Organizations in the Ugandan civil society sector have faced legal and extra-legal restrictions on their operations, a phenomenon referred to as the ‘shrinking civic space’ which has been on the rise globally. The Ugandan government has taken several measures towards controlling the operational space of, especially organizations working on issues of human rights, anti-corruption, electoral democracy, and social justice and accountability issues in the oil and gas sector. This thesis presents a within-case comparison over time, by analyzing the shrinking civic space of non-governmental organizations working in the oil and gas sector in Uganda between years 2012-2018. The aim is to review the changes of the national legal framework that took place in 2013, 2016 and 2017, and compare the extra-legal and legal restrictions that oil and gas NGOs have faced before and after the alterations. This study finds that while the legal restrictions imposed in 2013-2017 went further than the laws previously in place, the NGOs in the oil and gas sector already faced similar restrictions before – implying that the implementation of the new laws was part of formalizing restrictions of the civic space which were already practiced.

I denna uppsats undersöks hur problem kring bidragsgivning till civilsamhället framställs i Demokrativillkorsutredningen (SOU 2019:35) om skärpta demokratvillkor. Givet att civilsamhällesforskningen pekar på att det offentliga alltmer knutit civilsamhället närmare till sig är det intressant att studera den förändrade relationen i förhållande till den skärpta bidragsreformen. Med en kritiskt granskande ansats kombineras fenomenet shrinking civic space med Carol Bacchis policymetod What’s the Problem Represented to be (WPR) för att analysera statens föreställningar om det odemokratiska civilsamhället samt för att sätta begreppet krympande civilsamhällsutrymme inom en svensk kontext.  Studien av dagens civilsamhällsdiskurs visar att det odemokratiska civilsamhället antas hindras genom ökade kontroller både av de offentliga bidragsgivarna och organisationerna själva. För detta framstår civilsamhällsorganisationer behöva ha fullständig koll på sin verksamhet. Med dagens problemföreställningar och lösningsförslag konstruerar staten således en ny civilsamhällsroll kännetecknad av säkerhetsarbete, kontroll och misstänksamhet. Därmed identifieras modern demokratidiskurs i samverkan med säkerhetiseringsdiskursen bidra till en tudelning av civilsamhället med binära effekter som utgör en grund för att diskutera effekten shrinking space. Studien visar även en frånvaro av civilsamhällets särart samt att interna och externa maktrelationer under de nya demokrativillkoren kan få missgynnande effekter för nyare, mer kontroversiella och marginaliserade civilsamhällsgrupper. / In this essay I examine how problems concerning contributions to civil society are presented in the Democracy Conditions Inquiry (SOU 2019: 35) on stricter democratic conditions. Given that civil society research indicates that the public sector has become more closely associated with civil society, it is interesting to study the changed relationship in relation to the stricter benefit reform. With a critical approach, the phenomenon of shrinking civic space is combined with Carol Bacchi's policy method What's the Problem Represented to be (WPR) in order to analyze the state's notions of undemocratic civil society and to put the concept of shrinking civil society space within a Swedish context. The study of today's civil society discourse shows that the undemocratic civil society is assumed to be hindered by increased controls by both the public donors and the organizations themselves. For this, civil society organizations appear to need to have complete control over their activities. With today's problem representation and solution proposals, the state thus constructs a new civil society role characterized by securitization, control, and suspicion. Thus, modern democracy discourse is identified in collaboration with the security discourse to contribute to a division of civil society with binary effects that form a basis for discussing the effect shrinking space. The study also shows an absence of the special nature of civil society and that internal and external power relations under the new democratic conditions can have unfavorable effects for newer, more controversial, and marginalized civil society groups.

This thesis investigates the terrorist designation issued by Israel against six Palestinian civil society organizations in 2021. The organizations are based in the West Bank and remain designated as terrorist organizations according to Israeli law, despite rejections and condemnations by the European Union (EU), the United Nations (UN), and the United States (US). The investigation builds on an interpretive approach and in-depth semi-structured interviews with five of the six designated organizations. By using the theory of ontological counter-securitization to investigate a case of shrinking civic space, this thesis brings the theory to a new context. Given that the context of Palestinian civil society is understudied, the aim is to contribute new context-specific findings as well as theoretical knowledge. More specifically, this approach is aimed at better understanding views and means of resistance among the interviewed organizations. The findings show that the five organizations view their terrorist designation as a way to defund Palestinian civil society. It is further implied that the terrorist designation has impacted the organizations' relationship with their donors. To maintain their work, the organizations have undertaken a form of risk management. The analysis also shows that enhanced recognition, cooperation and conviction have constituted means of resistance. The main finding of the analysis concerns the construction of a new identity among the designated organizations. It is argued that this identity construction is a specific form of resistance against the shrinking civic space. The findings are central to enhancing the understanding of how security practices are resisted in asymmetric power relationships.