Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This study investigated how civil society organizations (CSOs) adapted to shifts
in their external environment that threatened their survival. Specifically, the study
considered how CSOs in Turkey were responding to growing authoritarianism and
citizens’ demands for a voice and openness. Moreover, the study sought to explain why
organizational responses varied across organizations operating in the same field and the
challenges CSO leaders confronted as they implemented changes in response to this
environment. These pressures, both authoritarian regimes and citizens’ demands for a
voice in these organizations, reflect the democratic crisis in many countries and the
overall distrust in institutions. In this respect, considering the consequences of both of
these pressures for the legitimacy of CSOs simultaneously is both timely and necessary.
This study blended theoretical insights from neo-institutional theory and resource
dependency theory as well as strategic management literature and civil society literature
to fill this theoretical gap. I argue that competing external pressures created conflicting
logics by providing different stipulations about how CSOs had to be managed and that
CSOs developed differentiated strategies by adopting some features of each logic. I
grouped these responses into two main categories: survival and mission-related
responses. I demonstrated that competing institutional logics pass through the
organizational field and then they are filtered by the following organizational attributes:
organizational form, stance toward government, risk tolerance and organizational
capacity. Tensions and paradoxical situations resulting from selected practices created
various management challenges for CSO leaders. These findings offer new perspectives
to the literature on civil society under authoritarian regimes by pointing out the link
between outside threats confronting CSOs and significant organizational management
issues, thus illustrating how political regimes constrain CSOs’ capacity to contribute to
democratic processes and perform internal democracy through soft and hard repression
tools. / 2022-12-01
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:IUPUI/oai:scholarworks.iupui.edu:1805/24622 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Kilicalp Iaconantonio, Sevinc Sevda |
| Contributors | Benjamin, Lehn M., Mesch, Debra J., Herrold, Catherine E., Baggetta, Matthew |
| Source Sets | Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
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