Foundations of Freedom: Civic Space

Foundations of Freedom is a new series from Freedom House examining the foundational elements of democracy.
 
Since 1941, Freedom House has worked to expand and defend freedom around the world. This work is underpinned by more than 50 years of research on political rights and civil liberties and informed by the tremendous honor of working alongside some of the bravest and most impactful defenders of freedom in the United States and around the world. 

Our findings have shown the importance of upholding democratic governance and fundamental rights. Data supports the link between freedom and prosperity and shows that societies cannot flourish over the long term without upholding democratic principles. While no two democracies are exactly alike, democracies share a set of foundational principles that allow them to outperform authoritarian regimes. The founding leaders of the United States recognized the importance of these freedoms to the young republic, enshrining them in the Bill of Rights. Many countries around the world drew inspiration from the United States and modeled their constitutions after the US Constitution, to guarantee that their people could work continuously toward democratic ideals.

Free expression and free association, combined with a rule of law that protects people’s rights and holds injustice to account, allow the unfettered exchange of information and drive innovation and discovery. When power in a democratic system is constrained by robust checks and balances, and where actors including the media, advocacy groups, labor unions, and businesses can freely participate in civic life, society is equipped to peacefully navigate competing views of the public interest, correct mistakes and abuses, and have robust debate about its own values and democracy.

Restricting Civic Space: Global Trends

Civil society is a cornerstone of democracy. Composed of formal and informal groups, civil society organizations are voluntary, operate independently from the government, and allow people and communities to connect over and advance shared interests—and often, to protect the public interest. Civil society includes community groups, civic associations, labor unions, religious institutions, and charity and philanthropy organizations working on issues that matter to them. Such issues could include improving community health and safety; ensuring that individuals have access to justice, education, health care, and humanitarian aid; and helping to protect fundamental rights.

All over the world, civil society plays a critically important role in pushing governments to do better and more for their people. In some cases, civil society groups help to hold powerful actors and officials accountable. The United States’ founders recognized the importance of civic engagement, and the value they placed on vibrant civic participation is clear in their writings and deliberately laced throughout the United States’ founding documents. 

On every continent, however, elected leaders have undermined independent civic institutions that provide checks and balances. Freedom House’s research shows that for the last two decades, governments across the world have used regulations, laws, and discrediting narratives to restrict civic space and the ability of civic organizations to exercise fundamental freedoms—such as freedom of association and freedom of expression. The trend in the United States, however, has emerged more recently. Pressure on the United States’ long tradition of civic activity comes alongside the steady erosion of other democratic institutions in recent years, ranging from academic freedom to anticorruption safeguards. This backsliding has persisted for more than a decade, spanning multiple Democratic and Republican administrations, and accelerating in recent days. And while the United States remains a federal republic with a vibrant political system and strong constitution, the cracks are increasingly visible. 

Research by Freedom House has revealed a number of common tactics used to restrict civic space. Three that we have witnessed across the globe are onerous regulatory requirements for civic groups, legal prosecution of free expression, and repression of peaceful protesters. These restrictions weaken people’s ability to collectively represent their social, economic, and political interests. They also harm civil society’s ability to protect fundamental freedoms and push back against repression.

Governments frequently use onerous regulatory requirements to curtail civic activism they deem to threaten their rule. Among the most common are “foreign agent” laws, which aim to tar civic and other groups as operating at the behest of sinister outside forces. Many authoritarian and authoritarian-leaning leaders have been inspired by Russia’s landmark 2012 foreign agent law, which along with other laws curtailing civil society has resulted in the shuttering, banning, or exile of media organizations, election monitors, and other groups. Other authoritarian governments have enacted draconian versions: Egypt’s foreign agent law includes jail time and fines worth tens of thousands of dollars; Venezuela’s also permits criminal penalties, as well as cancellation of groups’ registration. However, “foreign agent” laws have also been enacted in countries that can still host a level of political competition and have organized civil societies. In Georgia, the ruling party pushed through a version in 2024 that requires nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), media outlets, and other groups receiving more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad to register as organizations “pursuing the interests of a foreign power.” Hungary’s version authorizes a government-controlled body to investigate and report on NGO activity suspected of serving foreign interests or deemed capable of endangering the country’s sovereignty. Authorities in India have been accused of using the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA) and other regulatory measures to selectively target perceived opponents in civil society.

