1 Introduction

Among scholars and practitioners working in international development, there is much interest in civil society advocacy. Seeking societal change through development projects may lead to results, but these do not address fundamental underlying conditions that shape development, such as legal rights, cultural understandings, or market relations. In contrast, advocacy is a way to address these, seeking to transform the legal, political, and social conditions that shape development. I define what I call advocacy for development as a “wide range of activities conducted to influence decision-makers at different levels” (Morariu & Brennan, 2009: 100) with the overall aim of combatting the structural causes of poverty and injustice. I include here as decision-makers not only people holding positions of power in public and private institutions, but also individuals and groups who hold more informal power, such as communities and their leaders, and social and cultural groups of various kinds. This definition follows the widely held belief that advocacy can be a tool to fight the causes of poverty or injustice and influence structural change, aiming to change social, political, and policy structures, and challenge power structures. In the current age of shrinking space for civil society and challenges to human rights and conflicts in many contexts, advocacy is often geared toward protecting past achievements and preventing their loss. This advocacy goes beyond influencing policy, often aiming for sustainable changes in public and political contexts. Advocacy includes then not only activities such as lobbying or demonstrations, but also awareness raising, legal actions, and public education, as well as building networks, relationships, and capacity, and the articulation of views and interests through the same.

This advocacy can have many different objectives, ranging from organizing and building voices, awareness raising, agenda setting drawing attention to issues, promoting specific understandings of issues or creating space for certain solutions, contributing to policy development and implementation or evaluation, or transforming the way decisions are made, as when more inclusive forms of policy process are sought. Many advocacy outcomes are intermediate, consisting of steps toward a desired change. Advocacy is often for the long haul, facing lack of interest or opposition from other political, social, or economic actors.

Practitioner guidance on advocacy for development commonly relates to the contexts in which it is set. Context is commonly described as defining what can or should be done, and how. Political conditions (e.g., openness to civil society influence, political opportunities) define possibilities for advocacy, and the presence of organizational capacity and specific challenges for development (e.g., gender relations or the prevalence of development issues like insecurity or hunger) shape advocacy agendas. However, there are reasons to think that context matters in more fundamental ways than is usually acknowledged in practitioner guidance, with contextual conditions raising further context-specific empirical and normative questions on diverse aspects of civil society advocacy in different contexts.

The question guiding this chapter is: how do contextual dimensions shape possibilities for advocacy in constrained settings, and how can these be addressed by practitioners? This chapter starts answering that question with a reflection on a set of limits in existing guidance on advocacy for practitioners in development. These limits concern engagement with context. The chapter then moves on to discuss how context shapes possibilities for advocacy in two main forms of constrained context: authoritarian/hybrid and fragile contexts. In practice, traits of both types may be found in a single context. A reflection considering the findings from existing research lead to the identification of a set of considerations for further development of practitioner guidance, rooted in a deeper engagement with contextually defined possibilities and constraints. These considerations pertain to (1) CSO roles, (2) advocacy capacities, (3) strategies, and (4) risk management.

2 Assumptions

Three assumptions concerning the nature and role of context underlie common approaches to advocacy for development. To show the presence of these assumptions and clarify their significance for research and practice, I draw on 10 years of research experience working with NGOs and donors. Publicly available advocacy manuals for practitioners in the development field, typically commissioned by large INGOs, illustrate the common presence of these assumptions (examples are: Care International, 2014; Datta, 2011; Oxfam, 2020; Vidal, 2018; Watson, 2015).

First, while remaining implicit, approaches assume that basic elements of a liberal state are in place. There is a government that creates the conditions for a relatively autonomous civil society to operate—a requirement, as Chandhoke (2001) explains, creating laws providing at least some degree of freedom of organization and expression, security, and spaces for interaction between civil society and the state. This government also has some overriding authority to make decisions that impact citizens, and seeks to implement these—and is therefore worthy of influencing. There are roles to play for civil society, engaging diverse actors like citizens, state agencies, and corporations. Selecting strategies is then primarily a question of organizational preferences, capacities, resources, and understandings of what could be effective There are also norms about the role civil society can play. Being seen as representing citizen groups, values, or interests, and with valuable knowledge and relations with society to offer, civil society advocacy has absolute legitimacy, complementing or correcting the views and workings of state and market, and advancing inclusive development. When the effectiveness of advocacy is addressed, it is mainly by considering a rather standardized set of organizational capacities, strategies, and external conditions—primarily the political and policy context. While in some cases, some attention is given to questions of civic space or fragility (as in Oxfam, 2020: 27), this attention does not put to question the fundamental starting point of an autonomous and representative role for civil society advocacy influencing a state.

