Southeast Asia Between Autocratization and Democratic Resurgence
In Southeast Asia, the coronavirus pandemic presents both challenges for civic engagement and opportunities for positive change. On one hand, the pandemic has provided a pretext for autocrats to tighten their grip on power, deepening existing regional trends in autocratization and shrinking civic space. On the other hand, civil society organizations (CSOs) have emerged to focus on economic and social welfare needs, and their activism may challenge autocrats in the long run.
Although some regimes have been effective in addressing the health emergency and nascent economic setbacks, others have performed poorly and faced growing domestic criticism. Southeast Asian civil society will need to leverage the weaknesses of autocratic governance that the pandemic has revealed by creating broad-based alliances, challenging autocratic narratives, and proposing democratic visions for post-pandemic societies.
Five trends are emerging in Southeast Asia as a result of the pandemic and are pushing in very different political directions: tougher government restrictions on CSOs, contentious civil society action, new mutual aid initiatives, organized relief efforts, and repurposed advocacy groups.
Tougher Government Restrictions
The spread of the coronavirus is potentially accelerating autocratization in the region as leaders in many countries have used the pandemic as a pretext to increase their power.1 All major Southeast Asian governments except Indonesia’s have imposed emergency decrees, curfews, or similar laws in light of the pandemic.2 This has helped consolidate effective government responses to the pandemic in countries such as Singapore and Vietnam, but such laws have also been used to crack down on government critics and undermine opposition parties, furthering authoritarian power grabs.
A worrying case occurred in the Philippines, where Congress, dominated by President Rodrigo Duterte’s loyalists, granted the president emergency powers under an act that also contained a provision penalizing fake news. This was widely seen as an instrument to go after opponents, and indeed, the National Bureau of Investigation pressed charges against online critics of the government’s crisis management.3 Similarly, in the middle of the pandemic, Congress passed a new antiterrorism law, which defines terrorism in such broad terms as to allow the government to classify political criticism as terrorism.4 In September 2020, Duterte extended the national “state of calamity” by a year.5
Things are not looking brighter in Thailand or Myanmar. The Thai military-backed government’s March 2020 emergency decree remains in place even though the threat of the coronavirus has been contained in the country.6 Along with other draconian laws, the decree has been used to charge anti-government protesters as young as sixteen years old and circumvent parliamentary checks on executive power.7 The decree has also limited the public backlash against allegations of the government’s involvement in human rights violations, including the forced disappearance of an exiled activist who was critical of the government.8
Myanmar’s quasi-civilian government has refrained from invoking a nationwide emergency but has arrested large numbers of people for disobedience. Journalists have likewise been prosecuted for alleged violations of pandemic-related regulations, and a group of street artists was charged with offending religion in their artwork about the coronavirus. Meanwhile, restrictions on meetings between CSOs and parliamentarians on grounds of health protection have further limited CSO advocacy for fundamental rights, reinforcing a trend that existed before the pandemic.9 After a spike in coronavirus infections, the Myanmar government imposed partial lockdowns in Rakhine state and the country’s largest city, Yangon, in late August and early September 2020, respectively. Myanmar’s State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi warned that disrespecting coronavirus regulations would be punished with up to a year’s imprisonment.10
Apart from emergency laws, existing media and cyber laws in most Southeast Asian countries have proved useful in silencing civic and democratic criticisms of governments’ pandemic responses. For instance, Indonesia’s 2008 law on electronic information and transactions was used against an independent researcher who was critical of the coronavirus measures taken by the government of President Joko Widodo.11
In Vietnam between January and March 2020, police responded to 654 cases of so-called fake news, sanctioning 146 people including a dissident publisher.12 In Singapore, the 2019 Protection From Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act has been used to target not only spreaders of fake news about the pandemic but also journalists and political rivals of the ruling People’s Action Party government. Eighty-five percent of all online posts defined as false under the law consisted of negative portrayals of the government’s activities or policies.13
