CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2017
| Author | Kobor, Andrea |
|---|---|
| Title | Brave New World for Human Rights NGOs? Shift in NGO Advocacy Strategy in Hungary's Illiberal Democracy after 2010 |
| Summary | This thesis provides a detailed examination of the change of human rights NGOs’ advocacy strategy in Hungary after 2010 in Viktor Orban’s illiberal democracy in order to understand how the anti-democratic shift of the country influences the strategy of NGOs. Relying on NGO advocacy literature and social movement theory, I use a two-dimensional model of NGO strategy. My research is based on semi-structured interviews with five human rights NGO leaders in Hungary – one big International (Amnesty), the two biggest domestic organizations (TASZ, Hungarian Helsinki Committee), a thematic umbrella (LGBT Alliance), and a small thematic NGO (CFCF). The research shows that Orban’s takeover of public institutions and media, restrictions of civil liberties created a radically new environment for human rights NGOs. On advocacy territories affected by the governments’ expansion – such as lobbying, litigation and media -, the channels of domestic advocacy were partially replaced to the international level due to the closure of the domestic opportunities. The lock up of institutional access to policy-making pushed human rights NGOs to focus more on public opinion, look for more confrontative and participation-based tactics, and to turn towards citizens. Hungarian NGOs started to form coalitions as a reaction to the governments’ attack on civil society. |
| Supervisor | Violetta Zentai |
| Department | School of Public Policy MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2017/kobor_andrea.pdf |
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