Second, approaches commonly conceive of advocacy in terms of a series of steps enacted within such a liberal state context. It typically involves a problem analysis establishing what needs to be changed, development of ideas on how the change can be achieved, relating to the specific political context, selection and development of strategies, execution of these, and evaluation and learning from the experience. Advocacy then does relate to context, in the sense that it is rooted in the understanding that strategies need to fit that context. For example, it may be emphasized that strategies should be based on realistic assumptions of what could be achieved influencing whom, how. How advocacy is to take shape then is for a big part a question of analyzing a context, monitoring it, and building relations with actors within this context (publics, partners, allies, targets such as governmental and intergovernmental agencies, media) that are relevant to the issue and its resolution. However, the basics of the liberal state and the conditions it provides tend to be taken as given, in the sense that an autonomous role for CSOs influencing decision-makers from that position is the foundation from which CSO roles and strategy emerge. The steps make sense from that starting point.

Thirdly, and following from the above: the basic model of how advocacy works hardly shifts depending on context. The capacities that matter, the strategies that can come in, and the roles that civil society can have, remain roughly the same wherever advocacy is conducted. For example, advocates need to be capable of analysis and monitoring of the political context to establish opportunities and access points to gain influence, of building trusting relations with decision-makers, of developing organizational credibility, of building coalitions, and of developing compelling messages. Flexibility in responding to changing conditions and emerging opportunities is an important more general capacity. Strategies are typically identified as “inside” or “outside” strategies, sometimes combined: inside strategies involving engagement in constructive interaction in various forms, such as participation in roundtables, lobbying, development and presentation of research reports, policy briefs, and other documentation that can support policy development; outside strategies involving public and more confrontational activities, such as awareness-raising campaigns, demonstrations, and creating “bad press” for an institution one seeks to influence (e.g., by exposing misdeeds or lack of effectiveness in addressing an issue). Roles can lie in influencing agenda setting, policy development and policy implementation. Targets can be public, governmental, intergovernmental, and private sector actors, often in combination. How elements may differ per context is hardly considered. An exception is the problem of constricted civic space, which is primarily understood to limit possibilities for advocacy in certain contexts.

All this is in line with much academic literature analyzing civil society advocacy on the fronts discussed above. This literature is often set in liberal states and similarly appears to take the liberal state as given, be it that there too, these conditions are usually not explicitly addressed (see e.g., Dellmuth & Tallberg, 2017; Mitchell et al., 2020).

3 How Constraining Contexts Matter

Research literature on advocacy in specific contexts often belies the three assumptions above. Thus far, these findings have not found their way into practitioner guidance. A notable exception to the pattern is a recent “toolkit” provided by The Lifeline Fund for Embattled CSOs, offering guidelines for advocacy in restricted spaces, which we will return to later (Greenfield, 2020). Below, practitioner-relevant findings on the role of two types of contexts are discussed. Importantly, many advocacy practitioners working in these contexts already will be taking into account the contextual conditions delineated below—in fact, their practices and insights are a prime source of knowledge that researchers whose work is discussed below draw on. It is rather that this knowledge has often not found its way into more decontextualized, often Northern-led programming, and associated guidance materials.

3.1 Authoritarian and Hybrid Contexts

In authoritarian and hybrid contexts (showing a mixture of authoritarian and democratic features), civic space is constrained in various ways. In recent years, this constriction has increased in many contexts, limiting the space for civil society to carry out their autonomous roles. Van der Borgh and Terwindt (2012: 1070–1072), integrating existing research, distinguish five sets of actions and policies that can restrict operational space for CSOs: physical harassment and intimidation; preventative and punitive measures; administrative restrictions; stigmatization and negative labeling; and pressure in institutionalized forms of interaction and dialogue between government entities and civil society, distinguishing co-optation or closure of newly created spaces. The constraints on civic space are often selective though, with restrictions mostly affecting groups that are critical of government (Roggeband & Krizsán, 2021). Constrictions mainly pertain to freedoms (e.g., of expression, association, and assembly) and their enactment, especially through advocacy strategies, and especially in the public sphere, where regimes are openly challenged (Lewis, 2013). However, any form of critique or form of contestation may be problematic, also in the context of constructive collaboration (Syal et al., 2021). However, effects go beyond freedoms, raising further challenges for CSOs. Beyond restricting operational space, CSOs may also face risks to their organizations as such, and to staff, including violence (Bille Larsen et al., 2021). Such violence may also be coming from non-state actors working together with the state, such as paramilitary forces, private corporate security, criminal gangs, and religious fundamentalist groups (Pousadela & Perera, 2021).