In Malaysia, citizens have been arrested for what the government has branded fake news about the pandemic.14 For instance, through the 1998 Communications and Multimedia Act, the Malaysian police summoned a journalist who was questioning the government’s treatment of migrant workers amid the pandemic.15
The Cambodian regime tightened its grip on power by declaring a state of emergency in March 2020. Activists were detained on charges of spreading false information about the coronavirus, and the country’s prime minister directly threatened with arrest the leader of a local human rights nongovernmental organization (NGO) who had commented on the government’s crisis response.16 The allegation of spreading fake news also led to the arrests of key members of the opposition, a practice all too common since the Cambodian Supreme Court dissolved the main opposition party before the 2018 general election.17
Contentious Civil Society Action
The second trend contrasts with the first, as contentious civic activism has occurred despite and, at times, against draconian government restrictions. This activism has been driven mostly by economic and social welfare needs in conjunction with ensuing grievances against regimes. Most Southeast Asian countries rely on tourism and export industries. Without substantive compensation for workers, governments’ lockdown measures have aggravated the lot of the unemployed, who have sometimes responded by staging spontaneous protests. Regimes’ unsympathetic responses have stirred public anger.
For instance, in the Philippines, a small group of urban poor people affected by the Duterte government’s harsh lockdown protested in Manila to demand livelihood support. They were soon arrested, with Duterte calling on law enforcers to “shoot them dead” if they caused any “trouble.”18 CSOs such as the leftist Solidarity of Filipino Workers were quick to condemn the arrests.19 Meanwhile, rights groups and ordinary citizens tweeted their criticism with hashtags such as #DuterteResign and #OustDuterteNOW.20
In Myanmar, factory workers staged small-scale protests against the government’s pandemic-related measures, resulting in the legal prosecution of some workers.21 In May 2020, over thirty Cambodian and international NGOs issued a joint statement urging the Cambodian government to allow around 150 Cambodian migrant workers stranded in Malaysia to re-enter their home country.22 With growing job losses and layoffs, independent labor unions in Cambodia, Myanmar, and the Philippines have called on their respective governments to provide urgent compensation for workers.23
In Thailand, growing economic concerns due to lockdown measures have taken a new turn. Since mid-July 2020, young people, whose job prospects have dimmed and whose grievances over the country’s autocratization are deepening, have been leading nationwide protests against the regime. Students were already on the streets in February and early March 2020 after Thailand’s constitutional court disbanded a progressive party. Defiance against the regime diminished with the advent of the coronavirus and the subsequent lockdown but then resurfaced even more strongly. As of this writing, students—together with LGBTQ groups, labor movements, and development NGOs—have organized more than 200 protests across the country. One major event on September 19, 2020, gathered between 50,000 and 100,000 people—the biggest protest since Thailand’s 2014 military coup.24 In what has become one of the world’s most prominent revolts, protesters are demanding the prime minister’s resignation and democratic reform of the constitution and the monarchy. Corresponding to these three demands is a three-finger salute that protesters have taken from the movie series The Hunger Games as an anti-dictatorship symbol.25
Another type of contentious civil society action has countered problematic government narratives about the coronavirus and related government relief efforts. In several Southeast Asian countries, civil society activists and journalists have actively disputed government misinformation about the pandemic, for instance through online campaigns. In the Philippines, civil society activists have worked with the nonprofit media organization Vera Files in a fact-checking community on Facebook whose existence predates the pandemic. In Malaysia, civil society activists and media outlets such as the online magazine Malaysiakini have sought to hold the government accountable during the crisis and lobbied against government attempts to curtail online expression.26
New Mutual Aid Initiatives
New volunteer groups have emerged to provide humanitarian relief and welfare services in place of governments. These groups are not necessarily run by seasoned activists but often by local residents who have organized to cope with the health crisis, subsequent economic setbacks, and coronavirus-related lockdown measures.
