participation of non-citizens in domestic associations (i.e., a person must be a citizen in order to be a member of an association);
• Bans on certain types of organizations (e.g., religious or minority groups) receiving foreign funding, technical assistance or in-kind donations;
• Restrictions placed on the registration of specific associations, including international NGOs, or associations receiving foreign funding or groups working on certain issues;
• Burdensome requirements that effectively obstruct the transfer of funds from companies, organizations, or individuals outside of the country to domestic entities
• Policies/legislation that allow for the closure, fining, loss of registration or other penalties imposed on civil society actors engaged in financial or non-financial partnerships with foreign individuals, organizations or companies
• Public vilification or denigration through categorizing civil society actors in a negative way if they accept financing, technical assistance or in-kind donations from a foreign entity

Collectively, these forms of restrictive legislation are often buried in “vague provisions” in broader laws related to anti-money laundering, anti-terrorism, national security, public morals, defamation, protection of national sovereignty, etc (UNOCHR, n.d.).

In operationalizing restrictive legislation   in our coding schema, we include any executive branch policy or legislation (enacted or proposed) which curbs the ability of civil society actors to organize, operate, or give voice to their views or penalizes them for engaging in such activities after the fact.

A- 3.1.4  State-Backed Legal Actions

State-backed legal cases and judgements  refers to efforts undertaken by government and quasi-government entities or individuals to prosecute civil society actors in either civil or criminal courts in ways that impede their operations or intimidate those seeking to practice basic freedoms of assembly, association or expression. This process may involve the enforcement of restrictive legislation related to mobilizing resources and partnerships, as well as a broader set of laws related to freedoms of assembly, association or expression, on civil society actors. These legal cases and judgments include both those directed at individual human rights defenders and their families, as well as those targeted towards registered civic groups. For the purposes of this project, we are interested in both legal suits brought to court against civil society actors (whether or not these were ultimately successful) as well as the judgments imposed in these cases. We do not include legal suits initiated by civil society actors, as this is beyond the scope of our definition of a state-backed legal action.

The International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (2006) provides a non-exhaustive list of examples of these types of state-backed legal actions related to civil society actors:

• Imprisonment and/or fines imposed on individuals for establishing an association that threatens ‘national unity’ or violates ‘public order or morals’
• Imprisonment and/or fines imposed for continuing activities following the dissolution or suspension of a civil society actor’s right to associate;
• Imprisonment and/or fines imposed on civil society actors that collected or sent funds abroad without government permission;
• Imprisonment and/or fines imposed for conducting activities without a government license;
• Imprisonment and/or fines for affiliating with a foreign civil society network or association without government permission;
• Imprisonment and/or fines imposed on civil society actors for merging with another association without government approval;
• Imprisonment and/or fines imposed for non-members of a civil society organization participating in management or discussions without government approval;
• Imprisonment and/or fines for those who train other individuals to take part in street protests or other forms of civil disobedience and criticism;
• Imprisonment and/or fines for those organizations failing to register specific activities or branding and marking (e.g., logos, names) with the government;
• Imprisonment and/or fines imposed on individual or organizations providing legal assistance to civil society actors;
• Court-mandated closure or suspension of a civil society actor for violating laws restricting the use of foreign funds or requirements related to assembly;
• Court-mandated cessation or restrictions on the publication, circulation or dissemination of information by civil society actors (in written, verbal, or digital forms)

A- 3.1.5  Direct and Indirect Charges

Within the category of “state backed legal action”, there is a further distinction of direct and indirect charges. This is because some charges against a party can be directly tied to their political action, while some may be used as a way to bully them into submission.

Examples of direct charges would be things like:

• Imprisonment and/or fines imposed on individuals for establishing an association that threatens ‘national unity’ or violates ‘public order or morals’;
• Imprisonment and/or fines imposed for continuing activities following the dissolution or suspension of a civil society actor’s right to associate

Examples of indirect charges are more often nuisance charges against prominent actors and activists that rest on a questionable evidentiary footing and are likely intended to discredit the reputations (and followers) of those who speak out against the government, such as:

• Accusations of tax evasion
• Charges of drug possession or other illegal substances
• Use of outdated laws to arbitrarily prosecute

A-3.1.6  Acted-on versus Threatened Harassment and Violence

To delineate between the various types and outcomes of violence and harassment initiated against actors in the civic space, AidData developed a classification for incidents in our dataset into four categories: (i) Threatened harassment; (ii) Acted-on harassment; (iii) Threatened violence; (iv) Acted-on violence. The purpose of this exercise is to help gauge the potential severity of various instances of restriction. Table A-3 below illustrates a non-exhaustive list of examples of violence and harassment that fall within each category.

Table A-3. Classifications for Threatened vs Acted-Upon Harassment and Violence

Category	Examples
Threatened harassment	Threats of arrest or detention; Threats on social media; Threats of legal proceedings; Formal warnings from government institutions
Acted-on harassment	Detention or arrests; Raids or closure of offices; Confiscation, vandalism or destruction of property; Loss of employment; Derogatory language against civic actors - verbal abuse (including over threatening phone calls); Refusal of visas; Travel bans; Barring attorneys from meeting with their clients; Freezing of assets; Denial of registration(e.g - blocking or indefinitely postponing the registration of CSOs, not authorizing protests); Launching legal proceedings; Surveillance of participants in protests or demonstrations; Arbitrary or excessive fines; Long interrogations; Hacking of websites or social media handles; Censoring or blocking radio/TV programming or transmission
Threatened violence	Threats of violence, including those received on social media or via phone calls; Threats of violence during arrest or interrogation
Acted-on violence	Physical violence against peaceful protestors; Deliberate physical injury caused by attacks; Torture; Loss of life; Disappearances and kidnappings

A- 3.1.7  Pro-Democracy, Anti-Kremlin, and Pro-Western

One of the questions of interest in this project is whether countries are selective in how they treat civil society actors by virtue of their ideology and/or affiliations. In particular, we want to understand whether civil society actors that would be considered to be ‘pro-democracy’, ‘anti-Kremlin’, and/or ‘pro-Western’ experience higher degrees of negative attention in terms of physical harassment, violence, restrictive legislation, or state-backed legal cases than those that are seen as less threatening to the interests of the incumbent government.

• A pro-democracy  civil society actor is an individual or organized group that is engaged in political speech or actions to promote the establishment of democratic government in a country. ^[48]  
• An anti-Kremlin  civil society actor is an individual or organized group that is engaged in political speech or actions designed to protest or counter official policy positions, political ideology, and/or actions taken by the Kremlin (as well as organizations, companies, or individuals working at its behest) particularly with regard to Russia’s foreign affairs with countries in the Europe & Eurasia region.
• A pro-Western  civil society actor is an individual or organized group that is engaged in political speech or actions designed to promote or advance official policy positions, political ideology, and/or actions taken by a group of liberal democracies such as the United States, United Kingdom, the member states of the European Union, etc. The common features of these liberal (or Western) democracies include: competitive elections, separation of powers, rule of law, market-based economy, and equal protections of social and political rights under the law.

A- 3.2 Stage 1: Identification of Reported Instances

In this section, we outline the first stage of the process of identifying the known universe of reported instances of harassment, violence, restrictive legislation, and/or legal actions against civil society. This process includes querying both third-party civil society news monitoring sites, as well as mining a broader database of general news articles. For most E&E countries, we used the reference period of January 1, 2015 to March 31, 2021 to capture historical trends, as well as reasonably contemporary information. Given time and budget limitations, we truncated the reference period for the five Central Asian countries in the project to January 1, 2017 to March 31, 2021.

A- 3.2.1  Mining Third-Party Civil Society News Monitoring Sites for Reported Instances

At the start of the project, we initially leveraged two third-party portals that track news specifically related to civil society developments either globally or regionally to identify a preliminary list of reported instances of harassment, violence, restrictive legislation, and/or state-backed legal cases against CSOs. These third-party portals included: (i) CIVICUS Monitor Civic Space Developments; and (ii) RefWorld’s searchable database on legal matters and human rights abuses by country:

• CIVICUS Monitor  (https://monitor.civicus.org/updates/) maintains a news portal on civic space developments searchable by country and contains short articles (with links to original source material) on items related to civil society, many of which reference specific instances of physical harassment, violence, restrictive legislation, and/or state-backed legal cases against CSOs.
• RefWorld  (https://www.refworld.org/about.html) is a searchable database of 196 countries maintained by UNHCR with news articles, legal information, and country profiles related to human rights of vulnerable populations.

During project implementation, we observed that the vast majority of the relevant instances from RefWorld were already covered in either CIVICUS Monitor or a third database discussed in A-3.2.2, Factiva Analytics. For this reason, we subsequently streamlined the methodology to drop independent mining of RefWorld and instead focused on CIVICUS Monitor and Factiva Analytics. For the purpose of documentation and the recognition that there are some instances of restriction sourced from RefWorld noted in the dataset, we have retained a brief description of that data source below.

A- 3.2.1.1 Mining Unstructured CIVICUS Monitor Articles

AidData staff and research assistants used the following process to extract and mine unstructured CIVICUS Monitor articles for instances of restriction in the 17 E&E countries that met our criteria:

• Step 1. Go to their main search page at  https://monitor.civicus.org/updates/. Select a country of interest and this will generate all news articles related to that country often dating back several years. Since there are typically no more than 30-50 articles per country, the following manual process is recommended to identify relevant instances.
• Step 2. Open each of the articles generated for that country within the time period of interest, copy and paste the contents into a separate word doc or google doc for further keyword searches. Repeat this process for each of the countries and save in a new word doc or google doc.
• Step 3. Quickly skim/scan the text of the articles scraped for each country and manually review the relevant entries to assess whether they meet the criteria of harassment, violence, restrictive legislation, and/or state-backed legal cases towards civil society actors.

Figure A-2. Example of the CIVICUS Monitor Article Database

Source: https://monitor.civicus.org/updates

A- 3.2.1.1 Mining Unstructured RefWorld Documents and Articles

There are several key collections that can be easily queried using the website’s powerful advanced search (https://www.refworld.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/rwmain?page=search&advsearch=y&process=n) functionality:

• (i) Legal Information includes national legislation relating to UNHCR's mandate, and case law from international, regional and national courts;
• (ii) Country information includes country profiles and assessments, research papers, query responses, and human rights reports;
• (iii) Policy Documents is a Collection of refugee policy documents and guidelines from a variety of sources.

Although RefWorld is primarily designed as a tool to search information on national and international law relating to refugees, asylum seekers, stateless persons and other persons of concern to UNHCR, this tool can also be mined to capture information on the broader legal environment and interaction of civilian law enforcement and the human rights of various subgroups of the population.

Since there are innumerable documents available via RefWorld, we include a sample search query based upon the target groups, country, and time period (see Box A-1). This process may yield hundreds of entries that can be organized by relevance or date. AidData staff and research assistants initially used the following process to extract and mine unstructured RefWorld documents articles for instances of restriction in the 17 E&E countries that met our criteria, before streamlining the methodology:

• Step 1 . Open each of the articles generated for that country within the time period of interest, copy and paste the contents into a separate word doc or google doc for further keyword searches. Repeat this process for each of the pilot countries and save in a new word doc or google doc. Bypass full pdf reports and focus only on skimming/scanning the entries that deal with news articles and reports that have been converted into machine readable text (e.g., this is the case for many of the State Department reports).
• Step 2 . Quickly skim/scan the text of the articles scraped for each country and manually review the relevant entries to assess whether they meet the criteria of harassment, violence, restrictive legislation, and/or state-backed legal cases towards civil society actors (as outlined in 3.1).

A- 3.2.2  Scanning General News Aggregator Sites for Mentions of Related Instances

Building upon the foundation of the global datasets and third-party CSO news providers, AidData staff and research assistants developed queries (see Box A-2 for an example) to pull relevant articles on reported instances of harassment, violence, restrictive legislation, and/or state-backed legal cases towards CSOs captured in news databases such as Factiva Analytics (the developer API version).

This sample query was adapted for other countries by swapping in the country name variants and capital to extract relevant articles. AidData staff and research assistants initially pilot tested the search queries for the basic Factiva platform via a relatively accessible user interface where full article extracts can be downloaded in 100 document batches (depending upon the number of characters this may be less). Ultimately, for speed and scalability, AidData migrated this process to the Factiva Analytics platform which allowed us to extract relevant articles in JSON format from the DNA developer API, which we will then converted into an SQL database for further queries to refine our search parameters and isolate the set of most relevant articles for manual assessment.

A-3.3  Stage 2: Classification, Coding, and Documentation of Reported Instances

Once AidData staff and research assistants isolated possible instances of harassment, violence, restrictive legislation and/or state-backed legal cases against civil society actors, we then moved to stage 2 to classify, code, and document reported instances as an “event type” (physical violence and/or harassment; restrictive legislation; state-backed legal case). Each instance identified as meeting the inclusion criteria in section A-3.1 was recorded as a separate entry. Each entry has an assigned row, with all relevant fields filled out to the extent possible given the available information. Table A-4 provides illustrative coding instructions for how AidData staff and research assistants filled out the primary fields of interest in the restrictions dataset (not all fields are included below).

Table A-4. Illustrative Coding Instructions for Primary Fields in the Restrictions Dataset

Field Name	Instructions	Relevant Events
Country/ Occupied Territory	Name of the country and/or occupied territory where the event took place	All events
Event Type	List the appropriate event type: (i) harassment/violence; (ii) restrictive legislation; or (iii) state-backed legal case	All events
Event Date	List the date recorded when the original event occurred (not the date of the source material) in Month/Year format.	All events
Event Description	A brief 1-2 sentence top-line summary description of the event (who, what, when, where, how, why?) based upon the relevant article	All events
Regulation Type	Select the category that best describes the type of regulation: (i) law from the legislative branch; (ii) a decree or order from the chief executive; (iii) an executive branch policy; or (iv) other.	Restrictive Legislation only
Regulation Status	Select the category that best describes the current known status of the regulation: (i) proposed; (ii) drafted; (iii) under review/deliberation; or (iv) passed and in effect.	Restrictive Legislation only
Nature of Restriction	Select the category that best describes the nature of the restriction: (i) censorship; (ii) operations; (iii) funding; and (iv) other.	Restrictive Legislation only
Initiator Category	Select the category that best describes the initiator of the harassment: (i) domestic government; (ii) foreign government; (iii) non-government; (iv) unknown; and (v) de facto authorities-occupied territory.	Violence and Harassment only
Targeted Individuals	Fill in specific names of the targeted individuals identified in the news source.	Violence and Harassment; State-Backed Legal Cases
Targeted Organizations / Political Parties	Fill in specific names of targeted organizations or political parties identified in the news source.	Violence and Harassment; State-Backed Legal Cases
Classification of Violence/ Harassment	Select the most relevant category that applies to the event: (i) threatened harassment; (ii) acted-on harassment; (iii) threatened violence; or (iv) acted-on violence.	Violence and Harassment only
Target (or Defendant) Category	Please select the category that best describes the target (i.e., the civil society actor that was the intended target of the harassment, violence or legislation): (i) formal CSO/NGO; (ii) other community group;  (iii) media/journalists; (iv) individual activist/advocate; (v) political opposition; or (vi) other.	All events
Nature of charge	Select between (i) Direct; (ii) Indirect or (iii) Unknown. If the charges are directly related to a fundamental civic freedom [Freedom of Expression, Freedom to Assemble, Freedom to Associate] then the charges should be recorded as direct. If they are not related to these freedoms, the charges should be recorded as indirect. If there are not enough details to establish either way, record “Unknown”	State-Backed legal Cases only
Target ‘Pro-Democracy’ (1/0)	Determine whether the targeted organization or individual should be tagged as “pro-democracy.” Please select either yes (1) or no (0). For the purpose of this project, we used a narrow definition of pro-democracy, labeling individuals or organizations as such only if they were a member of the political opposition (i.e., thus actively promoting electoral competition) and/or explicitly involved in advancing electoral democracy, narrowly defined.	All events
Target ‘Anti-Kremlin’ (1/0)	Determine whether the targeted organization or individual should be tagged as “anti-Kremlin.” Please select yes (1) or no (0).  For the purpose of this project, we used a narrow definition of anti-Kremlin, labeling individuals or organizations as such only in instances where there is a clear connection to opposing actions of the Russian government writ large or involving an organization that explicitly positioned itself as anti-Kremlin in ideology. This could also occur in the context of events that were themselves explicitly anti-Kremlin (such as protests at the Russian embassy, for example).	All tabs
Target ‘Pro-Western’ (1/0)	Determine whether the targeted organization or individual should be tagged as “pro-Western.” Please select yes (1) or no (0). For the purpose of this project, we used a narrow definition of pro-Western, labeling individuals or organizations as such only when there was a clear and publicly identifiable linkage with the West by virtue of funding or political views that supported EU integration, for example.	All events
Recorded By	Include the names of the source articles (or document) used to identify the instance, along with links, date of publication, and the name of the organization/outlet/agency along with which data source you found it in. Example: NewsKitchen.eu 12 August 2020 "1,000 detained on third night of protests" via Factiva	All events
Notes	Additional notes	All events

 Note: Not all of these fields are included in the public release data.