The dynamics between civil society and the state in authoritarian and hybrid contexts can take varied forms. CSOs commonly respond by stopping operations, shifting from advocacy to service delivery, shifting topic (Fransen et al., 2021; Van der Borgh & Terwindt, 2014), and depoliticization of the advocacy (Fransen et al., 2021; Tadros, 2009; Tadesse & Steen, 2019; Van der Borgh & Terwindt, 2014). Recent research also reports that marginalization deepens with closing civic space, preventing broad civic engagement (Hossain & Oosterom, 2021). At the same time, states may have more leverage over registered CSOs, CSOs that seek collaboration with the state, and CSOs receiving foreign funding, than over unregistered social movements. For example, in India, protests are common, while at the same time the Indian state increasingly constricts NGOs. Different forms of CSO and CSO activity may thus be differently affected.

Authoritarian and hybrid states also instrumentalize civil society, providing access and support to organizations that can boost government legitimacy, e.g., by providing services for citizens and confirming the validity and legitimacy of state ideology (Lewis, 2013). States may also permit and support CSOs (while delimiting foreign funding) to function based on roles and ideological fit, as shown by Fröhlich and Skokova (2020) for Russia and Liu and Van De Walle (2020) for China. Restrictions can thus have fundamental effects on the advocacy role of civil society.

At the same time, CSOs may seek to respond strategically to navigate restrictions to protect their operational space. Researchers point to such strategies as reframing into less-threatening language; shifting from national-level to local-level advocacy; shifting from agenda-setting advocacy to implementation; the management of visibility, for example using different platforms and supporting social movements behind the scenes; and the building of trustful relations with state actors (Dai & Spires, 2018; Fransen et al., 2021; Tadesse & Steen, 2019; Van Wessel et al., 2019). A research paper by Neuberger et al. (2021) delves more deeply into the practical working of such strategic maneuvering of constraints. It charts how an NGO in Egypt at first “cloaked” its socially transformative agenda to appear non-threatening to the regime. Later, when it had established more legitimacy, it moved to advocate more openly, while still emphasizing harmony with key aims of the regime. For example, it framed its transformative aims in terms of national economic objectives.

Co-optation may also be an attractive option for CSOs to advance their interest (Lorch, 2017: 44) while it may also be a way to advance constituency needs and advance agendas shared with state agencies. To illustrate: Syal et al. (2021) show for CSOs working on disaster governance in India, an increasingly authoritarian context, that CSOs sought to insert elements of their agenda once trusting collaborations with state agencies had developed. At the same time, they remained highly sensitive to state requirements, and stayed within bounds set by the state, not challenging state understandings of what needed to be done, seeing little space for critique or presentation of alternatives. They tweaked their roles to find a fit and appear more relevant, careful not to overstep perceived limits. CSOs also self-censored to avoid sensitivities such as appearing too critical, publicly contesting state claims, or associating with other CSOs with confrontational stances. CSOs thus assessed the space offered by the state and maneuver their interventions to maximize the benefit to all stakeholders, including the state, communities, people they seek to work for and represent, and themselves.

The careful management of relations and forms of communication appears to be of key importance here. The state and CSOs may be aligned in their ambitions to address development issues. However, pressure from the state limits space for representation that is critical of the state. Research on civil society in authoritarian regimes has indeed stressed detrimental consequences for civil society's role of producing and sharing perspectives alternative to dominant state perspectives (Fransen et al., 2021; Lewis, 2013: 337; Toepler et al., 2020).