A striking example is the citizen-organized task force of the village of Gumuk Indah in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, where the government’s responses to the pandemic have been slow and uncoordinated.27 The task force has provided health responses, including health education and hygiene measures, to prevent transmission of the virus; supported people affected by the lockdown with aid kits; and sought to counter the security impacts of the pandemic and associated lockdown measures. The task force has drawn on volunteers, some of whom were previously active in neighborhood associations and local community-building organizations. The example of Gumuk Indah has sparked discussions in the international humanitarian community of ways to include people-centered approaches in humanitarian programs better and, possibly, move from community engagement to community-led engagement.28
While in March 2020 the Indonesian authorities still downplayed the seriousness of the pandemic, professional groups were quick to respond. Tech start-ups launched crowdfunding campaigns to raise funds for informal-sector workers and buy personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers. By late March, around 15,000 medical students from 158 universities across Indonesia had volunteered in understaffed hospitals.29 The Women’s Police in West Java donated their already low salaries to buy food for affected residents.30
In Myanmar, CSOs, religious organizations, and local companies have provided food and other emergency supplies for the needy, filling gaps left by the state. In addition, Buddhist monks, religious leaders of the Muslim minority, and Christian churches have allowed their religious compounds to be used as quarantine centers.31 Similarly, in the Philippines, citizens have come together to make PPE for frontline health professionals, distributed food packs for the homeless, and made cash transfers to the unemployed.32 In Cambodia, diverse actors, including CSOs and business tycoons, have made donations to support the government’s efforts to counter the coronavirus.33
Organized CSO Relief Efforts
Organized CSOs have played critical roles in helping vulnerable communities. In Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam, charity groups were set up to raise funds to buy medical supplies and food for slum dwellers, disabled people, and migrant workers.34 Although these charities are not by nature advocacy organizations, some have urged the government to adopt more comprehensive social policies that aid economically and socially vulnerable people in times of crisis.35
In Malaysia, NGO relief efforts kick-started a renegotiation of NGO-government relations in the field of care for vulnerable migrant and refugee communities. The Movement Control Order, issued by the government to counter the spread of the coronavirus, initially barred NGO access to migrant and refugee populations, with the military and a paramilitary corps distributing all pandemic-related aid to these communities.36 But after NGOs launched a campaign called Let Us Work With You, the government adjusted the order to allow NGOs to distribute food and other emergency supplies to affected communities.37 Subsequent cooperation has improved relations between the government and some NGOs.38 Still, a recent study also shows that Malaysian CSOs that help vulnerable communities themselves face serious challenges in light of the pandemic, including financial shortages and the disruption of staff development due to economic uncertainties.39
In Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi’s government has for a long time been reluctant to cooperate with civil society and so far failed to provide adequate support for CSOs that work to counter the coronavirus pandemic.40 Yet, the country’s CSOs play important roles in mitigating the social and economic impacts of the coronavirus and have engaged in critical advocacy to influence the government’s response to the health crisis.