A- 3.4 Stage 3: De-Duplication Reported Instances of Restriction

Once all the reported instances of restriction against civic space actors were documented that meet our criteria, AidData staff engaged in a de-deduplication exercise so that there is only one record for each unique instance (i.e., three mentions of a single act of violence against the same individual or organization, this should be collapsed into one record). In cases where there might be several related interrelated events (e.g., different stages of a legal case) that are prolonged over time or involve multiple separate instances that correspond to a larger event (e.g., a series of separate arrests of protesters involved in the same protest) these restrictions were recurred separately.

---

A- 4. Barometer 2: Citizen Attitudes Towards Civic Participation

AidData triangulated data across several reputable citizen surveys to feed into six proxy indicators of citizen attitudes towards civic participation in Eastern Europe and Eurasia: (i) interest in politics; (ii) past participation in more political forms of civic action (e.g., petitions, boycotts, strikes, protests); (iii) willingness to participate in more political forms of civic action in future; (iv) reported trust/confidence in public institutions; (v) membership in voluntary organizations; and (vi) past participation in less political forms of civic action (e.g., charitable donations, volunteering with organizations, helping strangers).

In this section, we outline how AidData’s research team operationalized these indicators to capture reasonably comparable data for 17 E&E countries from 2010-2021 (data availability varies by year and indicator). The remainder of this section is organized as follows: (i) description of the indicators of interest; and (ii) overview of data sources.

A- 4.1 Description of the indicators of interest, assumptions, and limitations

Citizens’ attitudes help us understand how much practical room people feel that they have to participate in civic groups, engage in collective action related to common causes/interests, or express views publicly. The degree of interest or engagement of citizens in civic activities, as well as perceived confidence/trust in institutions, speaks to the benefits and risks people assume will come from their participation. Higher interest, trust, and engagement may signal the strength of civic space where the population is motivated and optimistic about the prospects of participation. Conversely, lower levels of interest, trust, and engagement likely indicates vulnerabilities to civic space, whether due to distrust of institutions, fear of retribution, or disillusionment with the benefits of participation.

To assess the ability and desire of citizens to participate in civic space, we focus on six proxy indicators:

• the percentage of citizens interested in politics (interest in politics);
• the percentage of citizens who previously engaged in political forms of civic action such as strikes, boycotts, petitions, demonstrations, and discourse (past political participation);
• the percentage of citizens willing to participate in political forms of civic action in future (future political participation);
• the percentage of citizens willing to participate in less political forms of civic action such as donating to charity, volunteering with organizations, helping strangers ( apolitical  participation);
• the percentage of reported trust/confidence in public institutions (confidence in institutions);
• membership in voluntary organizations (membership)

Civic engagement can take many different forms, especially in countries where the space for contestation is limited. For this reason, we purposefully constructed indicators that would capture more and less political outlets for participation. Examples of more political forms of civic engagement include signing a petition, participating in a boycott, attending a demonstration, joining a strike, or discussing political matters with friends or on social media. Although there can be a variety of reasons why individuals engage in these activities, we associate them with political participation for their intention to affect decision-making by governments or organizations in their countries. Comparatively, examples of less political forms of civic engagement might include making a charitable contribution to a social organization, helping strangers in need, or volunteering with an organization. Again, the reasons why citizens do these things likely vary, as do the missions of the recipient organizations, but these activities are still less directly (or not exclusively) tied to engaging in the political realm.

A- 4.2 Overview of Data Sources

Since designing and fielding large-scale household surveys specific to these indicators would be time and cost infeasible, as well as excluding the possibility of capturing historical trends, AidData’s research team instead drew relevant data from existing third-party data sources. In selecting sources, we prioritized country and temporal comparability when possible (preferring multi-country surveys conducted over a number of years over country-specific or one-off surveys) to facilitate comparison.

For the purpose of this project, we primarily utilized the following five third-party survey data sources: (i) the World Values Survey (WVS) Wave 6; (ii) the Joint European Values Study (EVS) and World Values Survey Wave 2017-2020; (iii) the Gallup World Poll’s Civic Engagement Index; (iv) the Balkan Barometer; and (v) the Central Asian Barometer. These surveys capture information across a wide range of social and political indicators, including several barometers of citizen attitudes’ towards civic space. The coverage of these surveys and exact questions asked in each country vary slightly, but the overall quality and comparability of the datasets remains high.

One key constraint for this data are the gaps in coverage, both temporally and geographically. Only 6 of the 17 E&E countries had coverage for two waves of the World Values Survey/European Values Survey, while 6 additional countries had coverage for only one wave. To supplement these gaps, the AidData research team identified additional supplemental surveys that asked questions sufficiently similar to the WVS and EVS surveys, or covered other areas relevant to our understanding of citizen perceptions. These supplemental data sources were particularly important in three countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Moldova. For Bosnia and Herzegovina, AidData used data from surveys conducted by Prism Research for UN RCO Bosnia and Herzegovina reports. For Kosovo, AidData used data from surveys conducted by UNDP Public Pulse. Finally, in Moldova, AidData supplemented the WVS data with International Republican Institute’s Moldova Public Opinion Survey reports. Table 5 provides an overview of country coverage for each of the third-party surveys.

Table A-5. Third-Party Survey Coverage by Country and Data Source

Country	WVS Wave 6	EVS 2017	WVS Wave 7	Balkan Barometer	Central Asian Barometer	Gallup World Poll	Prism UN RCO	UNDP Public Pulse	IRI Moldova Public Opinion
Albania	Not included in survey design	Available	Included in EVS	Available	NA	Available	NA	NA	NA
Armenia	Available	Available	Included in EVS	NA	NA	Available	NA	NA	NA
Azerbaijan	Available	Available	Included in EVS	NA	NA	Available	NA	NA	NA
Belarus	Available, excludes political action	Available	Included in EVS	NA	NA	Available	NA	NA	NA
Bosnia and Herzegovina	Not included in survey design	Available	Included in EVS	Available	NA	Available	Available	NA	NA
Georgia	Available	Available	Included in EVS	NA	NA	Available	NA	NA	NA
Kazakhstan	Available	Not included in survey design	Available	NA	Available	Available	NA	NA	NA
Kosovo	Not included in survey design	Not included in survey design	Not included in survey design	Available	NA	Available	NA	Available	NA
Kyrgyzstan	Available	Not included in survey design	Available	NA	Available	Available	NA	NA	NA
Moldova	Not included in survey design	Not included in survey design	Not included in survey design	NA	NA	Available	NA	NA	Available
Montenegro	Not included in survey design	Available	Included in EVS	Available	NA	Available	NA	NA	NA
North Macedonia	Not included in survey design	Available	Included in EVS	Available	NA	Available	NA	NA	NA
Serbia	Not included in survey design	Available	Available, also captured in EVS Data	Available	NA	Available	NA	NA	NA
Tajikistan	Not included in survey design	Not included in survey design	Available	NA	Available	Available	NA	NA	NA
Turkmenistan	Not included in survey design	Not included in survey design	Not included in survey design	NA	Available	Available	NA	NA	NA
Ukraine	Available	Available	Included in EVS	NA	NA	Available	NA	NA	NA
Uzbekistan	Available, excludes political action	Not included in survey design	Ongoing, but no data available.	NA	Available	Available	NA	NA	NA

Note: Colors reflect relative data coverage, with green indicating full coverage, and red indicating missing data for key WVS/EVS survey waves.

A-4.2.1 World Values Survey / European Values Study

When country coverage was available, the WVS Wave 6 and the Joint EVS/WVS 2017-2020 were the primary source data for the indicators related to: interest in politics, past participation in political action, future willingness to engage in political action, membership in voluntary organizations, and confidence in institutions.

The fieldwork for World Values Survey Wave 6 was conducted in most countries in 2011 ^[49]  with a nationally representative sample of 1,002-1,535 randomly selected adults residing in private homes, regardless of nationality or language, and an estimated margin of error of 2.6-3.2%. ^[50]  Seven of the E&E region countries of interest were included in the WVS Wave 6 coverage: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, and Ukraine. AidData research staff used both the country-specific data for several questions and created a regional average based upon the weighted averages of the seven countries, in accordance with WVS recommendations.

The WVS Wave 7 and European Values Study 2017 were harmonized and designed for interoperable analysis and released as the Joint EVS/WVS 2017-2021 dataset. ^[51]  Fieldwork for these two surveys was conducted between 2018 and 2020, with a nationally representative sample of 1,003-2,194 randomly selected adults residing in private homes, regardless of nationality or language. ^[52]  Thirteen E&E region countries were included in the Joint EVS/WVS 2017-2021: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Tajikistan, and Ukraine. Since both the WVS and EVS were conducted in Serbia, the EVS data was chosen for consistency with other Balkan nations. Averages for the region were then calculated using the weighted averages from all thirteen countries, in accordance with EVS/WVS recommendations.

The interest in politics indicator was drawn from the question: “how interested have you been in politics over the last 2 years?” Respondents could select from the following response options: “Very interested,” “Somewhat interested,” “Not very interested,” and “Not at all interested”. These values were collapsed into two categories of Interested or Not Interested.

The past participation in political action and willingness to participate in future political action indicators were drawn from the question: “Now I’d like you to look at this card. I’m going to read out some different forms of political action that people can take, and I’d like you to tell me, for each one, whether you have actually done any of these things, whether you might do it or would never, under any circumstances, do it: Signing a petition; Joining in boycotts; Attending lawful demonstrations; Joining unofficial strikes.”

The membership in voluntary organizations indicator uses responses to a question which lists several voluntary organizations (e.g., church or religious organization, political party, environmental group) and asks respondents to identify whether or not they are a member of an organization in each category. Respondents could select whether they were an “Active member,” “Inactive member,” or “Don’t belong.” We collapsed the “Active member” and “Inactive member” categories into a single “Member” category, with “Don’t belong” coded to “Not member.”  

Values for membership in political parties, humanitarian or charitable organizations, and labor unions are provided without any further calculation, and the “Other community group” cluster was calculated from the mean of membership values in “Art, music or educational organizations,” “Environmental organizations,” “Professional associations,” “Church or other religious organizations,” “Consumer organizations,” “Sport or recreational associations,” “Self-help or mutual aid groups,” and “Other organizations.”

The trust/confidence in public institutions indicator uses responses to a question which lists several institutions (e.g., church or religious organization, parliament, the courts and the judiciary, the civil service) and asks the extent to which the respondent is confident in the institution. Respondents could select from the following choices: “A great deal,” “Quite a lot,” “Not very much,” or “None at all.” The “A great deal” and “Quite a lot” options were collapsed into a binary “Confident” indicator, while “Not very much” and “None at all” options were collapsed into a “Not confident” indicator.

A- 4.2.2 Balkan Barometer

When necessary, AidData incorporated supplemental data from the Balkan Barometer 2015-2020 surveys for six E&E region countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia. These surveys fed into indicators related to: interest in politics, past participation in political action, future willingness to engage in political action, and confidence in institutions.

The fieldwork for the Balkan Barometer surveys were conducted in national languages with nationally representative samples of 1,000-1,036 randomly selected adults residing in private homes, whose usual place of residence is in the country surveyed, and who speak the national languages well enough to respond to the questionnaire.

Responses were weighted by demographic factors for both country-specific and regional demographic weights. ^[53]  Country-specific weights were used in the calculation of country response percentages, while regional means were calculated using the regional respondent weights from all Balkan Barometer countries. ^[54]  The research team did not provide an estimated error rate for the survey data.

The political activity indicator drew upon responses to the question: “Have you ever done something that could affect any of the government decisions?” Respondents could choose multiple options from the following: “Yes, I did, I took part in public debates,” “Yes, I did, I took part in protests,” “Yes, I did, I gave my comments on social networks or elsewhere on the Internet,” “I only discussed about it with friends, acquaintances, I have not publicly declared myself [sic],” “I do not even discuss about it [sic],” and “DK/refuse.” ^[55]  

The interest in politics indicator drew upon responses to the question: “What is the main reason you are not actively involved in government decision-making?.” There was a change in methodology worth noting over the period. Although the Balkan Barometer Waves 2015-2020 included the same question stem, they offered different response options before and after the 2017 waves of the survey.

For the Balkan Barometer 2015-2017, respondents could choose a single response from the following options: “I as an individual cannot influence government decisions,” “I do not want to be publicly exposed,” “I do not care about it at all,” and “DK/refuse.” These response options differ from those available in 2018-2020: “The government knows best when it comes to citizen interests and I don't need to get involved,” “I vote and elect my representatives in the parliament so why would I do anything more,” “I as an individual cannot influence government decisions,” “I do not want to be publicly exposed,” “I do not trust this government and I don't want to have anything to do with them,” “I do not care about it at all,” and “DK/refuse.”  

The Balkan Barometer offers the benefit of asking several different questions that shed light on different facets of confidence in public institutions. One such facet is perceptions of corruption, where respondents were asked (2017-2020) the question: “To what extent do you agree or not agree that [institution] in your economy is affected by corruption?” for several institutions (e.g. religious organizations, political parties, the military, NGOs, etc). Respondents could select whether they “Totally agree,” “Tend to agree,” “Tend to disagree,” “Totally disagree,” or “DK/refuse.” Responses were further collapsed into the categories “Agree” or “Disagree.”