3.2 Fragile Contexts

Compared with the literature addressing advocacy in authoritarian/hybrid contexts, the literature that addresses advocacy in fragile contexts is very limited. However, some publications provide relevant insights that illustrate some potential areas of attention for research and practice in advocacy for development.

CSOs working in fragile contexts deal with unstable and, at times, unsafe environments. While the specificities of fragility vary, fragile states are commonly described as incapable of assuring basic security, maintaining rule of law and justice, or providing services and economic opportunities for citizens. Fragile states have less ability to create conditions (e.g., security, autonomy, a legal framework, and a bureaucracy to engage) for civil society to carry out advocacy roles (Lorch, 2017; cf. Chandhoke, 2001).

However, also in fragile settings, people may find ways to influence governance. For example, Gaventa and Barrett (2012) show that in fragile settings, associations can have important roles in constructing citizenship, improving practices of participation, strengthening accountability, and contributing to social cohesion. Lorch (2017), too, argues that the political influence of civil society may be considerable in fragile contexts, for example by taking up roles otherwise taken up by the state, creating positions of influence within these roles. Van Wessel et al. (2021) illustrate this insight by providing a collection of case stories of CSO advocacy in diverse fragile contexts influencing policy by engagement with various stakeholders, taking initiatives building connections, and contributing to change by intermingling advocacy, policy implementation, and service delivery roles. This collection of stories also showed the advocacy as shaped through careful reading and engagement with various relations, seeking out possibilities, and managing risks (Van Wessel et al., 2021) in conditions where rules and roles may be unclear, ambiguous, or shifting. For example, a story of a CSO initiative in Afghanistan seeking to coordinate state and traditional justice mechanisms engaged multiple state and non-state authorities to provide better access to justice for Afghans. The careful maneuvering involved suggests the importance of capacities of handling contextual complexities and dynamics beyond what is commonly indicated in advocacy manuals. The forms of relating to other stakeholders are more multiplex and more negotiated. Given that CSOs in fragile contexts often take up roles that are taken up by the state elsewhere, they may also be more enmeshed in governance. Research also shows that boundaries between state and civil society can become blurred and civil society autonomy from powerful actors can be limited (Lorch, 2017; Verkoren & Van Leeuwen, 2014). Lorch also argues that civil society will mirror the deficits of a state, and CSOs can become enmeshed in the conflicts in their societies, having close relations with different power holders and lacking autonomy. The extent to which civil society can represent diverse interests then becomes questionable. Their influence also does not necessarily promote democracy and may rather contribute to undemocratic purposes such as favoring certain groups and endorsement of violence perpetrated by power holders or groups CSOs are associated with. Explaining such conditions, Lorch analyzes the nature of weak states, in which civil society may take up roles usually taken up by states, the state is not autonomous itself, and different alternative and competing powers exist. Patronage, corruption, and violence are common, while international donors may have important intervening roles (Lorch, 2017; see also Verkoren & Van Leeuwen, 2014). CSOs need to navigate the risks associated with these conditions. In addition, given the fragility of a context, CSO results achieved by CSO advocacy within such contexts may be fragile too. Changes demanding longer-term investment and development may stall and deteriorate for lack of stability in government, security, and other fragility-related reasons (Van Wessel et al., 2021).

4 Rethinking Contextuality

In light of common conceptualizations of civil society advocacy and underlying assumptions, as discussed in the introduction, the discussion on advocacy in constrained contexts above raises questions regarding how to understand, assess, and relate to civil society advocacy in such contexts. Below, I will present some areas of reflection for academics and practitioners working on advocacy for development, regarding CSO roles, advocacy capacities, strategies, and risk management in authoritarian/hybrid and fragile contexts. By this, I seek to contribute to a rethinking of assumptions around contextuality underlying civil society advocacy as an intervention in development.

4.1 CSO Roles

CSOs in authoritarian/hybrid contexts seek ways to operate, moving toward co-optation or away from it, working within co-opted roles seeking collaboration, or finding ways to maintain or enhance operational space by different types of strategies. This raises dilemmas for them and potentially also their donors and supporters, as they balance ideals of autonomy and voice, seeking continued relevance and organizational survival, risking exclusion and persecution. Thus far, the development sector and research community have not addressed the question of what could be appropriate policies for CSOs and their allies and donors for handling constraints and approaching possibilities.