For instance, the Livelihoods and Food Security Fund, a multidonor fund managed by the United Nations Office for Project Services, estimates that over 80 percent of its coronavirus response activities are conducted by its local partners, with local CSOs engaging in relief efforts as different as welfare and health service delivery, education, awareness training, and the provision of legal assistance to migrant workers.41 In May 2020, over 200 CSOs from diverse professional and ethnic backgrounds issued a joint statement in which they urged Myanmar’s government to provide food and financial support for people in need; advocated respect for human rights, democracy, and social justice in the government’s crisis response; and demanded an end to armed conflict in ethnic areas.42
Repurposed Advocacy Groups for Welfare Delivery
Finally, advocacy groups that repurpose their agendas for social and economic welfare activities have been able to leverage the health crisis to carve out a new civic space, counter regimes’ narratives, and generate progressive social visions for the post-coronavirus context. In Thailand, student activists who launched anti-junta campaigns before the pandemic have partly shifted to humanitarian work by distributing food packs to the unemployed, slum dwellers, and affected sex workers.43 Meanwhile in Myanmar, some ethnic minority activists have reoriented themselves from human rights campaigns to health advocacy and service provision, including by distributing food and other basic goods in remote areas.44
Challenging Duterte’s militaristic framing of the fight against the pandemic, Filipino human rights groups such as Active Vista have refocused their activities to link human rights with equal access to public health. These groups hope to reshape human rights discourses in terms of “people working together out of generosity to achieve a common goal” and “a shared sense of identity and treating others with respect and dignity as [equals].”45
A similar trend has occurred in Singapore, where xenophobic rhetoric against migrant workers has surged in light of the country’s second coronavirus wave. An outspoken LGBTQ movement, Pink Dot, has extended its support to migrant workers by raising funds for, and delivering care packages to, many of those who were trapped in dormitories because of coronavirus restrictions. Based on the informal modes of activism the movement has developed, Pink Dot has organized online activities such as livestreamed performances and interactive discussions. On June 27, 2020, the movement invited supporters to light up their homes and workplaces in pink and share pictures of small gatherings with close ones. These activities sent a message of solidarity between Singaporeans and migrant workers, countered xenophobic attitudes toward migrants, and, most importantly, ignited conversations about social justice in post-pandemic Singapore.46
Harnessing Opportunities
It is clear that the coronavirus pandemic is reinforcing an existing trend of autocratization in Southeast Asia and that this trend will persist in the short to medium term. This will have detrimental effects on contentious antiregime activism, although it remains to be seen whether Thailand’s high-profile, ongoing protests will yield substantive outcomes in the coming months. All Southeast Asian regimes have imposed severe legal or de facto restrictions on civil liberties, preventing the development of strong, civil society–based opposition movements. However, increasing social engagement in the context of the health crisis seems to be enlarging civic space in the area of social service provision. This engagement may have the potential to strengthen links between national and international civil society as well as between formally organized CSOs and informal, community-based groups in individual Southeast Asian countries.
This new dynamic of civic activism in the welfare sector does little to alter the autocratizing trend in the region. However, improved relations between organized CSOs and local communities may, in the long term, contribute to creating a more legitimate and organic civil society in many Southeast Asian countries. Thus, new and reorienting civic groups with socioeconomic welfare agendas may slowly gather the political force necessary to resist autocratization.
For this to happen, politically contentious civic groups will need to form alliances with welfare-based groups that are gaining traction among local communities. Human rights and pro-democracy advocacy organizations will need to connect their political agendas with issues of citizens’ welfare, including healthcare and economic redistribution. Civic coalitions must counter regime narratives that depict authoritarian leadership as a success factor for an effective crisis response. In Singapore and Vietnam, where governments have responded swiftly and effectively to the pandemic, such narratives are difficult to crack. However, in Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Thailand, where governments have often failed to meet citizens’ expectations, CSOs may well be able to challenge regime narratives about authoritarian effectiveness. And finally, the pandemic should push Southeast Asian civil society to develop more appealing visions of democracy that leave no one behind in the post-pandemic world.
Notes
1 Autocratization has been defined as a “substantial de-facto decline of core institutional requirements for electoral democracy” that can take place in both democratic and nondemocratic regimes. Anna Lührmann and Staffan Lindberg, “A Third Wave of Autocratization Is Here: What Is New About It?,” Democratization 26, no. 7 (2019): 1096, 1099.
2 James Gomez and Robin Ramcharan, “Coronavirus and Democracy in Southeast Asia,” Bangkok Post, April 1, 2020, https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/1890655/coronavirus-and-democracy-in-southeast-asia. For a comprehensive list of laws implemented in Southeast Asia in light of the pandemic, see “COVID-19 Civic Freedom Tracker,” International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, https://www.icnl.org/covid19tracker/.