Another facet of public confidence in institutions is perceptions of trust. In the Balkan Barometer 2017-2020, respondents were asked the question: "How much trust do you have in certain institutions?" who reported that they either or "Totally trust" for several institutions (e.g. courts, parliament, the ombudsman, etc.). ^[56]  Respondents to the survey could select whether they "Totally trust", "Tend to trust", "Tend not to trust", “Totally distrust", or "DK/refuse." The responses were further collapsed into the categories “Trust” and “Distrust.”

Balkan Barometer 2017-2020 also captured citizen perceptions of institutional independence. ^[57]  Respondents were asked the question: “Do you agree that the following institutions are independent of political influence?” for several institutions (courts, media, the ombudsman, and supreme audit institutions). Respondents could select whether they “Totally agree,” “Tend to agree,” “Tend to disagree,” “Totally disagree,” or “DK/refuse.” These responses were further collapsed into “Agree” and “Disagree.”

Finally, we also included responses to a question on perceived ability to scrutinize the government as a further facet of confidence in institutions. Respondents in Balkan Barometer 2017-2020 were asked: “Do you agree that the following institutions can effectively scrutinize the government and make it accountable to citizens?” for several institutions (e.g., media, the parliament, the ombudsman). Respondents could select whether they “Totally agree,” “Tend to agree,” “Tend to disagree,” “Totally disagree,” or “DK/refuse.” Responses were further collapsed into the categories “Agree” and “Disagree.”

A-4.2.3 Central Asia Barometer

All waves of the Central Asia Barometer relevant to the time period for analysis were conducted with 1,500 random, nationally representative respondents aged 18 and up. Wave 2 was conducted in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan between October and December 2017. Wave 3 was conducted in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan between April and June 2018. Wave 4 was conducted in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan,Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan between November 2018 and February 2019. Wave 5 was conducted in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan,Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan between April and June 2019. ^[58]  

We primarily drew upon the Central Asian Barometer data to feed into our indicator of perceived confidence/trust in institutions. Respondents were asked the question: “In general,   how strongly do you trust or distrust ( Insert Item ) media? Would you say you…” with respondents provided the following choices: “Strongly trust, ” “ Trust somewhat, ” “ Distrust somewhat, ” “ Strongly distrust, ” “ Refused,” and “Don’t Know/Not sure” for Television, Newspaper, and the Radio. Some analysis that appears in specific country profiles was conducted with all four levels of these variables, but for the data release we collapsed the responses into two categories of “Trust” and “Distrust.”

A-4.2.4 Gallup World Poll

The Gallup World Poll’s Civic Engagement Index was the primary data source for our indicator of past participation in less political forms of civic action (e.g., charitable donations, volunteering with organizations, helping strangers). The GWP was conducted annually in each of the E&E region countries from 2009-2021, with the exception of the countries that did not complete fieldwork due to the COVID-19 pandemic. ^[59]  Each country sample includes at least 1,000 adults, and is stratified by population size and/or geography with clustering via one or more stages of sampling. The data are weighted to be nationally representative. Due to licensing restrictions, AidData is unable to release this data publicly, so coverage is restricted to the analysis that appears in the descriptive results of the 17 E&E country profiles (2015-2021) and the regional synthesis.

The Civic Engagement Index is an estimate of citizens’ willingness to support others in their community. It is calculated from positive answers to the following multi-part question: Have you done any of the following in the past month? How about donated  money to a charity? How about volunteered  your time to an organization? How about helped  a stranger or someone you didn’t know who needed help? The engagement index is then calculated at the individual level on a scale of 0 to 100, giving 33% to each of the answers that received a positive response. Country values are then calculated from the weighted average of each of these individual Civic Engagement Index scores. The regional mean is similarly calculated from the weighted average of each of country’s Civic Engagement Index scores, taking the average across all 17 E&E countries: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. The regional means for 2020 and 2021 are the exception due to COVID-19 disruptions to fieldwork in some countries.

The economic data used to assess correlation between the GDP and Gallup Civic Engagement reporting is the “Gross domestic product, constant prices, National currency, Billions” indicator from the International Monetary Fund’s WEO database. ^[60]

A-4.2.5 UNDP Public Pulse Kosovo

Supplemental data from UNDP Public Pulse Waves 1-21 (November 2010-November 2021) was used exclusively for Kosovo. These semi-annual reports cover a nationally representative public opinion survey of over 1,000 citizens of Kosovo over 18 years of age, of both sexes, from all regions and both rural and urban areas. ^[61]  

The protest indicator used the UNDP calculated values of the percent of respondents who reported “Readiness to join protests for political reasons.” To better assess trust in civic society, our analysis used the UNDP calculated responses to the question “Does Civil Society in Kosovo serve as a truthful monitor of democratic developments in Kosovo?” which was the sum of the percentages of respondents who responded that they “agree fully” or “agree mainly” that civil society serves as a truthful monitor of democratic developments.

As these data are readily available in existing publications, they are not included in our data release, but more information can be found on the UNDP website. ^[62]

A-4.2.6 Prism Research for UN RCO Bosnia and Herzegovina

Supplemental data from Prism Research F2F Omnibus (Prism) Waves 1 and 2 for the United Nations Resident Coordinator’s Office in Bosnia and Herzegovina was used exclusively for Bosnia and Herzegovina. ^[63]  The fieldwork for the Prism Wave 1 survey in Bosnia and Herzegovina was conducted from May 7 to May 22, 2013, with a nationally representative sample of 1,500 randomly selected citizens over the age of 18. The fieldwork for the Prism Wave 2 survey in Bosnia and Herzegovina was conducted in January 2015, with a nationally representative sample of 1500 randomly selected citizens over the age of 18.

Bosnia and Herzegovina’s country values for the Prism Wave 1 and 2 Question “To what extent are you willing to take part in the following activities?” were based on the percentage of respondents that indicated that they were “Ready” to take part in the activities. The list of activities provided included “Voting in the elections,” “Participating in demonstrations or protests,” “Leaving BIH,” “Joining a citizens’ action group,” “Joining a political party,” and “Using violence or force in demonstrations or protests.” For AidData’s indicator construction, only the responses to participation in demonstrations or protests and joining political parties were examined.  

As these data are readily available in existing publications, they are not included in our data release, but more information can be found on the UN RCO and Prism websites. ^[64]

A-4.2.7 IRI Moldova Public Opinion Survey

Three supplemental public opinion surveys published by the International Republican Institute (IRI) were used exclusively for Moldova. Data on Moldovans’ interest in politics was drawn from the September 2011 National Voter Study and the March 2018 Public Opinion Survey.  The November 2018 Public Opinion Survey was the source of data on Moldovan’s past participation and future willingness to engage in various civic activities.

Conducted August 20 to September 2, 2011, the 2011 Moldova National Voter Study sample consisted of 1,200 Moldovans aged 18 and older and eligible to vote. The survey had a response rate of 57.4 percent, an estimated margin of error of 3 percent. ^[65]  The 2011 Moldova National Voter Study corresponds in terms of timing with the 2011 World Values Survey (WVS) which asks similar questions on political interest to facilitate broad comparisons with other countries in the Europe & Eurasia region.

IRI’s March 2018 Public Opinion Survey was conducted from February to March 2018 with a sample of 1,513 Moldovan permanent residents aged 18 and older and eligible to vote. The survey had a 64 percent response rate and an estimated margin of error of 2.5 percent ^[66] . The March 2018 survey was selected to correspond with the 2018 European Values Survey (EVS) which asks similar questions on political interest to facilitate broad comparisons with other countries in the Europe & Eurasia region, as this question was excluded from the November 2018 IRI Survey.

In both the September 2011 and March 2018 surveys, respondents were asked: “how much interest do you have in politics?” They could select from the following response options: “interested”, “medium interested”, “not interested” or “don’t know/NA”. Response options were further collapsed into “interested”, “not interested” or “don’t know/NA”. The March 2018 Public Opinion Survey also included the question: “are people in Moldova afraid or not to openly express their political views?” Respondents could select from the following responses: “Majority are afraid,” “Many are afraid,” “Some are afraid,” “Nobody is afraid,” and “Don’t know/NA.”

IRI’s November 2018 Public Opinion Survey was conducted from September 11 to October 16, 2018 with a sample of 1,503 Moldovan permanent residents aged 18 and older and eligible to vote. ^[67]  The survey had a response rate of 68 percent and an estimated margin of error of 2.5 percent. The November 2018 survey was used for its inclusion of questions on participation in specific civic activities in Moldova that largely correspond to those included in the 2011 WVS and 2018 EVS studies: “participate in a protest,” “sign a petition,” and “participate in a boycott.” Respondents were asked two questions: “Have you ever engaged in any of the following activities?” and “Are you interested in engaging in any of the following activities within the next several years?” Participants were able to select “Yes,” “No,” or “Don’t know/No answer”.

The 2018 IRI poll did ask about additional forms of civic participation— “attend a political meeting”, “contact an elected official”, post on social media”, “join a political party”, “join or support a formal or informal organization with a political agenda”, and “run for political office”—however, these were excluded from this analysis for the sake of consistency and comparability with data from other countries.

As these data are readily available in existing publications, they are not included in our data release, but more information can be found on the IRI website. ^[68]

A-5. Barometer 3: Russian Support to Civic Space Actors

AidData produced novel data on two proxy indicators to assess the extent to which the Kremlin uses financial or in-kind support to civic space actors and regulators to exert influence in E&E countries. In this section, we outline how AidData’s research team operationalized these indicators to collect comparable data for 17 E&E countries from 2015-2021.

The remainder of this section is organized as follows: (i) key definitions and parameters for data collection (section A-5.1); (ii) Stage 1: Identification of Relevant Reported Instances of Kremlin Support (section A-5.2); and (iii) Stage 2: Classification, Deduplication, and Valuation of Kremlin Support (section A-5.3).

A- 5.1   Definition and Parameters

In this section, we define the following key terms to support identification and coding of relevant instances of Kremlin-backed support to civil society actors and regulators: (i) types of relevant funding and in-kind support directed to E&E civil society actors ; and (ii) types of funding and in-kind support to institutional development in E&E countries relevant to civic space.

Using our standardized definition of civic space as a departure point, ^[69]   we developed  our indicators to capture how the Kremlin may use financial and in-kind support to co-opt the efforts of domestic civil society (formal and informal) and influence government regulation of civic space within their countries (i.e., the ability for different groups to assemble, organize, and act).

A-5.1.1 Financing and In-Kind Support to Civil Society Actors

Formal civil society organizations and informal civic groups receive financial or in-kind support from diverse sources: private foundations, individual citizens, and external governments to name a few. In this project, we focused exclusively on tracing financing and in-kind support from Kremlin-affiliated agencies of the Russian government to E&E civil society actors as a potential channel of influence to not only co-opt the activities of specific entities, but also more broadly shape public attitudes and behavior in the target countries. In the E&E region, in particular, Vojtíšková et al. (2016)   has identified NGOs and think tanks as priority targets for Russian external action, as these organizations can promote and legitimize Russian policies abroad, and therefore an entry point for malign influence.

The combination of limited public financial reporting by many civic space actors in the E&E region, along with the Kremlin’s high level of opacity in its own dealings makes capturing the full extent of these interactions a challenging task. In operationalizing this indicator, we used a recipient-centered approach to capture as many individual instances of Russian government support to specific E&E civic space actors as possible and track a range of activities.

We purposefully included both financial and in-kind forms of support (e.g., donation of materials, physical space, technical assistance), partly because both forms of assistance may credibly influence the activities of civil society actors and also because it appears that Russia heavily emphasizes in-kind support (in contrast to the much larger pocketbook of the People’s Republic of China, for example) with these actors. Both the financial and non-financial forms of assistance are similar in their aims to encourage activities that advance Kremlin interests, bolster the profile of pro-Kremlin actors, promote positive views of the donor organization, and/or deepen cross-border connections and collaboration.

Our list of illustrative funding and in-kind support activities to civil society actors includes:

• Grants, loans, or gifts provided to CSOs, NGOs, or Think Tanks;
• Grants or gifts to churches, mosques, and other religious organizations;
• Grants or gifts to cultural bodies;
• Scholarships to members of CSOs or their leaders;
• Co-sponsorship of events or conferences by a CSO and the Russian embassy or other government delegation;
• Launching of “friendship associations” between Russia and the host country;
• Funding the publication of educational or cultural materials directly aligned with political parties or movements;
• Russian state-backed exchange and/or training programs for leaders of formal CSOs or informal civic groups to visit Russia;
• Political skills training for youth  

In setting the inclusion criteria for what constituted funding and in-kind support to civil society actors, we excluded some Russian activities that fall under the broader umbrella of “soft-power” approaches. Although these activities may promote a positive image of Russia abroad and impact general public perceptions, our specific interest for this indicator is to understand the ability for the Kremlin to co-opt specific actors through its assistance. In drawing this boundary, we inevitably encountered “edge cases” that were potentially relevant, but did not neatly fit within the scope of this indicator, as well as varieties of aid that may or may not be relevant depending on the recipient.  

For example, a key focus of Russian aid to E&E countries, particularly in the wake of COVID-19, has been the shipment of medical supplies. To distinguish the components of this in-kind aid that are relevant to civil society from medical aid more broadly, we have focused on those flows that are channeled through non-governmental organizations such as the Gagauzia region’s Council for the Elderly, or larger organizations such as the Russian Community of Azerbaijan. These flows support not just the individual recipients of the aid but raise the visibility of these CSOs or NGOs in their area of operation.

By limiting medical aid to only those flows channeled to domestic CSOs or NGOs operating in the E&E countries, we exclude in-kind aid provided directly by Russian embassies or by other governmental bodies to the government or hospitals of a particular country, region, or municipality. While direct government-to-government aid comprises acts of soft-power diplomacy, it does not directly impact the space in which civil society actors function, nor does it impact the operations those civil society organizations carry out. This decision, most notably, has an impact on events captured in Russian-leaning autonomous regions, where service provision by a regional or separatist government may be political in nature, but it does not meet our criteria for falling within civic space.

Similarly, while the operations of Rossotrudnichestvo, Russkiy Mir Foundation, The Foundation for Supporting and Protecting the Rights of Compatriots Living Abroad, and Gorchakov Foundations constitute a key part of Russia’s soft-power diplomacy, promoting Russian language, culture, and cooperation abroad, we exclude their activities that do not directly involve donations to or sharing resources with the host country’s civil society actors. Practically, this has meant limiting these organizations’ activities to cooperation with organized bodies, and excluding initiatives focusing on citizens themselves as targets for participation or benefits.

Examples of excluded activities include:

• General medical aid, supplies, or training provided to health ministries and regional government bodies;
• General educational grants, in-kind aid, or other support provided to schools;
• Funds or donation of broadcasting equipment given to public broadcasting companies;
• Pensions provided to individual Russian citizens abroad through Russian GONGOs;
• Appearances by Russian diplomats or envoys at cultural events, holidays, or gatherings hosted and funded independently by civic institutions;
• Activities undertaken by branches of the Young Army Cadet National Movement

A-5.1.2 Financing and support to influence institutional development relevant to civic space

In addition to interacting with individual civil society actors, external actors can influence or exert pressure on the institutions that define the civic space itself, for better or worse. Although there are various indirect ways in which an external actor might exert influence on these institutions, we focused on the ways that the Russian government channeled financial or in-kind support to the authorities at national or local levels or in the case of occupied territories—de facto authorities.