Another widely used tactic is legal prosecution of free expression, when authorities invoke the law to punish people or groups whose free speech is seen as a threat to their control. This can take extreme forms. Cuba’s repressive government, for example, has cracked down on the San Isidro Movement (MSI), which in 2018 began organizing artistic protests after authorities enacted a sweeping censorship decree. MSI cofounders Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel Castillo Pérez are among those serving lengthy prison services for their activism. In Pakistan, a secret military court sentenced Idris Khattak, a well-known human rights defender, to 14 years in prison in 2021 under the country’s Official Secrets Act. The conviction came in connection with his work documenting a string of enforced disappearances in the country’s Pashtun-majority regions. In Cambodia, the author, lawyer, and activist Theary Seng was convicted in 2022 on bogus charges of treason in retribution for her civic activism and criticism of Cambodia’s longtime autocratic leadership. These are only a few of the imprisoned civil society leaders Freedom House’s Political Prisoners Initiative, which is fighting back against the jailing of activists as a tool of repression, is working to free.

A third common tactic governments use to curtail civil society is the repression of peaceful protesters, including through surveillance and crackdowns on peaceful assembly. The government of China leads the world in the use of digital technologies for authoritarian governance. Surveillance is ubiquitous; authorities conduct real-time monitoring not just online, but also of physical spaces to shut down even small-scale demonstrations of dissent. Facial recognition technology is similarly used in Iran to enforce the country’s strict dress code for women. However, use of surveillance, facial recognition, phone monitoring, and tracking technology that can be used to identify protesters is spreading: the government of Serbia, for example, is among those that has purchased sophisticated facial recognition technology from Chinese authorities, despite public opposition to its use. Meanwhile, Freedom on the Net, Freedom House’s annual report on internet freedom around the world, has found that governments are suspected of having access to sophisticated spyware or data-extraction technologies that can potentially be used against activists, protest organizers, and demonstrators in at least 49 countries, including Morocco, Uganda, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, India, Mexico, and Armenia.

Finally, governments worldwide have turned to the use of force, including military force, to suppress peaceful demonstrations expressing dissent. The world remains haunted by dark chapters when governments turned weapons against their own people, including, in recent years, the deadly 2021 crackdown that killed thousands of peaceful anti-coup protesters in Myanmar, and the following year’s assault by Iranian authorities on antigovernment demonstrations, in which hundreds perished. However, peaceful demonstrators have also recently been met with repression not only in countries that Freedom House rates as Not Free, but also in countries rated Partly Free. Last year in the country of Georgia, police assaulted and arrested hundreds of peaceful protesters and used water cannons and tear gas to disperse assemblies. In El Salvador, military police this spring violently dispersed protesters opposing land evictions and arrested two protest leaders. And in Bangladesh, a violent crackdown on student-led antigovernment demonstrations led to the collapse of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government.

Lessons for the United States

These examples are only a few drawn from a long list of countries where officials resort to authoritarian practices to silence civil society, close civic space, and consolidate their own grip on power. The most egregious incidents usually take place in countries rated Not Free in Freedom House’s annual Freedom in the World report—where government institutions, courts, and security forces answer to the ruling elites. However, incidents in countries rated Partly Free are not uncommon, as the cases above illustrate, and they are popping up in countries rated Free that are experiencing democratic backsliding. In the United States today, there is emerging evidence that civic space is being targeted and restricted, although at a slower but steady pace as compared to other cases around the world. Rising attacks on democratic norms and institutions, a widening array of threats to civil society organizations, and restrictions on protest and attacks on freedom of expression and association continue to proliferate.

For example, an inspector general’s audit of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in 2013 found that civil society groups with certain conservative buzzwords in their names faced additional scrutiny when applying for tax-exempt status, while some left-leaning organizations have been targeted for investigation or pressured by lawmakers to register as “foreign agents” under the United States’ vaguely worded and outdated Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

Some groups are also experiencing heightened scrutiny under anti-money-laundering (AML) laws. While these laws and regulations can be helpful in rooting out corruption and money laundering, they can also include heavy restrictions on civil society’s ability to register, operate, and access resources, as well as direct measures against specific civil society organizations, such as audits, investigations, prosecution, deregistration, and closure. These laws have also resulted in some banks and financial institutions choosing not to provide services to individuals and organizations they deem risky, and could have a chilling effect on free speech.