Similarly, challenges to CSO autonomy in fragile contexts, where CSO roles are often embedded in close relations to different types of power holders, have hardly been addressed in the development sector. As Lorch (2017) shows, CSOs in such contexts may be aligned with power holders because it provides avenues for influencing that are otherwise closed, provide opportunities to achieve organizational objectives that may in themselves contribute to inclusive development like land reform, or may offer protection from rival groups or an oppressive state. Power holders, in turn, may co-opt CSOs to further their ideology or to be able to allocate services to groups and thereby gain support. Such alignment may contribute, however, to societal division and clientelist distribution of resources that can lead to exclusion of sections of society.

These realities, each in their own way, challenge assumptions of CSO autonomy underlying currently common approaches to advocacy in the development sector, and they deserve to be much more widely addressed in research and practice. Constraints on autonomy can have grave implications for representation of society by CSOs—a matter that receives little attention thus far but is fundamental to CSO roles as supported by donors and other actors in development. Liu and Van De Walle (2020), for example, show how in China it is presently common for the Chinese Communist Party to embed branches in CSOs, thus exerting control from within. With the tendency of authoritarian/hybrid states as well as power holders in fragile contexts to instrumentalize CSOs, there are also more fundamental questions regarding the roles that specific CSOs can have in a specific context, and with what legitimacy—in their own eyes, that of the state, society, and potential donors, or considering the specific values that the CSO seeks to serve.

Such questions are: what can be standards regarding autonomy or ways of handling limits to autonomy in contexts where autonomy may be constrained in various ways? Based on what principles and rationales? CSOs may be embedded in relations with power holders in both authoritarian and fragile contexts, and may be in that position because it is one from which influence on power holders can be achieved. For donors and allies, the question therefore also arises under which conditions to support what kinds of roles. A further consideration here is that international donors can play a mitigating role (Lorch, 2017), for example, by enhancing autonomy of CSOs by providing them with an independent financial base. They can also play an aggravating role through the public association of CSOs with “foreign agents” through their relations with foreign funders, or, more specifically maybe, the way these CSOs and international donors manage their relations (e.g., regarding visibility of their associations, see Van Wessel et al., 2017).

4.2 Advocacy Capacities

Civil society advocacy in authoritarian/hybrid and fragile contexts appears to require strategic capacities on top of commonly recognized ones. For advocates working in authoritarian/hybrid contexts, these may include the capacity to navigate the challenges of gaining trust and influence while seeking also to represent or advance values not aligned with those of the state. Greenfield (2020), for example, points out the capacity to build broad coalitions and seek out unlikely allies close to government, like a political party or business association (Greenfield, 2020: 21). For the protection of organizational missions, the capacity to navigate constraints appears crucial from the literature available so far. The diverse possibilities for creative strategizing to, for example, manage visibility and work with or around constraining laws and policies need much more exploration and sharing than we see thus far in the development sector.

If we acknowledge the challenges to civil society autonomy in fragile contexts, advocates in such contexts need to have the capacity to negotiate this autonomy. If we accept that autonomy may not be realistic, it may be more apt to say that advocates need to have the capacity to engage and gain the support of various types of power holders, making the most of the possibilities for advocacy that may arise as they creatively manage relations, while negotiating autonomy. In addition, as they often take up roles taken up by the state elsewhere, advocacy often cannot be seen separately from CSOs’ capacity development and policy implementation/service delivery activities. Their work may thus involve a much broader and fluid approach to advocacy than the influencing of decision-makers and the public. Organizations are often participants in change processes as much as external advocates influencing decision-makers. For example, Van Wessel et al. (2021) show how a CSO seeking to integrate teaching on gender-based violence in the school curriculum in the Central African Republic combined advocacy and service delivery, contributing to a change process involving many actors and stages of the process, including implementation. Influencing in a constraining context may thus require capacities to take up roles that address different dimensions of change processes, including e.g., coordination of multiple actors and policy implementation.

These capacities deserve to be acknowledged in development practice, recognizing the specific challenges CSOs in constrained contexts face as much as what it takes to work and perform in such contexts. Given the paucity of knowledge or even conversation on these capacities in the development sector, starting interaction on this within the sector, and research to support the development of conceptualizations of required skills and knowledge, would help to contextualize capacity and capacity development.