3 Jason Castaneda, “Why Duterte Wants to Extend His COVID-19 Emergency,” Asia Times, June 9, 2020, https://asiatimes.com/2020/06/why-duterte-wants-to-extend-his-COVID-19-emergency/; Mariejo S. Ramos, “Rights Groups Wary as NBI Summons 17 for ‘Fake News,’” Inquirer, April 4, 2020, https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1253684/rights-groups-wary-as-nbi-summons-17-for-fake-news.
4 Nick Aspinwall, “The Philippines’ Broad Anti-Terrorism Law Takes Aim at Dissent,” Diplomat, June 5, 2020, https://thediplomat.com/2020/06/the-philippines-broad-anti-terrorism-law-takes-aim-at-dissent/.
5 Pia Ranada, “Duterte Extends State of Calamity Due to Coronavirus Until September 2021,” Rappler, September 18, 2020, https://rappler.com/nation/duterte-extends-state-of-calamity-due-to-coronavirus-until-september-2021.
6 “State of Emergency Extended Until End of July,” Nation, June 29, 2020, https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30390469.
7 Sunai Phasuk, “Thai Activist Arrested on COVID-19 Pretext,” Human Rights Watch, May 15, 2020, https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/05/16/thai-activist-arrested-COVID-19-pretext; “Chiang Rai Students Summoned for Violating Emergency Decree,” Post Today, July 21, 2020, https://www.posttoday.com/social/local/40326; Shawn W. Crispin, “COVID-19 Gives Prayut New Political Life in Thailand,” Asia Times, July 3, 2020, https://asiatimes.com/2020/07/COVID-19-gives-prayut-new-political-life-in-thailand.
8 George Wright and Issariya Praithongyaem, “Wanchalearm Satsaksit: The Thai Satirist Abducted in Broad Daylight,” BBC, July 2, 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia-53212932.
9 RSF Hub, “Covid-19 in Myanmar: Effects of the Pandemic on the Rule of Law,” Rule of Law Promotion in Times of Covid-19, no. 4, June 2020, https://www.polsoz.fu-berlin.de/polwiss/forschung/international/atasp/forschung/projekte_laufende/RSF-Hub/RSF-Hub-CP_4-Impacts-of-Covid-19-in-Myanmar.pdf.
10 Zaw Zaw Htwe, “Myanmar’s COVID-19 Cases Exceed 1,000,” Irrawaddy, September 3, 2020, https://www.irrawaddy.com/specials/myanmar-covid-19/myanmars-covid-19-cases-exceed-1000.html.
11 Ary Hermawan, “The Curious Case of Ravio Patra: Why Indonesian Cyberspace Is a Dystopian Nightmare,” Jakarta Post, April 24, 2020, https://www.thejakartapost.com/academia/2020/04/24/the-curious-case-of-ravio-patra-why-indonesian-cyberspace-is-a-dystopian-nightmare.html.
12 David Hutt, “Some Thoughts on Vietnam’s COVID-19 Repression,” Asia Times, May 22, 2020, https://asiatimes.com/2020/05/some-thoughts-on-vietnams-COVID-19-repression/.
13 Paul Meyer, “Singapore’s First Election Under the Fake News Law,” Diplomat, July 7, 2020, https://thediplomat.com/2020/07/singapores-first-election-under-the-fake-news-law/.
14 Felix Bethke and Jonas Wolff, “COVID-19 as a Threat to Civic Spaces Around the World,” PRIF Blog, Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, April 1, 2020, https://blog.prif.org/2020/04/01/COVID-19-as-a-threat-to-civic-spaces-around-the-world/.
15 Hadi Azmi, “Malaysian Police Question Reporter Over Tweets About Migrant Roundup,” Benar News, May 6, 2020, https://www.benarnews.org/english/news/malaysian/journalist-questioned-05062020163143.html.
16 “Cambodia: Rights Groups Concern Over Arrests & Harassment of Activists During the Covid-19 Pandemic,” Business & Human Rights Resource Center, April 3, 2020, https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/cambodia-rights-group-concerns-over-arrests-harassment-of-activists-amid-the-covid-19-pandemic-measures/.