For this indicator, we were primarily interested in how Kremlin support could ostensibly build the capacity of civic space regulators to restrict, surveil or inhibit the activities of civil society actors. This could involve influencing a range of legislative, administrative, and judiciary measures which could limit the formation of certain civic organizations, restrict their operations, or impose sanctions on their members. It could also include strengthening the capacity of law enforcement, Ministries of the Interior, judiciary bodies, and local governments. Additional relevant activities include cross-border training or cooperation between state institutions with an explicit focus on civil society, human rights, or political engagement. Individual instances of harassment and violence, legislative restrictions or judicial cases fall under the scope of our other indicators in Section 3.

 Selected activities that influence institutional development include:

• Russian state-backed exchange and training programs (i.e., peer-to-peer learning) for civil servants or civilian law enforcement from the target country;
• Provision of surveillance equipment/technology and training for local law enforcement in the target country;
• Joint consultations between state ombuds organizations, judicial bodies, or law enforcement on the topic of human rights, civic activity, or related issues.;
• Creation of joint cooperation bodies between relevant state institutions, and bodies to coordinate on issues of human rights or civic engagement;
• Funding toward governance, law enforcement, or judicial development

In identifying instances of Russian financial or in-kind support to institutional development relevant to civic space, we made a number of choices to bound our scope of inquiry. First, we recognized that it is practically impossible to identify the intended goal of individual training programs, particularly as to whether they are oriented toward the restriction of civic space. However, in many E&E countries, law enforcement and state security forces play a significant role in limiting civic action through their actions. Similarly, we assume surveillance equipment to have a negative effect on the openness of civic space.

Joint security training presents a unique challenge in tracking cooperation. Functionally, the mandates of most national defense forces are not directed at their own citizens. However, the roles of law enforcement and military units in the region often have degrees of overlap, particularly with regard to action that may limit or restrict civic space. In this sense, we have chosen to identify several types of activities that generally fall under the category of military aid as relevant to our research. These include:

• Shipments, official commitments, or financing allocated for surveillance equipment; training of units on surveillance equipment;
• Joint training exercises between Russian organizations and target country security forces, when the training includes law enforcement agencies or security forces linked to interior ministries

Note that these do not include arm sales to the military or defense ministries, joint military exercises without the above mentioned bodies, general Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) training, joint border security, or border-monitoring missions when there is not a capacity-building component involved. This also excludes ongoing peacekeeping activities by Russian or international forces in contested territories or conflict zones.

General judicial development similarly poses a categorization challenge. Courts handle a wide range of activities, many of which have little to no impact on civic space. Judicial activities that directly involve civic space or actors, however, are often among the most impactful in shaping the overall institutional environment around civic space (as seen in our other indicators on state-backed legal cases undertaken against civic space actors). Therefore, we believe that all instances of Russian support to judicial development are worth capturing in the initial data search. This assumes that all Russian activities targeting judicial development may have potential impacts on civic space to some degree.

Finally, cross-border collaboration between law enforcement bodies is excluded if it is only for the purpose of investigating a single criminal case (though specific instances may be captured in other indicators pertaining to harassment or violence initiated against individual civil society actors). While this may build some cooperation capacity in the short term, it is not the general-purpose cooperation or capacity building that we intend to capture with this indicator.    

A-5.2 Stage 1: Identification of Relevant Reported Instances of Kremlin Financing and In-Kind Support to Civic Space Actors and Regulators

This section outlines AidData’s approach to identifying instances of financing or support to civil society actors and to institutional development.

A-5.2.1 Scanning Global News Sources for Mentions of Financing

Our principal approach to identifying instances of support was leveraging databases of international media to capture mentions of Russian financing and assistance to civic space, including the Dow Jones Factiva and Factive Analytics databases. These databases allow us to search thousands of news publications for mentions of activities that fall into either of the above categories, and have coverage of media in English, Russian, and national languages for our target countries. Queries for Factiva Analytics pull together a collection of terms related to mechanisms of support (e.g., grants, joint training, etc.), recipient organizations, and concrete links to Russian government or government-backed organizations. For this set of activities, the search was limited to articles published between January 1, 2015 and August 31, 2021. Sample queries designed for searches on Factiva/DNA related to Kremlin-backed financing and in-kind support to civil society actors (both formal CSOs and informal civic groups) and civic space regulators in Moldova are provided in Boxes A-3 and A-4.

(Russia or russian or russi *) near5 (Moldova or Moldovan or Moldov * or Chisinau) AND (((grant or grants or fund* or lend* or lent or donat* or donor* or fund* or invest* or financ * or economic package or development package or aid or scholarship* or capacity building or training* or joint* near5 train* or train* near5 program* or technical cooperat * or exchange* or medical team* or experts or provid * or provision* or support or sponsor*) near5 (NGO or CSO or civil society or Civil Society or Church or Mosque or center or association or foundation)) or Rossotrud* or Gorchakov or Center for Independent Journalism or Promo-LEX or Association of Independent Press or Association for Participatory Democracy or Institute for European Policies and Reforms or Foreign Policy Association or Legal Resource Center from Moldova or Expert-Grup or IDIS-Viitorul or CONTACT-Cahul Center or Center for Health Policies and Studies PAS or Youth Resource Center DACIA or Maternal Center Ariadna or Pro Business Nord or Child, Community, Family (CCF Moldova) or CCF Moldova or AGROinform National Federation of Agricultural Producers of Moldova or AGROinform or National Federation of Agricultural Producers of Moldova or Association of Electronic Press of Moldova or CASE Moldova Foundation for Social and Economic Research or CREDO Resource Center for Human Rights or Eurasia Foundation Moldova or European Network of Political Foundations or European Partnership for Democracy or European Policy Center Moldova or Expert Grup or Independent Journalism Center or Institute for Public Policy or Moldovan Institute for Human Rights or National Youth Council of Moldova or Regional Environmental Centre Moldova or Terra-1530 or Transparency International Moldova or Intermation  and Legacy Center Apriori  or Club 19 or Klub 19 or IPRE or LRCM or ADEPT or DACIA or APEL or CREDO or ENoP or IDOM  or CNTM or REC) Note: the above search returned 309 articles, including 66 duplicates, from 1/1/2015 through 8/26/2020.

Box A-4. Sample Query for Kremlin-backed Support to Civic Space Regulators in Factiva/DNA searches based on Moldova

(Russia or russian or russi *) near5 (Moldova or Moldovan or Moldov * or Chisinau) AND (((dollar* or ruble* or rouble* or euro or euros or leu or lei or grant or grants or fund* or lend* or lent or donat* or donor* or fund* or financ * or development package or aid or scholarship* or capacity building or training* or joint* near5 train* or train* near5 program* or technical cooperat * or medical team* or experts or provid * or provision* or support or ship*) near5 (police or security or justice or judic * or ministry of interior or interior ministry or weapons supplied or govern*))) Note: the above search returned 755 articles, including 49 duplicates, from 1/1/2015 through 8/26/2020.

A- 5.2.2 Reviewing Supplemental Sources

In addition to the global news sources, we reviewed a number of additional sources specific to each of the 17 target countries to broaden our search and, where possible, confirm reports from news sources. These sources included:

• Recipient government sources, particularly websites of ministries of the interior or local police bodies
• Russian government sources and government-backed NGOs, particularly the websites for country offices of the Gorchakov Fund, Rossotrudnichestvo, the Russkiy Mir Foundation, and the Foundation for Supporting and Protecting the Rights of Compatriots Living Abroad
• Websites and social media profiles of NGOs and civil society bodies where available

Due to the differences in country contexts, these sources are far less consistent across countries, but provide important additional information to ensure no relevant activities are missed. For each of these sources, we reviewed the equivalent news or media updates back to 1/1/2015, searching for articles that fit the categories of activities described previously. We excluded articles or posts that just reference speeches or meetings between two officials if there are no specific relevant activities mentioned (e.g., general fostering of greater cooperation, celebrations of shared history, etc.). Table A-6 provides a breakdown of the sources referenced by country.

Table A-6. List of Sources Referenced By Country

Country	Source Name	Source Link:
Albania	Agency for Support of Civil Society	http://www.amshc.gov.al/web/misioni.php
Albania	Central Election Commission	http://www2.cec.org.al/sq-al/misioni
Albania	Factiva	Dow Jones Factiva Database
Albania	General Prosecution Office	http://www.pp.gov.al/web/Njoftime_6_1.php
Albania	Ministry of Internal Affairs	http://www.punetebrendshme.gov.al/al/ministria/struktura-organizative
Albania	Ministry of Justice	https://www.drejtesia.gov.al
Albania	Rossotrudnichestvo Albania Site	https://alb.rs.gov.ru/ru
Albania	The State Police of Albania	http://www.asp.gov.al
Armenia	Factiva	Dow Jones Factiva Database
Armenia	Rossotrudnichestvo Armenia Site	http://gmr.rs.gov.ru/ru
Armenia	The National Security Service of Armenia	https://www.sns.am/hy/
Armenia	The Police of the Republic of Armenia	https://www.police.am
Azerbaijan	Baku City Police Department	https://www.bakupolice.gov.az/?/en/menu/1/
Azerbaijan	Factiva	Dow Jones Factiva Database
Azerbaijan	Rossotrudnichestvo Azerbaijan Site	http://aze.rs.gov.ru/ru
Azerbaijan	State Customs Committee of Azerbaijan Republic	https://customs.gov.az/en/
Azerbaijan	The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan	https://mia.gov.az/?/en/
Azerbaijan	The State Security Service of the Republic of Azerbaijan	http://www.dtx.gov.az/en/
Belarus	Factiva	Dow Jones Factiva Database
Belarus	Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Belarus	https://www.mvd.gov.by/en
Belarus	Ministry of the Internal Affairs of the Republic of Belarus	https://www.mvd.gov.by/en
Belarus	Rossotrudnichestvo Belarus Site	http://blr.rs.gov.ru/ru
Bosnia and Herzegovina	Border Police of Bosnia and Herzegovina	http://www.granpol.gov.ba/?lang=en
Bosnia and Herzegovina	Factiva	Dow Jones Factiva Database
Bosnia and Herzegovina	FBiH Ministry of Interior	http://www.fmup.gov.ba/v2/
Bosnia and Herzegovina	Forensic Examinations and Expertise Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina	https://www.aeptm.gov.ba/en
Bosnia and Herzegovina	Ministry of Security of Bosnia and Herzegovina	http://www.msb.gov.ba/Language.aspx
Bosnia and Herzegovina	Ministry of the Interior – Republic of Srpska	https://mup.vladars.net/eng/index.php
Bosnia and Herzegovina	Police Support Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina	http://www.psa.gov.ba/O_nama/default.aspx?id=30&langTag=en-US
Bosnia and Herzegovina	Service for Foreigners Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina	http://sps.gov.ba/?lang=en
Bosnia and Herzegovina	State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) of Bosnia and Herzegovina	http://www.sipa.gov.ba/en
Georgia	Border Police of Georgia	http://bpg.gov.ge/en/
Georgia	Factiva	Dow Jones Factiva Database
Georgia	Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia	https://police.ge/en/home
Georgia	State Security Service of Georgia	https://ssg.gov.ge/en/
Georgia	The Georgian Data Exchange Agency	https://dea.gov.ge/?action=0&lang=eng
Georgia	The Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia	http://pog.gov.ge/en/news/
Global	Foundation for Supporting and Protecting the Rights of Compatriots Living Abroad	http://pravfond.ru/
Global	Gorchakov Fund Site	https://www.gorchakovfund.ru
Global	Rossotrudnichestvo Open Data Grant Information	https://rwp.agency/agency/open-a/index-detail/granty/
Global	Rossotrudnichestvo Site - New	http://rwp.agency
Global	Rossotrudnichestvo Site - Old	http://rs.gov.ru/en
Global	Russkiy Mir Site	https://russkiymir.ru/en/news/
Global	World Association of Russian Press (WARP)	http://warp.pro/
Kazakhstan	Central Election Commission	http://www.election.gov.kz/eng/
Kazakhstan	Factiva	Dow Jones Factiva Database
Kazakhstan	Ministry of Internal Affairs	http://mvd.gov.kz/portal/page/portal/mvd/MVD/mvd_nav_activ/mvd_gos_uslugi
Kazakhstan	Ministry of Justice	http://www.adilet.gov.kz/en/category/14
Kazakhstan	National Centre for Human Rights	http://kazakhstanhumanrights.com/humanrightsanddemocracy/kazakhstans-human-rights-ombudsman/
Kazakhstan	Office of the General Prosecutor	http://prokuror.gov.kz/eng/prosecutors/history
Kazakhstan	Rossotrudnichestvo Kazakhstan Site	https://kaz.rs.gov.ru/ru
Kosovo	Factiva	Dow Jones Factiva Database
Kosovo	Kosovo Emergency Management Agency	https://ame.rks-gov.net/Home
Kosovo	Kosovo Judicial Council	https://www.gjyqesori-rks.org/?lang=en
Kosovo	Kosovo Police	https://www.kosovopolice.com
Kosovo	Police Inspectorate of Kosovo	https://ipk.rks-gov.net
Kyrgyz Republic	Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Kyrgyz Republic	http://constpalata.kg/ru/about/istoriya/
Kyrgyz Republic	Factiva	Dow Jones Factiva Database
Kyrgyz Republic	General Prosecutor's Office	http://www.prokuror.kg/news/1825-tsentrom-professionalnoj-podgotovki-prokurorskikh-rabotnikov-generalnoj-prokuratury-kyrgyzskoj-respubliki-sovmestno-s-programmoj-obshchestvennoe-zdravookhranenie-fonda-soros-kyrgyzstan-i-programmnym-ofisom-upravleniya-oon-po-narkotikam-i-prestupnosti-v-ky.html
Kyrgyz Republic	Ministry of Interior	http://www.gov.kg/?page_id=27290&lang=ru
Kyrgyz Republic	Ministry of Justice	http://www.minjust.gov.kg
Kyrgyz Republic	Rossotrudnichestvo Bishkek Site	https://kgz.rs.gov.ru/ru
Kyrgyz Republic	Rossotrudnichestvo Osh Site	https://osh.rs.gov.ru/ru
Moldova	Factiva	Dow Jones Factiva Database
Moldova	Ministry of Internal Affairs of Moldova	http://www.mai.gov.md
Moldova	Security and Intelligence Service of Moldova	https://sis.md/en?status=1
Moldova	The Border Guards of the Republic of Moldova	http://www.border.gov.md/index.php/en/
Moldova	Rossotrudnichestvo Moldova Site	http://mda.rs.gov.ru/ru
Montenegro	Factiva	Dow Jones Factiva Database
Montenegro	Ministry of Internal Affairs	http://www.mup.gov.me/organizacija/direktorati
Montenegro	Ministry of Justice	http://www.mpa.gov.me/en/ministry
Montenegro	Office of the State Prosecutor	http://www.tuzilastvocg.me/index.php/en/supreme-state-prosecutor-s-office
Montenegro	Police Directorate	http://pointpulse.net/magazine/police-administration-in-montenegro/
Montenegro	Rossotrudnichestvo Montenegro Site	https://mne.rs.gov.ru/ru
North Macedonia	Factiva	Dow Jones Factiva Database
North Macedonia	Ministry of Justice of North Macedonia	https://mvr.gov.mk/default
North Macedonia	Ministry of the Interior of North Macedonia	http://www.pravda.gov.mk
North Macedonia	Rossotrudnichestvo North Macedonia Site	http://mkd.rs.gov.ru/ru
North Macedonia	The Ministry of Political System and Inter-Community Relations of North Macedonia	http://mpsoz.gov.mk
Serbia	Factiva	Dow Jones Factiva Database
Serbia	Ministry of Justice of Serbia	https://www.mpravde.gov.rs/?change_lang=en
Serbia	Ministry of the Interior of Serbia	http://www.mup.gov.rs/wps/portal/en
Serbia	Rossotrudnichestvo Serbia Site	http://srb.rs.gov.ru/ru
Serbia	State Migration Service of Ukraine	http://srb.rs.gov.ru/ru
Tajikistan	Central Commission for Elections and Referenda	http://kmir.tj
Tajikistan	Factiva	Dow Jones Factiva Database
Tajikistan	Ministry of Internal Affairs	http://mvd.tj
Tajikistan	Ministry of Justice	https://adliya.tj/tj
Tajikistan	Office of the General Prosecutor	http://www.prokuratura.tj
Tajikistan	Rossotrudnichestvo Dushanbe Site	https://tjk.rs.gov.ru/ru
Tajikistan	Rossotrudnichestvo Khujand Site	https://sugd.rs.gov.ru/ru
Turkmenistan	Factiva	Dow Jones Factiva Database
Turkmenistan	Institute of the State, Law and Democracy of Turkmenistan	http://www.minjust.gov.tm
Turkmenistan	Rossotrudnichestvo Turkmenistan Facebook Site	https://www.facebook.com/Россотрудничество-Туркменистан-Rossotrudnichestvo-Turkmenistan-106939317714555/
Ukraine	Factiva	Dow Jones Factiva Database
Ukraine	Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine	https://mvs.gov.ua/en/
Ukraine	National Guard of Ukraine	https://ngu.gov.ua/en
Ukraine	National Police of Ukraine	https://www.npu.gov.ua/en/
Ukraine	Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine	https://en.gp.gov.ua/ua/index.html
Ukraine	Rossotrudnichestvo Ukraine Site	http://ukr.rs.gov.ru/ru
Ukraine	State Border Service of Ukraine	https://dpsu.gov.ua/en/
Ukraine	State Migration Service of Ukraine	https://dmsu.gov.ua/en-home.html
Ukraine	State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine	http://www.dsszzi.gov.ua/dsszzi/control/en/
Ukraine	The Security Service of Ukraine	https://sbu.gov.ua/en/
Uzbekistan	Central Election Commission	http://elections.uz/en/lists/guide
Uzbekistan	Factiva	Dow Jones Factiva Database
Uzbekistan	Ministry of Internal Affairs	https://iiv.uz/en
Uzbekistan	Ministry of Justice	https://www.minjust.uz/en/
Uzbekistan	Rossotrudnichestvo Uzbekistan Office	https://uzb.rs.gov.ru/ru

