Patterns of Civil Society in Central and Eastern Europe: A Synthesis of 16 Country Reports and and Expert Survey

In this chapter, we provide a map of civil society in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). We summarize the country reports published in this volume and complement them with analyses from other datasets, e.g. the European Values Study (EVS) and an expert survey which was conducted for the purpose of this study. We apply these sources to cluster the 16 CEE countries under investigation into four distinct country groups: a) the Visegrád group, which consists of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary, b) Slovenia and Croatia, c) Bulgaria and Romania, and finally d) the non-EU-countries Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Albania, and Moldova. Austria serves as a reference country for comparing CEE civil society with a traditional Western European civil society. Historical trajectories, economic data and an institutional analysis all confirm this clustering, and we describe and analyze the country groups using these categories. Even though the groups are diverse, some similarities become obvious, such as the important role of the European Union and the accession process in shaping the institutional framework. Analyses also reveal distinct features of civil society within the four country groups, such as a particularly high level of donor dependency in the non-EU country group and a low level of institutional trust in Bulgaria and Romania. Finally, we discuss trends and future developments. Despite recent challenges, including the withdrawal of foreign donors and political tensions in some countries, the outlook we provide for this dynamic region remains largely optimistic.