17 “Cambodia: COVID-19 Clampdown on Free Speech,” Human Rights Watch, March 24, 2020, https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/03/24/cambodia-COVID-19-clampdown-free-speech.
18 Sofia Tomacruz, “‘Shoot Them Dead’: Duterte Orders Troops to Kill Quarantine Violators,” Rappler, April 1, 2020, https://www.rappler.com/nation/256705-duterte-orders-troops-shoot-kill-coronavirus-quarantine-violators.
19 Rambo Talabong, “Quezon City Residents Demanding Help Amid Lockdown Arrested by Police,” Rappler, April 1, 2020, https://www.rappler.com/nation/256628-residents-quezon-city-protesting-help-coronavirus-lockdown-arrested-by-police-april-1-2020.
20 Lynzy Billing, “Duterte’s Response to the Coronavirus: ‘Shoot Them Dead,’” Foreign Policy, April 16, 2020, https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/16/duterte-philippines-coronavirus-response-shoot-them-dead/.
21 RSF Hub, “Covid-19 in Myanmar.”
22 “Joint Statement on Repatriation of Cambodia Nationals to Cambodia,” Human Rights Watch, May 29, 2020, https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/05/29/joint-statement-repatriation-cambodia-nationals-cambodia.
23 “South East Asian Unions Turn Online to Defend Workers’ Rights,” IndustriALL Global Union, May 12, 2020, http://www.industriall-union.org/south-east-asian-unions-turn-online-to-defend-workers-rights.
24 “19 September Demonstrations,” BBC, September 20, 2020, https://www.bbc.com/thai/thailand-54217719.
25 Janjira Sombatpoonsiri, “Thailand’s Anti-Establishment Protests,” International Politics and Society, August 31, 2020, https://www.ips-journal.eu/regions/asia/article/show/thailands-anti-establishment-protests-4604/.
26 “Stronger Alliance of Civil Society and Media in Asia Called to Fight Infodemic,” Digital Thinkers Forum/CoFact Thailand, April 16, 2020, https://www.freiheit.org/stronger-alliance-civil-society-and-media-asia-called-fight-infodemic.
27 Sana Jaffrey, “Coronavirus Blunders in Indonesia Turn Crisis Into Catastrophe,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, April 29, 2020, https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/04/29/coronavirus-blunders-in-indonesia-turn-crisis-into-catastrophe-pub-81684.
28 “Fighting COVID-19 in Indonesia / Melawan COVID-19 di Indonesia,” Sphere webinar, June 25, 2020, recording available at https://spherestandards.org/wp-content/uploads/COVID19-WEBINAR-INDONESIA.mp4.
29 Ghina Ghaliya, “Medical Students Ready to Join Fight Against COVID-19,” Jakarta Post, March 27, 2020, https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/03/27/15000-medical-students-ready-to-join-fight-against-COVID-19-house.html.
30 Renne R. A. Kawilarang and Zahrul Darmawan, “Polwan di Depok Sumbang Gaji Bantu Warga Miskin,” Vivanews, April 24, 2020, https://www.vivanews.com/berita/metro/46588-polwan-di-depok-sumbang-gaji-bantu-warga-miskin.
31 Kyi Kiy Sein, “The Coronavirus Challenges Myanmar’s Transition,” United States Institute for Peace, March 26, 2020, https://www.usip.org/publications/2020/05/coronavirus-challenges-myanmars-transition.
32 Filomin Gutierrez, “Solidarity and Sharing in an Unequal Society: COVID-19 in the Philippines,” openDemocracy, May 2, 2020, https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/democraciaabierta/solidarity-and-sharing-unequal-society-COVID-19-philippines/.
33 Kimkong Heng and Len Ang, “Who’s Helping Cambodia Weather COVID-19?,” Diplomat, July 8, 2020, https://thediplomat.com/2020/07/whos-helping-cambodia-weather-COVID-19/.