A- 5.3 Stage 2: Classification, Deduplication, and Valuation of Kremlin Support

For each identified instance of support or financing, AidData staff and research assistants determined whether it met the criteria for activities listed previously. A next step in the process was to determine if the financing or in-kind support was being directed toward a civil society organization/informal civic group or towards a state institution. The data pulled from the two Factiva queries generally aligned with each queries’ respective indicator, but due to the complexity of keyword-based searches, we adjudicated any instances where there was overlap in the cases pulled. Any potential edge cases (potentially relevant) were flagged for review and arbitration by staff when finalizing the country and regional data. Each identified instance of Kremlin support was recorded systematically following standardized coding instructions. Table A-7 provides an example of such top-line instructions.

Table A-7. Illustrative Coding Instructions for Documenting Instances

Field Name	Instructions
Subindicator  ID	Unique ID for each instance of activity.
Country Name	List of the name of the country in which the event took place.
Article Source/Publisher	Record name of publisher, and where the article or information was located. If a webpage, include the web link here. If from a locally hosted file (i.e. from a database extraction), record the filename here.
Source Language	Record the language of the source document here. If the source document was translated into English by the reporting organization, record “English (orig. XXXX)” and note the original source language.
Event Date	Record the date of the event described. For agreements or cooperation documents, record the signing date. For bounded training, conferences, or joint exercises (< 2 weeks), record the start date of activity. For ongoing activity with no identified start or end date, record the date range that most plausibly includes the described activity (e.g. individual months, or list individual year). Information in sources referencing activities that occurred across multiple years is almost always too general and should not be recorded.  If no date is specified in the source text and the above methods cannot be used, use the article publication date.
Description	Record the relevant information from the event description in the source material, with a particular focus on actors involved, quantity of support, and variety of support.
Russian Org Involved	Identify the Russian organization involved (e.g. Embassy, line ministries, governments of Russian federal subjects, Rossotrudnichestvo, Gorchakov Fund, Russkiy Mir, Foundation for Supporting and Protecting the Rights of Compatriots Living Abroad, WARP Foundation)
Recipient Org Name	Record the recipient organization identified in the source article. If no name can be identified, leave blank.
Recipient Org Type	Record the type of organization receiving Russian support: (i) CSO/NGO, (ii) church, (iii) school, (iv) government, (vi) citizens, (vii) compatriot union, (iv) other.
Recipient Org Subnational Location	Where possible, record the most specific subnational location of the recipient(s). The default reference here will be cities.
Recipient Org Alt Name	Identify local-language variants of the recipient organization’s name where identified (often Cyrillic).
Type of Russian Support	Identify the type(s) of Russian support described. These include (i) funding, (ii) in-kind donations, (iii) technical assistance, (iv) training (including joint cooperation activities, exercises, etc.), (iv) scholarships, (v) event support, (vi) opening Russian facility, (vii) political skill training for youth, (viii) cooperation agreement, or (ix) other.
Value of Russian Support	When possible, record the identified or estimated value of Russian engagement from the source article. If not mentioned, leave this and the currency unit fields blank.
Currency Unit of Russian Support	Record the currency unit of the previous value, do not convert to USD at this stage to allow for more accurate currency conversion in later analysis.
Corroborating Source Links	Links to additional sources, with notes on which fields had additional information added based on additional sources. Best practice is to select a main source based on the following priority list, then include additional sources in this field. Priority is given in descending order to: (i) recipient government sources, (ii) Russian government or GONGO sources, (iii) media sources.
Other Notes for Russian Engagement	Additional notes for further explanation, or flagging potential edge cases, noting projects to be excluded from aggregates.

 Note: Not all of these fields are included in the public release data.

A- 5.3.1 Duplicates and Valuations

Given the range of sources the AidData team leveraged to collect data for this indicator set, we frequently encountered duplicate references to individual instances of Russian financing to civil society. In these instances, we collapsed these reports into single records of activity, with corroborating records included in notes at the end. Priority was given, in descending order, to reports by recipient government bodies, Russian government sources or government-sponsored NGOs, and then to independent media sources.  

While many instances of Russian support to civil society or institutional development are reported with monetary values, a greater portion of instances only identify support provided in-kind, through modes of cooperation, or through technical assistance ( trainings , capacity building activities). These entries were recorded as such without a monetary valuation. However, as a possible future phase of research, estimated values may be calculated based on comparable activities or products.

A- 6. Barometer 4: Russian State Media and Civic Space

AidData produced novel data on four proxy indicators to assess Russian state-media coverage to shape public attitudes towards civic space actors and public discourse pertaining to several keywords in Eastern Europe and Eurasia. Two indicators pertain to the frequency and sentiment of Russian media coverage of civic groups operating in E&E countries (both formal organizations and informal groups) and the remaining two indicators monitor the frequency and sentiment of Russian media mentions of democratic norms and rivals. In this section, we outline how AidData’s research team operationalized these indicators to collect comparable data for 17 E&E countries from 2015-2021.

The remainder of this section is organized as follows: (i) key definitions and parameters for data collection (sectionA- 6.1); (ii) Stage 1: Identification of Reported Instances (section A-6.2); (iii) Stage 2: Classification, Coding, and Documentation of Reported Instances (section A-6.3); and (iv) assumptions and limitations (section A-6.4).

A- 6.1 Key Definitions and Parameters

Traditional mass-media is an important tool to influence public opinion—from views of specific civic groups to attitudes towards broader democratic norms—not only within one’s own country, but also abroad. ^[70]  Media outlets can shape public discourse through their coverage of certain topics or actors: frequently mentioned items gain greater visibility in public narratives, while those less mentioned recede into the background. They can also influence public attitudes through the tone of their reporting—the degree to which discussion of a given topic or actor is portrayed in a more or less favorable light. For example, media articles could alternatingly laud a civic group by presenting their work in an attractive way or vilify their efforts by casting doubt on their funding or motives.

Although E&E countries are exposed to a wide variety of external content (from both traditional mass media and social media), in this project we focused exclusively on Russian state-run media both for its accessibility and as a potential channel of influence for the Kremlin to promote pro-Russian narratives and affect public attitudes towards specific civic actors and broader democratic norms that influence civic space throughout the region. Using our standardized definition of civic space as a departure point, ^[71]   we developed  indicators to capture how the Kremlin may use its state-owned media coverage to influence public attitudes about civic space actors (formal organizations and informal groups), as well as public discourse pertaining to democratic norms or rivals in the eyes of citizens in E&E countries.

In the remainder of this section, we define the following key terms to support identification and coding of instances of Russian state-media mentions relevant to civic space: (i) Russian state-owned media ; (ii) formal and informal civic groups; (iii) democratic norms and rivals; (iv) frequency and sentiment of mentions.

A-6.1.1 Russian-state owned media

Through extensive desk research, AidData staff determined that the following Russian state-owned (in whole or part) and pro-Kremlin media outlets were present in one or more E&E countries during the time period of interest: Sputnik, TASS, RT, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Parlamentskaya  Gazeta, Argumenty i Fakty, RIA Novosti, Rossiya Segodnya, Vesti, and Komsomolskaya Pravda. Given time and resource constraints, we bounded our data collection to focus only on outlets that were wholly-owned by the Russian government and for which we could readily access English-language and English-translated articles from Russian. As described in Section A-6.2, this resulted in a focus on two Russian state media outlets: Russian News Agency (TASS) and Sputnik News.

A- 6.1.2 Formal and Informal Civic Groups

Russian state media mentions pertaining to civic actors, either named or in general, can impact civic space in a few different ways. Civil society actors rely on public support and constituent buy-in to be effective in their work. In this respect, positive coverage of pro-Kremlin actors could boost civic actors’ visibility and favorability with the public, while negative coverage could discredit or undermine anti-Kremlin actors. Coverage of these groups might focus on civic actors’ behavior or policy positions, or their associations with individuals or groups deemed threatening to the Kremlin’s interests.

Formal civic groups were defined as named non-governmental or inter-governmental entities operating within the borders of the target country or having a direct effect on the target country’s civic space. This definition allowed for broader inclusion of named civic actors, as media outlets, community and cultural groups, academic or labor organizations, political parties (though not the incumbent government), ^[72]  and research institutions were all included, along with foreign and intergovernmental organizations that directly affected the civic space of the target country. We explicitly excluded militant organizations, ^[73]  government institutions (both domestic and foreign), ^[74]  and names of individual activists. ^[75]  

Similarly, informal civic groups were defined as unnamed civic actors operating within the borders of the target country or having a direct effect on the target country’s civic space. This definition allowed us to capture many different types of civic actors, including grassroots movements, unnamed opposition parties, or common Russian phrases for unnamed civic actors in the target country, such as “Western NGOs.” Capturing both formal and informal mentions allows for a clearer picture of the Russian government’s coverage related to civic space in a given E&E country.

In order to systematically identify and classify formal civil society actors and informal civic groups consistently, AidData staff identified seven relevant organizational categories:

• Formal CSOs/NGOs:  named domestic or foreign Civil Society Organizations, NGOs, or GONGOs that operate within the civic space of the target country. International organizations, including international NGOs, that are commenting, but not acting within a country’s civic space are excluded as this is beyond the scope of our inquiry. This category can also be used for general mentions of “local NGOs.” ^[76]
• Other Community Organizations:  includes other domestic community organizations, such as think tanks, academic institutions, religious institutions, and labor organizations.
• Media Organizations:  includes domestic or foreign media outlets that operate within the civic space of the target country. This category can be used for both specific mentions of formal media outlets as well as general mentions to informal media (e.g., “Western journalists”).
• Informal activism/movements: includes informal groups, such as “demonstrators,” “protestors,” ^[77]  “activists” ^[78]  or “Pro-European supporters.” Some grassroots movements, if they have not been formalized, could be included, such as “Actiunea 2012” or “Black Lives Matter.”
• Political parties:  includes both formal parties (e.g., the Democratic Party of Moldova) and informal political coalitions (e.g., “center-left opposition”). ^[79]
• Other organizations: a catch-all category for organizations that do not fit into the outlined categories above such as a foreign community organization, a separatist movement, or an unnamed militant group engaged in non-violent action.
• Intergovernmental organizations: includes multinational, intergovernmental organizations that operate within the civic space of the target country.

In addition to organization types, we were also interested in understanding their origin (i.e., where the organization comes from). To this end, we identified five relevant categories:

• Domestic organizations:  formal civic groups founded in the target country
• Domestic-general organizations: informal civic groups founded in the target country
• Foreign organizations:  unilateral formal civic groups founded outside the target country
• Foreign-general organizations: informal civic groups founded outside the target country
• Intergovernmental organizations:  formal organizations founded through a multinational treaty or agreement

A-6.1.3 Democratic Norms and Rivals

Russian state media mentions pertaining to democratic norms or democratic rivals are potentially consequential for civic space in E&E countries in a few different ways. Russian media coverage could attempt to spotlight associations (real or imagined) with the Kremlin’s democratic rivals to call into question the motives, independence or trustworthiness of civic space actors. As a case in point, the use of labeling such as “Western-funded” or “US-backed” NGOs. Russian state media may also attempt to sow skepticism about the attractiveness of democracy and democratic norms that are foundational to civic space more generally. Finally, Russian state media may use its coverage to deter or cajole E&E countries away from aligning with its democratic rivals or joining clubs of like-minded democracies.

AidData staff identified several keywords to operationalize this concept of democratic norms or democratic rivals in the E&E region including: democracy, the European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the United States, and the West:

• Democracy: we include all mentions of the word “democracy” (except in the context of named organizations like “National Endowment for Democracy”). To measure anti-democracy sentiment, we also included mentions of different ideologies, including words related to democracy, fascism, authoritarianism, and dictatorships, which allows us to better explore Russian state media coverage of non-democratic sentiment.
• European Union: we include both general terms “European Union” and “EU,” as well as specific EU bodies, such as “European Parliament,” “EU Courts,” “EU Human Rights Councils,” but not individuals.
• NATO:  we include both general terms “North Atlantic Treaty Organization” or “NATO,” as well as specific bodies associated with NATO, but not individuals.
• United States: we include both general terms “United States,” “U.S.,” “American,” “America” (unless referring to the continents), as well as specific government bodies (such as Congress, US Department of State).” We do not include references to “White House” or specific individuals, with the exception of mentions of the president when combined with U.S./American in front.
• West:  we include all non-geographic mentions of “West” or “Western,” but exclude geographic mentions of “west,” such as “the western portion of Armenia.”  