A presidential memorandum issued on September 25, 2025, called on a National Joint Terrorism Task Force to investigate “nongovernmental organizations and American citizens residing abroad” or with close ties to foreign governments or organizations for alleged FARA violations, money laundering, and funding of a list of vague offenses; these include doxing, trespass, and civil disorder and are characterized as “domestic terrorism.” Philanthropic organizations, leaders and others have expressed concerns that this memorandum can be used to target organizations and individuals the administration views as political opponents and will chill freedom of expression. A number of high-ranking officials in the Trump administration have recently used rhetoric singling out and vilifying individuals and organizations with whom they disagree, heightening concerns.

Surveillance in the United States can be traced back to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978 and its amendments, particularly Section 702. Surveillance has expanded in the 2000s after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, with the USA Patriot Act. Civic space has been affected and increasingly threatened by surveillance. Recently, the unusual deployment of the military for the purposes of domestic law enforcement has further impacted civil society. Reports in recent years have detailed intensified surveillance of protests in US cities, including via surveillance cameras, facial recognition technology, and drones.

Additionally, the current administration has removed experts from positions across the federal government without specific explanation or opportunity for a fair hearing under civil service procedures, including justice department lawyers, inspectors general, and expert officials on independent regulatory agencies and intelligence oversight bodies. These dismissals of government officials and federal watchdogs, many of which are being litigated in court, remove crucial reviews and checks of executive power. Combined with increasingly harsh rhetoric against civil society, they give rise to concern that any new rules regulating civil society could be used to target perceived political opponents of the administration.

Civil society, a robust private sector, and free expression have been key principles of democratic governance, and these are elements that are not present or protected in authoritarian regimes. Free expression and free association, combined with a rule of law that protects people’s rights and liberties, have been aspirations that are desired and admired by many people and governments outside the United States. The idea of power in a democratic system being constrained by robust checks and balances, and the active and invested actions of journalists, advocacy groups, labor unions, and business are the pillars around which civic life is built, nourished, and strengthened. Democratic governance is not an end but a means; it requires constant adaptation and reform to ensure it is working to effectively protect rights and respond to citizens.

The United States’ founders valued civic life and believed that active participation in the country’s democracy was both a duty and a key to the nation’s success. The United States’ history is rich with movements that worked to make the country a more perfect union for all people—abolitionist movements, women’s suffrage associations, and the Civil Rights Movement, among them. More than two centuries after the United States’ founding, President George H.W. Bush reiterated the value of civil society in his inaugural address, calling community organizations “a thousand points of light” doing good across the nation.

While the environment for civil society in the United States remains very far from authoritarian environments—where civic engagement is tightly controlled and dissent is punished harshly—this trajectory is familiar, and dangerous. The erosion of civic space rarely comes with broad and public announcement. A key lesson for the United States is that the erosion of civic space is a process that includes steady tactics to curtail fundamental freedoms, often using order, security, and anti-NGO and foreign agent laws. Of the civil liberties tracked by Freedom in the World, freedom of expression has declined the most over the last 19 years. Those who believe in the importance of protecting free and vibrant democratic governance—including those in government, the private sector, and philanthropy—will need to work together to enable civil society organizations to continue their important work in the face of growing pressure.

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For 84 years, Freedom House has striven to achieve its founders’ vision of a world where all are free. Formed in 1941 by a bipartisan group that included First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and the presidential candidate her husband had recently defeated, Wendell Willkie, the organization and its trustees and staff have proudly stood alongside political leaders and human rights defenders from around the globe to expand and defend democracy, the rule of law, and observance of the fundamental liberties to which every person is entitled. We have worked in nonpartisan fashion with every US administration and with countless members of Congress who share the understanding that Americans cannot remain free, secure, and prosperous unless the principles of democracy prevail over the forces of tyranny and injustice, both at home and abroad.