However, given the many legitimacy and effectiveness issues that may arise (with civil society possibly contributing to societal division and exclusion), donors and allies need to develop their capacities to analyze and assess the advocacy roles that CSOs can play in specific contexts.

4.3 Advocacy Strategies

Whereas advocacy manuals as well as academic literature on advocacy capacity focus on the standardized set of capacities listed in the introduction, the literature on advocacy in authoritarian/hybrid and fragile contexts suggests more complex ways of relating to actors in a context as important for success. Advocates need to relate to diverse power holders or relate in ways that overcome or circumvent constrictions, as research increasingly shows. So far, the field of practice hardly identifies or acknowledges these strategies, nor how and when to use them. A manual produced by Greenfield (2020), as said, is a notable exception, offering strategies for advocacy in restricted contexts. She discusses, for example, usage of alternative entry points that have influence with the public, such as religious leaders; coordinating with several CSOs to bring out a sensitive report to counter targeting of individual organizations; countering slander by building trusting relations with selected media outlets; and using the diaspora for spreading messages, mobilizing funds, and addressing domestic audiences when domestic CSOs cannot. But strategy also needs a broader conceptualization for constrained settings, and this has received little attention thus far. Building a legitimate position from which to influence appears to be a fundamental challenge in authoritarian/hybrid contexts. For example, Syal et al. (2021) describe how CSOs working in disaster management in India perceive opportunities to influence to grow within depoliticized roles supporting the government. It is through the trust built through collaboration in such roles that careful insertion of CSOs’ own agenda points (within limits) can be possible, interviewees in that study felt. Relatedly, Neuberger et al. (2021) approach legitimacy-building as an ongoing and central endeavor for the NGO in Egypt that they studied. It carefully strategizes through engaging contextually defined possibilities in a way that the authors call “optimal assimilation”, cloaking, being more assertive, and framing to fit regime aims to achieve its objectives while not losing legitimacy with the regime. This research illustrates the need to address much more systematically how choice of strategy affects autonomy in both types of settings discussed in this chapter. Making strategies and their implications for autonomy more explicit through research and discussion of these strategies in practitioner literature, will create more transparency as to what can come in with advocacy in constrained contexts. It will also facilitate engagement with normative questions that may emerge.

4.4 Risk Management

Advocacy in authoritarian/hybrid and fragile contexts involves risk management. Academic and practitioner literature thus far do identify these risks as such, but there is little attention to risk management, and thus little guidance on how to identify, mitigate, and respond to diverse types of risk is available. For illustration, a few domains needing attention may be mentioned here. For advancing organizational survival and the attainment of objectives, averting or promoting co-optation can be an important ongoing managerial task. Risks to autonomy are diverse, challenging organizational missions and integrity. Risks of delegitimization, legal prosecution, or shutdown require management of visibility, leveraging personal relations and information and data management. Protection against violence and other personal and organizational risks may require ongoing risk assessment, intelligence work, maneuvering around funds, and careful management of relations for protection and leverage. A rare illustration of this is provided by Li and Wang (2020), showing how Chinese environmental CSOs’ management of uncertainty about what action is permissible is key to risk management, and how they address this need through obtaining insider information from state officials. Much more research and practical engagement with questions around risk management in constrained contexts is needed to obtain fuller and more adequate understandings and approaches.

5 Conclusion

As research in fragile and authoritarian/hybrid contexts has begun to show, the advocacy roles CSOs can have, the capacities needed for that, the strategies that can work, and the management of risks, are all contextually defined in important ways. For specific actors, legitimacy is often under fire, and needs to be negotiated. Strategies are relational in highly complex and dynamic ways. Autonomy is relative, while risks abound. On top of this, important normative questions may emerge within these dynamics. While rooted in the actual practice of advocacy within fragile and authoritarian/hybrid settings, these insights have not found their way into the guidance of advocacy practice as developed in the context of INGO-administered and supported advocacy programming. This is a major lacuna. Many settings in which these international programs are carried out, are shaped by fragility and authoritarianism. Addressing the context specificity of advocacy roles, capacities, strategies, and risks is a matter of effectiveness, and clarity on normative standards. Additionally, rethinking contextuality in advocacy as suggested in this chapter would also contribute to epistemic justice in development—helping to produce practitioner advocacy guidelines that acknowledge and do justice to essential contextual knowledge that advocates working in specific contexts hold.