A- 6.1.4 Frequency and sentiment of mentions

For all four indicators, AidData developed a standardized way of determining frequency and sentiment of mentions. By frequency, we refer to the number of times a given civic group or keyword across our sample of articles. Determining how often a civic group or keyword is mentioned, gives us insight into where the Kremlin is focusing its attention and priorities for its media narratives. By sentiment, we refer to the tone of the reference (e.g., positive, negative, neutral) towards the actor or keyword in question. Evaluating the sentiment of mentions, allows us to identify potential vulnerabilities for civic space in terms of organizations or groups under pressure from the Kremlin.

A-6.2 Stage 1: Identification of Reported Instances

Building upon the definitions and parameters from section 6.1, AidData staff developed queries to extract all available English-language and English-translated, Russian state media articles from Dow Jones Factiva database between January 1, 2015 to March 31, 2021. ^[80]  Under the English-language parameters, returned results from two major Russian state media outlets: Russian News Agency (TASS) and Sputnik News. Sample queries designed for searches on Factiva/DNA related to mentions of civic space actors or democratic norms and rivals pertaining to Moldova are provided in Boxes 4 and 5. Mentions of each keyword and each civic group were recorded only once per article.

Given the volume of media articles for Ukraine pertaining to the keywords, we only included a random sample of articles for the first two years of the period 2015 and 2016, with all relevant articles analyzed for the remaining years. ^[81]  The volume of keyword mentions in the mentions data for Ukraine appears artificially small in 2015-16, though this is most likely a reflection of the sampling strategy in those two years, rather than relative lack of coverage of these topics on the part of the Kremlin.

Box A-4. Sample Query for Keyword Mentions of NATO, EU, West, Democracy, US in Factiva/DNA searches based on Moldova

(Russia or russian or russi  or Kremlin or Moscow *) near10  (Armenia or Armenian or Ameni or Yerevan*) near10  (NATO* or North Atlantic Treaty Organization* or European Union* or America* or United States* or democracy* or democratic* or democr * or authoritarian* or autocratic* or dictator* or fascis * or west*) Note: the above search was filtered by region and returned 162 results between January 1, 2015 and March 31, 2021.

Box A-5. Sample Query for Mentions of Formal and Informal Civic Groups in Moldova

(Russia or russian or russi  or Kremlin or Moscow *) near5 (Moldova* or Moldovan* or Moldov * or Chisinau*) AND (((Center for Independent Journalism* or Promo-LEX* or Association of Independent Press* or Association for Participatory Democracy* or ADEPT* or Institute for European Policies and Reforms* or IPRE* or Foreign Policy Association* or Legal Resources Center* or LRCM* or Expert-Grup* or IDIS-Viitorul* or Contact-Cahul Center* or Center for Health Policies and Studies* or Youth Resource Center* or Maternal Center* or Ariadna* or Pro Business Nord* or Child Community Family* or CCF* or La Strada* or Agroinform* or Federation of Farmers* or National Federation of Agricultural Producers* or APEL* or Electronic Press Association* or Moldova Foundation for Social and Economic Reform* or CREDO* or Resource Center for Human Rights* or Eurasia Foundation* or European Network of Political Foundations* or ENOP* or European Partnership for Democracy* or European Policy Centre* or Independent Journalism Center* or Institute for Public Policy* or Moldovan Institute for Human Rights* or IDOM * or National Youth Council* or CNTM* or Regional Environmental Centre* or Terra 1530* or Transparency International* or Informational and Legacy Center* or Apriori* or Alliance of Organization for People with Disabilities* or FEDRA* or Verbina * or SOS Autism* or Central Speranta* or International Women’s Club* or civil society or CSO or NGO or civic group or think tank or movement or religious group or non-profit or non-governmental or non-government or non-commercial or human rights or activist* or advoc *))) Note: the above search returned 217 articles, including 58 duplicates, from 1/1/2015 through 8/31/2020.

Mentions of formal civil society or informal civic groups were included in our data collection, regardless of whether they are the main focus of an article or only referenced in passing. Although the rest of the article may not be pertinent, the specific reference to a formal or informal civic actor must be relevant to the target country, either mentioning a civil society organization or an event occurring within the target country’s civic space (e.g., protests, elections, arrests). Relevant events could occur outside of the geographic boundaries of a country, provided that there is a clear linkage back to the target country’s civic space (e.g., a Moldovan dissident arrested in Russia) or an outside country commenting on an event that occurs in the target country (e.g., the U.S. ambassador discussed protests in Armenia). ^[82]  

Particular items of interest when coding mentions of civic actors include references to the following:

• Questions raised about the group’s loyalties
• Positive or negative recognition of the group’s work and its impact
• Adjectives associated with the group and their work, such as “foreign-funded,” “community-led” or “extremist”
• Mentions of an opposition government, protests, or movement
• Arrests, banned entry, or deportation of journalists or media organizations
• Quotes from leaders of CSOs and activists

Mentions of the five keywords related to democratic norms or rivals—democracy, EU, NATO, US, West—are included in our data collection, regardless of whether they are the main focus of an article or only referenced in passing. Although the rest of the article may not be pertinent, the specific reference to the keyword must be relevant to the target country, but do not need to have occurred in-country for inclusion. Particular items of interest when coding mentions of keywords include references to the following:

• The “hidden agenda” of the EU to dictate norms and impose rules that will undermine national culture and tradition.
• Xenophobic or nationalist/populist narratives
• NATO presented as isolating Russia and being a threat to its territorial integrity
• US imperialism propagated by NATO
• Equating economic failure with democratic failure
• Blatant corruption of democratic leadership
• Imminent collapse or civil war in democratic states or the EU ^[83]

A-6.3 Stage 2: Classification, Coding, and Documentation of Reported Instances

For each article that contained a relevant mention, an AidData research assistant would record a separate entry, following a standardized set of instructions to classify, code, and document the instance. Illustrative top-line coding instructions for this process are provided in Table A-8. If a formal civic group was mentioned by name, the name of the group was recorded. In instances where the mention was only of a loose informal group (e.g., “the opposition protesters,” “local activists”), a more generic label would be applied.

When possible, we applied a double-blind coding technique whereby two separate research assistants were assigned to the same country to record mentions and sentiment independently, the results of which were arbitrated by an AidData staff member. ^[84]  The sentiment of each mention of a civic space actor or keyword was assigned based on the language and tone of the article in reference to each individual mention using a 5-point scale: extremely negative, somewhat negative, neutral,  somewhat positive, or extremely positive. Tables A-9 and A-10 provide illustrative examples of how variations in sentiment might be classified according to this scale for both civic actors and keywords.

Table A-8. Illustrative Coding Instructions for Recording and Classifying Mentions

Field Name	Instructions	Relevant Tab
Article IDs	Each article ID will begin with the abbreviated country code, followed by the year, month and day that the article was published and finally the time the article was published, in the format country code-YYYYMMDD-HHMM .	All
Country	List the name of the target country.	All
Outlet	List the name of the media outlet that the article was published by.	All
Date of publication	List the month, day, and year of publication.	All
Time of publication	If included, list the time of publication.	All
Headline	Include the top-most headline that the article was published under. If the article selected is a news roundup, list the headline for the news round-up and not the individual headlines below.	All
Summary	A brief summary of the overall article and its pertinence to civil society.	All
NATO mention? (1/0)	Type 1 if NATO or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was mentioned, type 0 if NATO was not mentioned. Exclude if NATO was mentioned but already recorded due to multiple organization mentions in an article.	Democratic Norms/Rivals
EU mention? (1/0)	Type 1 if EU or the European Union was mentioned, type 0 if EU was not mentioned. Exclude if EU was mentioned but already recorded due to multiple organization mentions in an article.	Democratic Norms/Rivals
US mention? (1/0)	Type 1 if US was mentioned, type 0 if US not mentioned. Mentions of the US, the United States, America, and Americans should be coded. General references to the Americas should not be included. Exclude if US mentioned but already recorded due to multiple organization mentions in an article.	Democratic Norms/Rivals
Democracy mention ? (1/0)	Type 1 if democratic institutions or rhetoric were mentioned, type 0 if democracy not mentioned. Exclude if democracy was mentioned but already recorded due to multiple organization mentions in an article.	Democratic Norms/Rivals
The West mention ? (1/0)	Type 1 if the West or Western were mentioned, type 0 If west not mentioned. Exclude if the West was mentioned but already recorded due to multiple mentions in an article.	Democratic Norms/Rivals
Specific civic group mentioned (1/0)	Type 1 if a civic group is mentioned by name in the article. Type 0 if no specific civic groups were named.	Civic Groups
Name of specific civic group	List all named civic groups from the article here, including NGOs, political parties, third party media outlets, etc.	Civic Groups
Informal civic group mentioned (1/0)	Type 1 if an informal civic group is referenced, type 0 if no informal civic groups were referenced.	Civic Groups
Name of informal civic group	List all informal civic groups mentioned in the article. These may be general references such as protestors, activist movement, rally attendees, voters, etc.	Civic Groups
Organization origin	Where the organization is based. There are three origins (domestic, foreign, or intergovernmental), but for informal groups, use the tags “domestic-general” or “foreign-general.”	Civic Groups
Organization type	Organization types include formal CSOs / NGOs, other community organizations, media organizations, informal activism / movements, political parties, other organizations, and intergovernmental organizations.	Civic Groups
Sentiment	Determine the sentiment of the mention using one of five categories: extremely negative, somewhat negative, neutral, somewhat positive, or extremely positive.	All
Key sections or words determining sentiment	List words or key sections from the article that were used to determine the sentiment and tone of the article.	All

Table A-9. Illustrative Examples of Civic Actor Sentiment Analysis

Extremely Negative	Somewhat Negative	Neutral	Somewhat Positive	Extremely Positive
Corrupt officials decried that the journalist was detained and banned from entering the country.	Border officials declared that the journalist had been blocked from entering the country.	Border officials said the journalist had been prohibited from entering the country.	Border officials announced the journalist had not been permitted to enter the country.	Brave border officials announced that  the journalist had successfully been prevented from entering the country.
Violent riots are causing horrific attacks in the capital.	Mass protests are disrupting the capital.	Protests are currently underway in the capital.	Protestors are demonstrating for peace in the capital.	Advocates are peacefully gathering in the capital.
US-backed protesters violently overran law enforcement officials.	Angry protesters clashed with law enforcement.	Protesters encountered government police.	Peaceful protesters encountered government police.	Peaceful protesters were attacked by dangerous government police forces.

Table A-10. Illustrative Examples of Democratic Norms and Rivals Sentiment Analysis

Extremely Negative	Somewhat Negative	Neutral	Somewhat Positive	Extremely Positive
The EU blatantly overstepped its bounds by coercing ties with Armenia.	The EU is failing to make ties with Armenia.	The EU sought ties with Armenia.	The EU promoted ties with Armenia.	The EU kindly championed ties with Armenia
The US violently detained the Russian man.	The US detained a Russian citizen at the border.	The US arrested an arms trader at the border.	The US finally apprehended the known arms trader at the border.	The US scored a victory by finally apprehending the known arms trader.
Violent “democratic” protests were spurred on by the corrupt US officials.	Pro-democracy protests clashed with the police.	Pro-democracy protests continued.	Pro-democracy protestors  challenged the results of the corrupt election.	Pro-democracy protestors  bravely stood their ground and protested for positive change.

A- 6.4 Assumptions and Limitations

While this methodology uses a rigorously checked, well-established process for sentiment analysis, there are two clear limitations to the mentions-based approach. Firstly, the use of English-language only articles is an important limitation to note. By using only English-language sources, the number of articles that may contain relevant Russian state media language about the civic space is artificially lowered, which may create gaps in the data, as not every relevant Russian state media article has been translated into English. Additionally, poor translation from Russian to English can change the sentiment of articles or mentions, removing certain linguistic nuances that may make a mention more or less neutral than our coding in English. However, despite this limitation, the results of English-language analysis still provide useful insights and a framework for replicability in other translated state media.

Secondly, there is a limitation to using subjective sentiment coding, as research assistants do not necessarily rely on a standardized lexicon to determine an article’s sentiment. Each individual reading an article has a slightly different understanding of language, and as a result, sentiment analysis can be tricky without a standardized dictionary. To mitigate this limitation, we double-coded news articles with two different coders when possible, followed by arbitration by a third individual or in cases where this was not possible, AidData staff conducted a more in-depth verification process line-by-line.

---

A-7. AidData 2022 CSO Census and Constituency Survey

The AidData CSO Census and Constituency surveys were fielded online via Qualtrics in 16 E&E countries (excluding Ukraine) for 32 days in April-May 2022, with a pre-notification sent one week before the invitations, and two reminders following the invitations. Of the 11,149 individuals who successfully received invitations to participate, 713 responded (543 constituents, 131 CSO staff) for an average response rate of 6.4 percent. The survey was offered in 17 languages, including Albanian, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bosnian, Croatian, English, Georgian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Tajiki, Turkmen, Ukrainian, and Uzbek.

The remainder of this section provides: (i) a description of the survey (A-7.1); (ii) a copy of the questionnaire for the CSO Census Survey (A-7.2); and (iii) a copy of the questionnaire for the CSO Constituency Survey branch (A-7.3).

A-7.1 Description of the Survey

The foundation of the CSO Census and Constituency Survey was AidData’s in-house Listening to Leaders (LtL) sampling frame. Constructed over a 10-year period, AidData’s LtL sampling frame includes 100,000+ public, private, and civil society leaders in 140 low- and middle-income countries. The population of interest for our core LtL sampling frame includes mid- to senior level leaders from six stakeholder groups: (1) officials at government agencies; (2) practitioners at local missions of development partners; (3) leaders in NGO/CSOs; (4) leaders in private sector; (5) independent researchers from universities, think tanks and media; and (6) parliamentarians.  

AidData uses a multi-step process for constructing and updating our LtL sampling frame. In step one, we construct an Institutional Position Map (IPM) which captures the institutions of interest for each country. Our core sampling frame typically covers 67 different types of organizations per country. After key organizations are identified, research assistants determine the internal structure of the institution to find the common titles of those in senior level positions within the organizations.

This is followed by a contact searching stage, where the team searches for the names and emails of the leaders of these organizations. The availability of contact information varies based on many factors including level of transparency and contacts’ participation in public events. This variability in contact information may result in an unbalanced sampling frame. To mitigate this bias, research assistants aim to find an ideal number of contacts for each institution type based on a quota list.

Once the contact searching stage is complete, quality assurance checks are conducted to ensure that the information entered into the sampling frame is complete and correct. These steps include checking to make sure required fields are filled out, there are no known errors in the columns, that no major organization types are missing, and checking that the number of contacts match the quota suggestions. Our base LtL sampling frame IPMs and contacts are updated every 2-3 years to reflect the most recent institutional structures.

