The mobilization of conservative civil society
Richard Youngs (Editor, Author), Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Publisher)
In many countries in the developing and postcommunist worlds, as well as in long-established Western democracies, conservative forms of civic activism have been multiplying and gaining traction. In some cases, new conservative civic movements and groups are closely associated with illiberal political actors and appear to be an integral part of the well-chronicled global pushback against Western liberal democratic norms. In other cases, the political alliances and implications of conservative civil society are less clear. In almost all cases--other than perhaps that of the United States, where the rise of conservative activism has been the subject of considerable study--this rising world of conservative civil society has been little studied and often overlooked. This report seeks to correct this oversight and to probe more deeply into the rise of conservative civil society around the world. Taken as a whole, the report asks what conservative civic activism portends for global civil society. The report redresses the lack of analytical attention paid to the current rise of conservative civil society by offering examples of such movements and the issues that drive them. The authors examine the common traits that conservative groups share and the issues that divide them. They look at the kind of members that these groups attract and the tactics and tools they employ. And they ask how effective the emerging conservative civil society has been in reshaping the political agenda
eBook, English, 2018
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, DC, 2018