34 Kornkamol Sriwiwat, “X-Ray Thailand: On the Day We Say We Would Leave No One Behind,” 101, May 20, 2020, https://www.the101.world/living-with-covid-3/; “COVID-19: Impact on Migrant Workers and Country Response in Malaysia,” International Labor Organization, May 8, 2020, https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/ groups/public/---asia/---ro-bangkok/documents/briefingnote/wcms_741512.pdf; Tania Nguyen, “Realising Rice and Rights: The Role of Civil Society in Realising the Right to Food in Vietnam During the COVID-19,” SHAPESEA, April 17, 2020, https://shapesea.com/op-ed/COVID-19/realising-rice-and-rights-the-role-of-civil-society-in-realising-the-right-to-food-in-vietnam-during-the-COVID-19/.
35 “Civil Society Suggest State Aid for Everyone,” Thai News Agency, June 4, 2020, https://www.mcot.net/viewtna/5ed89cdfe3f8e40af844cfdd.
36 R. Loheswar, “Send Food for Homeless to District Collection Centres, RELA and Army Will Disburse, Defence Minister Tells NGOs,” Mail Malaysia, March 28, 2020, https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2020/03/28/send-food-for-homeless-to-district-collection-centres-rela-and-army-will-di/1851112; Natalie Shobana Ambrose, “Malaysia’s Marginalized and COVID-19,” Asia Foundation, May 13, 2020, https://asiafoundation.org/2020/05/13/malaysias-marginalized-and-COVID-19/.
37 Grace Chen, “JKM’s New Guidelines Allow NGOs to Distribute Food to Needy Folk,” Star, April 2, 2020, https://www.thestar.com.my/metro/metro-news/2020/04/02/jkms-new-guidelines-allow-ngos-to-distribute-food-to-needy-folk.
38 Ambrose, “Malaysia’s Marginalized.”
39 “Survey Report: Impact of COVID-19 on Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in Malaysia,” Yayasan Hasanah Foundation, 2020, https://caps.org/doing-good/survey-report-impact-covid-19-civil-society-organisations-csos-malaysia/.
40 Authors’ email and phone conversations with experts, July 2020.
41 Thu Thu Nwe Hlaing, “No COVID-19 Response Is Possible Without Civil Society Involvement,” Livelihoods and Food Security Fund, June 16, 2020, https://www.lift-fund.org/blog/no-covid-19-response-possible-without-civil-society-involvement.
42 “Myanmar Civil Society Organizations and Networks Urge the Myanmar Government and Other Relevant Stakeholders to Take Urgent Measures During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” Transnational Institute, May 28, 2020, https://www.tni.org/files/article-downloads/cso_leaders_covid-19_urgent_statement_english.pdf.
43 Duanpen Chuipracha, “Netiwit and #SongTorKwamImm: Sharing Campaigns for Mutual Survival,” A Day, May 20, 2020, https://adaymagazine.com/food-sharing-project/.
44 Maggi Quadrini, “Civil Society Grapples With COVID-19 Impact in Myanmar’s Ethnic Areas,” Myanmar Mix, May 4, 2020, https://www.myanmarmix.com/en/articles/civil-society-grapples-with-COVID-19-impact-in-myanmars-ethnic-areas.
45 James Savage, “How Civil Society Is Fighting Back Against Coronavirus Crackdowns,” OpenDemocracy, June 24, 2020, https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/how-civil-society-fighting-back-against-coronavirus-crackdowns/.
46 Lynn Ng Yu Ling, “What Does the COVID-19 Pandemic Mean for PinkDot Singapore?,” Interface 12, no. 1 (2020): 72–81, https://www.interfacejournal.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Interface-12-1-Ng.pdf.