For the purpose of the CSO Census and Constituency survey, AidData expanded the core LtL sampling frame to include a wider variety of CSOs than are typically found in our IPMs, as well as address other organizations that the LTL methodology typically does not cover, including political parties and religious organizations.

A-7.1 2022 Europe & Eurasia CSO Census Survey Questionnaire

Notes on routing are included in red italicized text (i.e., this will not appear to the respondent)

Introduction:

Before we start, please choose your language.

• English
• Shqip
• Հայերեն
• Azərbaycan
• Bosanski
• Hrvatski
• Ქართული
• Қазақ тілі
• Кыргыз тили
• Македонски
• Română
• Русский
• Српски
• Тоҷикӣ́
• Türkmençe
• Украї́нська
• Oʻzbekcha

[The rest of the survey is presented in the target language]

Thank you for your interest in AidData’s Civic Space Survey. Your participation in this survey will help improve both the local and the international community's understanding of civic space in 16 countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. We are interested both in the opinions of those leaders working within the civic space environment, and those leaders that interact with and work alongside those civic space organizations.

Your experience will help us ensure that our findings accurately represent the diverse opinions of those in your country of expertise and across Eastern Europe and Central Asia. We are seeking your individual observations and opinions based upon your own experiences. We are NOT seeking the official positions of any institutions with which you have been affiliated. Participation in this survey is completely voluntary. Please complete as many questions as you can, and feel free to express your views openly and honestly. Your responses will remain confidential and visible only to the AidData research team at William & Mary who are administering the survey.

All of your responses will be kept strictly confidential, never associated with your name, and will not be disaggregated to a level that could expose your identity. Every individual who chooses to participate in the survey will be given access to the study’s findings. If you have questions or need assistance in any way, please send an email to our research team (surveys@aiddata.wm.edu). Any ethical concerns with the conduct of the study should be directed to Dr. Jennifer A. Stevens, Chair of the Protection of Human Subjects Committee at the College of William and Mary (jastev@wm.edu).

 

By clicking next, I agree to voluntarily participate in this study.

 

Demographics/Routing:

Q1. Which of the following countries did you work in for the longest time between 2018 and 2021?

[This question will be viewed by all respondents across the CSO Census and Constituency surveys]

• Albania
• Armenia
• Azerbaijan
• Belarus
• Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Georgia
• Kazakhstan
• Kosovo
• Kyrgyz Republic
• Moldova
• Montenegro
• North Macedonia
• Serbia
• Tajikistan
• Turkmenistan
• Uzbekistan

Q2. Which type of organization in [country]  best describes where you worked for the longest time during that period?

[This question will be viewed by all respondents across both the CSO Census and Constituency surveys. This will allow us to confirm our understanding of the respondent’s organization and ensure they are routed correctly to either the CSO Census OR the Constituency Survey. The response option a respondent selects below will determine the subsequent questions they see, as specified below]

• Service delivery organization [If selected, route to census survey]
• Private foundation or charity [If selected, route to census survey]
• Advocacy or lobbying organization [If selected, route to census survey]
• Religious organization or group [If selected, route to census survey]
• Social or cultural association [If selected, route to census survey]
• Professional association, guild or labor union  [If selected, route to census survey]
• Government Agency, Ministry or Office [If selected, route to constituency survey]
• Development Partner (e.g., World Bank, United Nations) [If selected, route to constituency survey]
• University or academia [If selected, route to constituency survey]
• Media [If selected, route to constituency survey]
• Research organization or think tank [If selected, route to constituency survey]
• Political Party  [If selected, route to constituency survey]
• Other [If selected, route to constituency survey]

MODULE 1 of 3: ORGANIZATION ACTIVITIES, TARGET AUDIENCES, PARTNERS

[The below guidance will appear for the respondent in answering the subsequent questions]

Thank you for your participation in our survey. We would like to understand more about civil society organizations in your country. The first module asks several questions about your organization's activities, target audiences, and partners. Please do your best to answer as many questions as possible.

If you have any concerns about the study, please feel free to contact our team at surveys@aiddata.wm.edu.

Q3. How would you describe the objective(s) of your organization?   Please select all that apply.

• Document information on an important issue to promote public awareness in your country
• Educate key decision-makers in your country regarding the details of an important issue
• Prevent harassment or violence targeted towards specific vulnerable individuals or groups
• Protect the basic freedoms of citizens in your country to speak, assemble, or organize
• Lobby or advocate with key decision-makers in your country to enact or change policies
• Facilitate connections between individuals with common interests to form social connections
• Protest or oppose actions of a specific government or private sector actor
• Raise awareness of actors outside of your country about a particular issue or policy
• Other ___________________  

Q4. In the last year, which of the following groups, if any, has your organization partnered with to achieve these objectives? Please select all that apply.

By partner with, this could include either financial or non-financial support

• A privately-owned corporation or small business in your country
• A private not-for-profit organization in your country (a community association or non-governmental organization)
• A government agency or state-owned enterprise in your own country
• A foreign government agency or state-owned enterprise
• A foreign not-for-profit organization
• Other __________
• We did not partner with any other organizations
• Don’t know / Not sure
• Prefer not to say

Q5. Why did your organization choose to partner with these groups? Please select all that apply.

[After answering this question, respondents will be routed to Q7, bypassing Q6]

• They brought complementary skills or expertise to the table
• They allowed us to access additional financial resources
• They helped us reach new networks or audiences
• They provided training or other capacity building to strengthen our organization
• They provided non-financial support such as volunteer staff, services, equipment or physical space
• They gave us visibility on how different groups address the challenges that we want to address
• They increased the visibility or influence of our activities with our target audiences
• Their goals or values were aligned with ours
• Other ___________________________
• Don’t know / Not sure
• Prefer not to say

[If respondent selected “we did not partner” in Q4]

Q6. Why did your organization choose not to partner with any of these groups? Please select all that apply.

• Working with other organizations would reduce our independence or effectiveness
• Our reputation would be negatively impacted by partnering with other organizations
• Legal restrictions made it difficult or dangerous to partner with other organizations
• The costs of partnering (in time, effort, or financing) outweighed the benefits
• Our goals or values were not aligned
• No other organizations were interested in partnering with us
• Other ____________________________
• Don’t know / Not sure
• Prefer not to say

Q7. Who are your organization’s target audiences? Please select all that apply.

By target audiences, we mean the individuals or organizations you seek to influence or serve.

• Government officials
• Parliamentarians
• Media/journalists
• Academics or researchers
• Private sector leaders
• Professionals working in certain sectors or trades
• Specific demographic groups by gender, age, religion, ethnicity, race, or language
• Individuals sharing a common interest in a particular activity or issue
• General public
• Other ___________________
• Prefer not to say

Q8. In the last year, has your organization engaged in any of the following activities to reach your target audiences? Please select all that apply.

• Held a town hall or community meeting open to the public
• Held a closed door event or meeting by invitation only
• Organized or participated in a protest/demonstration
• Organized or joined a petition or boycott
• Given an interview or background information to journalists to be featured in a news article
• Given testimony (written or verbal) in a parliament hearing or inquiry
• Launched a legal challenge or lawsuit against a government or private sector actor
• Written an op-ed or article for publication in local or international media
• Published a report, blog or other information source
• Conducted personalized outreach to government officials via phone, email or in-person
• Bought out advertisements in local radio, television, print media or billboards
• Filed a grievance/complaint via formal channels
• Provided material support to individuals
• Provided humanitarian assistance following disaster or crisis
• Other (Please Specify) ______
• We have not engaged in any of these activities
• Prefer not to say

Q9. Which social media channels, if any, does your organization use to reach your target audiences? Please select all that apply.

• Facebook
• VKontake
• Odnoklassniki
• Twitter
• Telegram
• Yandex
• Other ______________
• Our organization does not operate any official social media accounts
• Don’t know / Not sure
• Prefer not to say

[If the respondent selected one or more of the social media channels, they are routed to Q10. Everyone else will be routed to Q11]

Q10. How does your organization use social media to interact with your target audiences? Please select all that apply.

• Find new members or volunteers
• Attract donations
• Advertise events or activities
• Share updates
• Publish educational information
• Organize rallies, protests, petitions or boycotts
• Facilitate discussions about an important issue
• Identify potential funders or partners
• Other ________________
• Don’t know / Not sure
• Prefer not to say

MODULE 2 of 3. BROADER OPERATING ENVIRONMENT FOR CIVIL SOCIETY

[The below guidance will appear for the respondent in answering the subsequent questions]

This is the second module of the survey. We would like to understand how support from various actors affects views of civil society organizations in your country. The next few questions will ask you to assess how different types of support from a variety of actors may change perceptions of your organization among your target audiences (i.e., those you seek to support, serve, or influence).

Q11. How much confidence do you think the public in [country]  has in your organization?

• A great deal of confidence
• Quite a lot of confidence
• Some confidence
• Very little confidence
• No confidence
• Don’t know / Not sure
• Prefer not to say

Q12. If your organization accepted the following forms of support from the government  in [country] , would that decrease or increase public confidence in your organization?  

	Greatly decrease	Somewhat decrease	Neither decrease nor increase	Somewhat increase	Greatly increase	Do not know/ Prefer not to say
Providing financial contributions
Co-sponsoring an event or publication
Providing technical expertise or training
Promoting the organization or its content via official communications
Inviting the organization to speak or participate in an event they host

Q13. If your organization accepted the following forms of support from a foreign government , would that decrease or increase public confidence?

	Greatly decrease	Somewhat decrease	Neither decrease nor increase	Somewhat increase	Greatly increase	Do not know/ Prefer not to say
Providing financial contributions
Co-sponsoring an event or publication
Providing technical expertise or training
Promoting the organization or its content via official communications
Inviting the organization to speak or participate in an event they host

Q14. If your organization accepted the following forms of support from a foreign private or not-for-profit entity , would that decrease or increase public confidence?

	Greatly decreases	Somewhat decreases	Neither decreases nor increases	Somewhat increases	Greatly increases	Do not know/ Prefer not to say
Providing financial contributions
Co-sponsoring an event or publication
Providing technical expertise or training
Promoting the organization or its content via official communications
Inviting the organization to speak or participate in an event they host

Q15. Which of the following activities by foreign actors (government or private) are generally most helpful to civic space in [country] ? Please select up to three.

• Provide financial aid directly to civil society organizations
• Provide technical assistance or training directly to civil society organizations
• Provide financial aid to the government to support civil society development
• Provide technical assistance or training to the government to support civil society
• Tie offers of financial aid, foreign direct investment, or trade deals to progress on basic freedoms (e.g., speech, assembly, organization)
• Advocate for civil society support in high-level diplomatic meetings
• Publicly criticize civic space restrictions in international media
• Name and shame civic space restrictions by senior leaders
• Educate government counterparts or the public about the importance of a robust civil society
• Other (please specify)
• None of these activities are helpful if they are offered by foreign actors
• Don’t know / Not sure

Q16. Which of the following activities by foreign actors (government or private) are generally most harmful to civic space in [country] ? Please select up to three.

• Provide financial aid directly to civil society organizations
• Provide technical assistance or training directly to civil society organizations
• Provide financial aid to the government to support civil society development
• Provide technical assistance or training to the government to support civil society
• Tie offers of financial aid, foreign direct investment, or trade deals to progress on basic freedoms (e.g., speech, assembly, organization)
• Advocate for civil society support in high-level diplomatic meetings
• Publicly criticize civic space restrictions in international media
• Name and shame civic space restrictions by senior leaders
• Educate government counterparts or the public about the importance of a robust civil society
• Other (please specify)
• None of these activities are helpful if they are offered by foreign actors
• Don’t know / Not sure

Q17. How do you rate the influence each of the following countries has on your country’s civic space?

[Order randomized to minimize order effects]

	Very harmful	Somewhat harmful	Neither harmful nor beneficial	Somewhat beneficial	Very beneficial	Don’t know / Prefer not to answer
United States
Russia
United Kingdom
European Union
China
Turkey
Saudi Arabia
United Arab Emirates

 

MODULE 3 of 3. BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON YOUR ORGANIZATION

[The below guidance will appear for the respondent in answering the subsequent questions]

The final module of the survey includes demographic questions, to help us better understand civic space trends in your country. Thank you for your insights. As mentioned previously, all your responses will be kept strictly confidential and only discussed in the aggregate. All identifying information will be removed when we are working with the data you have given us. If you have any concerns, please feel free to reach out to us at surveys@aiddata.wm.edu.

Q18. Approximately how many paid staff members work for your organization?   Please select one response only.

• 0 - 5
• 6 - 15
• 16 - 50
• 51 - 100
• 101 and above
• Don’t know / Not Sure
• Prefer not to say

Q19. Approximately how large is the size of your organization’s annual budget in US dollars?

• $0-999
• $1,000-$9,999
• $10,000-99,999
• Over $100,000
• Don’t know / Not sure
• Prefer not to say

Q20. Is your organization a national chapter of an international organization?

• Yes
• No
• Don’t know / Not sure
• Prefer not to say

Q21. Please describe the geographic level(s) at which your organization works. Please select all that apply.

• At the subnational level (in specific communities, including within rural areas)
• At the national level (in the capital and big urban centers throughout the country)
• At the regional level (in your country and neighboring countries)
• At the international level (working across multiple regions around the world)

Q22. Please select the sector that your organization's work is most closely tied to. Please select only one sector.

• Agriculture and food security
• Social service delivery
• Emergency response and disaster risk reduction
• Economic growth and employment
• Education
• Language and cultural affairs
• Environment and sustainable development
• Governance and political participation
• Health and nutrition
• Human rights (including gender equality, LGBT+ rights, minority rights, etc)
• Media
• Peacebuilding, reconstruction, and reconciliation
• Poverty reduction
• Religious affairs
• Other (please specify)

Q23. Please select your gender:

• Male
• Female
• Non-binary
• Prefer to self-identify: ______
• Prefer not to say

Q24. Please select your age

• Under 24
• 25-40
• 41-55
• 56-70
• Over 70
• Prefer not to say

A-7.2 2022 Europe & Eurasia CSO Constituency Survey Questionnaire

Notes on routing are included in red italicized text (i.e., this will not appear to the respondent)

Introduction:

Before we start, please choose your language.

• English
• Shqip
• Հայերեն
• Azərbaycan
• Bosanski
• Hrvatski
• Ქართული
• Қазақ тілі
• Кыргыз тили
• Македонски
• Română
• Русский
• Српски
• Тоҷикӣ́
• Türkmençe
• Украї́нська
• Oʻzbekcha

[The rest of the survey is presented in the target language]

Thank you for your interest in AidData’s Civic Space Survey. Your participation in this survey will help improve both the local and the international community's understanding of civic space in 16 countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. We are interested both in the opinions of those leaders working within the civic space environment, and those leaders that interact with and work alongside those civic space organizations.

Your experience will help us ensure that our findings accurately represent the diverse opinions of those in your country of expertise and across Eastern Europe and Central Asia. We are seeking your individual observations and opinions based upon your own experiences. We are NOT seeking the official positions of any institutions with which you have been affiliated. Participation in this survey is completely voluntary. Please complete as many questions as you can, and feel free to express your views openly and honestly. Your responses will remain confidential and visible only to the AidData research team at William & Mary who are administering the survey.

