Lorch Jasmin, Sombatpoonsiri Janjira
German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) and Willy Brandt School of Public Policy, University of Erfurt, Erfurt, Germany.
German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) and Institute of Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand.
Voluntas. 2022 Apr 29:1-13. doi: 10.1007/s11266-022-00496-1.
In this article we challenge the conventional wisdom that COVID-19 and related legal restrictions invariably reinforce a global trend of shrinking civic space. We argue that the legal guarantee (or restriction) of civil society rights is not the sole factor configuring civic space. Instead, we reconceptualize civic space by broadening its determinants to also include needs-induced space and civil society activism. Investigating five countries with flawed democracic or competitive autocracic regimes in Southeast Asia, we propose a three-pronged mechanism of how these determinants interact in the context of COVID-19. First, legal restrictions on civil society rights intertwine with the space created by health and economic needs to create new opportunities for civil society activism. Second, these new opportunity structures lead to the cross-fertilization between service delivery and advocacy activism by civil society. Third, this new trajectory of civil society activism works to sustain civic space.
在本文中，我们对传统观念提出质疑，即新冠疫情及相关法律限制必然会强化公民空间不断缩小的全球趋势。我们认为，公民社会权利的法律保障（或限制）并非塑造公民空间的唯一因素。相反，我们通过拓宽其决定因素来重新定义公民空间，这些因素还包括需求引发的空间和公民社会行动主义。通过对东南亚五个民主有缺陷或竞争性独裁政权国家的调查，我们提出了一个三管齐下的机制，说明这些决定因素在新冠疫情背景下是如何相互作用的。首先，对公民社会权利的法律限制与健康和经济需求所创造的空间相互交织，为公民社会行动主义创造了新机会。其次，这些新的机会结构导致公民社会在服务提供和倡导行动主义之间实现相互促进。第三，公民社会行动主义的这一新轨迹有助于维持公民空间。