All of your responses will be kept strictly confidential, never associated with your name, and will not be disaggregated to a level that could expose your identity. Every individual who chooses to participate in the survey will be given access to the study’s findings. If you have questions or need assistance in any way, please send an email to our research team (surveys@aiddata.wm.edu). Any ethical concerns with the conduct of the study should be directed to Dr. Jennifer A. Stevens, Chair of the Protection of Human Subjects Committee at the College of William and Mary (jastev@wm.edu).

 

By clicking next, I agree to voluntarily participate in this study.

 

Demographics/Routing:

Q1. Which of the following countries did you work in for the longest time between 2018 and 2021?

[This question will be viewed by all respondents across the CSO Census and Constituency surveys]

• Albania
• Armenia
• Azerbaijan
• Belarus
• Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Georgia
• Kazakhstan
• Kosovo
• Kyrgyz Republic
• Moldova
• Montenegro
• North Macedonia
• Serbia
• Tajikistan
• Turkmenistan
• Uzbekistan

Q2. Which type of organization in [country]  best describes where you worked for the longest time during that period?

[This question will be viewed by all respondents across both the CSO Census and Constituency surveys. This will allow us to confirm our understanding of the respondent’s organization and ensure they are routed correctly to either the CSO Census OR the Constituency Survey. The response option a respondent selects below will determine the subsequent questions they see, as specified below]

• Service delivery organization [If selected, route to census survey]
• Private foundation or charity [If selected, route to census survey]
• Advocacy or lobbying organization [If selected, route to census survey]
• Religious organization or group [If selected, route to census survey]
• Social or cultural association [If selected, route to census survey]
• Professional association, guild or labor union  [If selected, route to census survey]
• Government Agency, Ministry or Office [If selected, route to constituency survey]
• Development Partner (e.g., World Bank, United Nations) [If selected, route to constituency survey]
• University or academia [If selected, route to constituency survey]
• Media [If selected, route to constituency survey]
• Research organization or think tank [If selected, route to constituency survey]
• Political Party  [If selected, route to constituency survey]
• Other [If selected, route to constituency survey]

MODULE 1 of 4: AWARENESS & ATTITUDES TOWARDS CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS

[The below guidance will appear for the respondent in answering the subsequent questions]

Thank you for your participation in our survey. We are interested in hearing more about your thoughts on civil society in the region. The first module will ask you about civil society work in [country] . This helps us understand how prevalent civil society organizations are in your country and how much contact they have with their target audiences.

Q3. Which of the following groups do you consider to be a civil society organization? Please select all that apply.

• Service delivery organizations
• Private foundations or charities
• Advocacy or lobbying organizations
• Political parties
• Political interest groups
• Religious organizations or groups
• Social or cultural associations
• Not-for-profit research organizations or think tanks
• For profit research organizations or think tanks
• Professional associations, guilds or labor unions
• Other __________________
• None of these are civil society organizations

Q4. What types of activities do civil society organizations typically undertake in [country] ? Please select all that apply.

• Document information on an important issue to promote public awareness in your country
• Educate key decision makers in your country regarding the details of an important issue
• Prevent harassment or violence targeted towards specific vulnerable individuals or groups
• Protect the freedom of citizens in your country to speak, assemble, or organize
• Lobby key decision makers in your country to enact or change policies
• Provide a platform for individuals with common interests to form social connections
• Protest or oppose actions of a specific government or private sector actor
• Raise awareness of actors outside of your country about a particular issue or policy
• None of these are activities performed by civil society organizations
• Don’t know / Not sure

[The below guidance will appear for the respondent in answering the subsequent questions]

For the following questions, we define Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) as:

             

• Non-governmental or not-for-profit service delivery organizations
• Private foundations or charities
• Advocacy or lobbying organizations
• Political interest groups, excluding formal political parties
• Religious organizations or groups
• Social or cultural associations
• Not-for-profit research organizations or think tanks
• Professional associations, guilds or labor unions

 

Q5. In the last year, have you provided support to a civil society organization in [country]  in any of the following ways? Please select all that apply.

• Donated money or paid dues
• Purchased a good or service
• Gave a non-financial gift such as equipment, physical space, professional services
• Supported their operations as a volunteer (unpaid) staff member
• Attended a panel/discussion/meeting they organized
• Attended a protest, rally, or demonstration they organized
• Joined a petition or boycott they organized
• Promoted an event, activity or publication associated with their work to friends or colleagues
• Other ___________________
• I did not support any civil society organization this last year
• Prefer not to say

[If respondent selected any of the options other than “I did not support”]

Q6. Why did you choose to support a civil society organization this past year? Please select all that apply.  

 

• It allowed me to meet new people
• It allowed me to deepen existing social connections
• It allowed me to learn, practice or hone a skill
• I wanted to join with others who had similar values to me
• It gave me access to valuable advice or support in my daily life
• I believed the organization was making a positive impact
• It increased my political or social stature in the community
• Other ___________________________
• Prefer not to say

[If respondent selected the option “I did not support”]

Q7. Why did you choose not to support a civil society organization this past year? Please select all that apply.  

• I am too independent to join a group, prefering to act alone
• My reputation would be negatively impacted if I was associated with a civil society organization
• Legal restrictions made it difficult or dangerous for me to do so
• The costs (in time, effort, or financing) for me to support an organization outweighed the benefits
• My goals or values did not align with any of the organizations of which I was aware
• I did not trust any of the civil society organizations of which I was aware
• Other ____________________________
• Prefer not to say

Q8. Approximately how many civil society organizations in [country]  do you follow on social media?

• 0
• 1 - 5
• 6 - 10
• 11 - 15
• More than 15
• Don’t know / Not sure
• I am not active on social media

[If the respondent selected more than zero]

Q9. Which of the following types of activities do these organizations typically engage in via social media? Please select all that apply.

• Find new members or volunteers
• Attract donations
• Advertise events or activities
• Share updates
• Publish educational information
• Organize rallies, protests, petitions or boycotts
• Facilitate discussions about an important issue
• Identify potential funders or partners
• Other ________________
• Don’t know / Not sure

MODULE 2 of 4: PERFORMANCE OF CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS

[The below guidance will appear for the respondent in answering the subsequent questions]

This module asks you to describe your experience with, and views of, civil society organizations in your experience. We ask you to think about where these organizations perform well, and where they fall short, and why you believe this to be the case.

Q10. In general, which of the following statements about civil society organizations in [country]  do you most strongly agree with? Please select up to three.

• They are transparent about how they are funded
• They are accountable to the public
• They are impartial and fair in their dealings with others
• They are controlled by domestic political elites
• They are competent and professional in performing their jobs
• They actively work to solve problems
• They are not effective at improving conditions
• They help build connections in society
• They do more harm than good for society
• They hold the government accountable for results
• They are controlled by foreign actors

Q11. Which of the following activities do you think civil society organizations do most and least well in [country] ? Please rank each activity from 1 (most well) to 11 (least well).

• Hold town halls or community meetings open to the public
• Hold closed door events or meetings by invitation only
• Organize or participate in protests or demonstrations
• Organize or join petitions and/or boycotts
• Give interviews or background information to journalists to be featured in the news
• Write op-eds or articles for publication in local or international media
• Publish reports, blogs or other information sources
• Buy out advertisements in local radio, television, print media or billboards
• Give testimony (written or verbal) in parliament hearings or inquiries
• Launch legal challenges or lawsuits against a government or private sector actor 
• Conduct personalized outreach to government officials via phone, email or in-person

Q12. Which of the following are the most difficult barriers for civil society organizations in [country]   to overcome. Please select up to three.

• They lack adequate financial resources
• They lack the necessary technical expertise
• They lack the necessary political connections
• Legal restrictions make it difficult or impossible to operate
• Harassment from the police or government officials makes it difficult to operate
• They fear retaliation from non-government actors in the community
• They fear retaliation from foreign actors
• Other _______________
• Don’t know / Not sure

MODULE 3 of 4: BROADER OPERATING ENVIRONMENT FOR CIVIL SOCIETY

[The below guidance will appear for the respondent in answering the subsequent questions]

This is the second to last section of the survey. We would like to understand how support from various actors affects views of civil society organizations in your country. The next few questions will ask you to assess how different types of support from a variety of actors may change perceptions of CSOs.

Q13. How much confidence do you have in civil society organizations in [country] ?

• A great deal of confidence
• Quite a lot of confidence
• Some confidence
• Very little confidence
• No confidence
• Don’t know / not sure

Q14. If a civil society organization accepted the following forms of support from the government in [country] , would that decrease or increase your confidence in the organization?  

	Greatly decrease	Somewhat decrease	Neither decrease nor increase	Somewhat increase	Greatly increase	Do not know/ Prefer not to say
Providing financial contributions
Co-sponsoring an event or publication
Providing technical expertise or training
Promoting the organization or its content via official communications
Inviting the organization to speak or participate in an event they host
Other _________

Q15. If a civil society organization in [country]  accepted the following forms of support from a foreign government , would that decrease or increase your confidence in the organization?

	Greatly decrease	Somewhat decrease	Neither decrease nor increase	Somewhat increase	Greatly increase	Do not know/ Prefer not to say
Providing financial contributions
Co-sponsoring an event or publication
Providing technical expertise or training
Promoting the organization or its content via official communications
Inviting the organization to speak or participate in an event they host
Other _________

Q16. If a civil society organization in [country]  accepted the following forms of support from a foreign private or not-for-profit entity , would that decrease or increase your confidence in the organization?

	Greatly decreases	Somewhat decreases	Neither decreases nor increases	Somewhat increases	Greatly increases	Do not know/ Prefer not to say
Providing financial contributions
Co-sponsoring an event or publication
Providing technical expertise or training
Promoting the organization or its content via official communications
Inviting the organization to speak or participate in an event they host
Other _________

Q17. Which of the following activities by foreign actors (government or private) are generally most helpful to civic space in [country]  on average? Select up to three.

• Provide aid directly to civil society organizations
• Provide technical assistance or training directly to civil society organizations
• Provide aid to the government to support civil society development
• Tie offers of financial aid, foreign direct investment, or trade deals to progress on basic freedoms (e.g., speech, assembly, organization)
• Provide technical assistance or training to the government to support civil society
• Advocate for civil society support in high-level diplomatic meetings
• Publicly criticize civic space restrictions in international media
• Name and shame civic space restrictions by senior leaders
• Educate government counterparts or the public about the importance of a robust civil society
• None of these activities are helpful if they are offered by foreign actors
• Don’t know / Not sure

Q18. Which of the following activities by foreign actors (government or private) are generally most harmful to civic space in [country]  on average? Select up to three.

• Provide aid directly to civil society organizations
• Provide technical assistance or training directly to civil society organizations
• Provide aid to the government to support civil society development
• Tie offers of financial aid, foreign direct investment, or trade deals to progress on basic freedoms (e.g., speech, assembly, organization)
• Provide technical assistance or training to the government to support civil society
• Advocate for civil society support in high-level diplomatic meetings
• Publicly criticize civic space restrictions in international media
• Name and shame civic space restrictions by senior leaders
• Educate government counterparts or the public about the importance of a robust civil society
• None of these activities are helpful if they are offered by foreign actors
• Don’t know / Not sure

Q19. How do you rate the influence each of the following countries has on your country’s civic space?

[Order of countries was randomized to minimize order effects]

	Very harmful	Somewhat harmful	Neither harmful nor beneficial	Somewhat beneficial	Very beneficial	Don’t know / Prefer not to answer
United States
Russia
United Kingdom
European Union
China
Turkey
Saudi Arabia
United Arab Emirates

MODULE 4: BACKGROUND INFORMATION

[The below guidance will appear for the respondent in answering the subsequent questions]

Thank you again for the time and effort you have put into this survey. In this final section of the survey, we would like to collect some background information on your expertise. As mentioned above, all your responses will be kept strictly confidential and only discussed in the aggregate. All identifying information will be removed when we are working with the data you have given us. If you have any concerns, please feel free to reach out to us at surveys@aiddata.wm.edu.

Q20. Please select the sector that your work is most closely tied to.

• Agriculture and food security
• Social service delivery
• Emergency response and disaster risk reduction
• Economic growth and employment
• Education
• Language and cultural affairs
• Environment and sustainable development
• Governance and political participation
• Health and nutrition
• Human rights (including gender equality, LGBT+ rights, minority rights, etc)
• Media
• Peacebuilding, reconstruction, and reconciliation
• Poverty reduction
• Religious affairs
• Other sector (please specify):

Q21. How long have you lived in [country] ?

• Less than 1 year
• 1 - 5 years
• 6 - 10 years
• 11 - 20 years
• More than 20 years
• I am native to [country]

Q22. Please select your gender.

• Male
• Female
• Non-binary
• Prefer to self-identify: _________
• Prefer not to say

Q23. Please select your age

• Under 24
• 25-40
• 41-55
• 56-70
• Over 70
• Prefer not to say

A-8. Methodology References

Buyse, A. (2018). Squeezing civic space: restrictions on civil society organizations and the linkages with human rights, The International Journal of Human Rights, 22:8, 966-988, DOI: 10.1080/13642987.2018.1492916

Carothers, T. (2016). Closing Space for International Democracy and Human Rights Support, Journal of Human Rights Practice , Volume 8, Issue 3, November 2016, Pages 358–377, https://doi.org/10.1093/jhuman/huw012

CIVICUS. (2016). What is Civic Space? https://monitor.civicus.org/whatiscivicspace/

CIVICUS. (2016). Civil Society Watch Report. June 2016. https://www.civicus.org/images/CSW_Report.pdf

Diamond, L. (2019). Democracy Demotion: How the Freedom Agenda Fell Apart. July/August 2019. Foreign Affairs. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/world/democracy-demotion

International Center for Not-for-Profit Law and the World Movement for Democracy Secretariat at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). (2012). Defending Civil Society Report. Second Edition. June 12. https://www.icnl.org/wp-content/uploads/DCS_Report_Second_Edition_English.pdf

Lilja, E. (2015). A New Ecology of Civil Society II, Journal of Civil Society, 11:4, 402-407, DOI: 10.1080/17448689.2015.1112510

Malena (2015). Improving the Measurement of Civic Space. Transparency and Accountability Initiative. http://rendircuentas.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/TAI-Civic-Space-Study-v13-FINAL.pdf

UK’s National Association of Citizens Advice Bureau. (n.d.). Check what you can do about harassment.  https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/law-and-courts/discrimination/what-are-the-different-types-of-discrimination/harassment/

UNOCHR (n.d.). A Practical Guide for Civil Society. Civil Society Space and the United Nations Human Rights System. UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner.

van der Borgh, C., & Terwindt, C. (2012). Shrinking operational space of NGOs - a framework of analysis. Development in Practice , 22 (8), 1065–1081. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41723169

Vojtíšková, V., Novotný, V., Schmid-Schmidsfelden, H., and K. Potapova. The Bear in Sheep’s Clothing, Russia’s Government-Funded Organisations  in the EU.  Brussels, BE. Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies, 2016.

Walker, C. (2018). What Is “Sharp Power”?. Journal of Democracy , 29 (3), 9-23.

WHO (2020). VPA Approach. World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/groups/violence-prevention-alliance/approach

---