Watchdogs and Partners: Taiwan’s Civil Society Organizations
Taiwan adopted a widely acclaimed, successful strategy to cope with the coronavirus pandemic. This tempered criticism from civil society organizations (CSOs). Unlike in most other countries covered in this compilation, in Taiwan the pandemic did not trigger a major political crisis or polarization in civil society. Nevertheless, Taiwanese civic activists have engaged strongly to make sure the government respects fundamental rights in its responses to the coronavirus. On several specific issues, this has involved heightened civic mobilization during the pandemic.
A Success Story
Despite its geographic proximity to China and high flows of travelers to and from the mainland, the island nation of 23.7 million people had recorded only around 500 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and seven related deaths as of mid-September 2020.1 Because of rigorous preventive measures, Taiwan’s residents did not experience lockdowns or stay-at-home orders, and most commercial and civil activity went on as usual. While the world’s economy plunged, Taiwan’s gross domestic product has continued to grow in 2020.
In April, as Western countries began to experience rapid spikes in infections, Taiwan launched an international aid campaign, branded online with the hashtag #Taiwancanhelp, and donated face masks and medical supplies to countries in need. The campaign garnered significant attention, raising Taiwan’s profile as an international actor during the pandemic and effectively neutralizing attempts by China and the World Health Organization to isolate the nation. Taiwan’s success has broader implications: a democracy that honors information transparency can generate effective responses to the health crisis without resorting to draconian measures, and citizens are voluntarily complying with the government’s directives without giving up their rights and liberties.
There are several ingredients in Taiwan’s successful recipe for responding to the pandemic. The government adopted early and proactive measures, such as travel bans and border screenings, to prevent the virus from entering the island. After its experience with the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), a disease caused by an earlier coronavirus that came from China, Taiwan already had legal and physical frameworks in place for responding to a public health crisis. Once news of COVID-19 broke, Taiwan’s government leaders activated the Central Epidemic Command Center on January 21, 2020, two days before a lockdown was imposed in Wuhan, China.2 Taiwan’s public healthcare system, National Health Insurance, played a critical role in this emergency. It provided universal protection for citizens and residents, and the system’s database and pharmacy networks were vital in distributing rationed face masks.3
Taiwan’s strong machinery industry was a valuable asset in helping to combat shortages of medical masks, goggles, and protective clothing. Before the outbreak, Taiwan relied heavily on imports of masks, but with concerted action by officials and industries at the outset of the pandemic, Taiwan quickly set up new manufacturing lines that dramatically increased the daily production of masks. With this, Taiwan became the world’s second-largest producer of face masks, not only achieving self-sufficiency but also producing a surplus for international aid and export.
Finally, due to its previous experience of contagious diseases, particularly SARS, the Taiwanese public generally embraces a hygienic lifestyle. Hand washing before meals is rigorously promoted in kindergartens and elementary schools, and hand sanitizers are commonly available at the entrances to public buildings. Wearing a face mask does not carry an unwelcome stigma but is seen as a considerate gesture to protect one another’s health. Adherence to government guidelines on quarantine, physical distancing, and the compulsory wearing of masks is generally seen as a civic virtue and duty.4
On January 11, 2020, Taiwan held presidential and legislative elections, which yielded landslide victories to the incumbent, independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). President Tsai Ing-wen won a second term, and her party maintained its legislative majority. If the elections had taken place after the coronavirus outbreak, politics could have prevented coordinated responses. And if the China-friendly opposition Kuomintang party had won the elections, government officials might have been reluctant to issue timely travel restrictions and regulations for passengers entering Taiwan from China.
What is more, the winning DPP government boasted public health specialists among its top brass. Former Taiwanese vice president Chen Chien-jen is a leading epidemiologist with hands-on experience in the SARS crisis, and Chen Chi-mai, a former vice premier, has a background in preventive medicine. These specialists were instrumental to the government’s ability to craft a robust package of responses.
Taiwan’s civil society, however, did not have to play a prominent role in the nation’s crisis response, simply because the government reacted preemptively and generated creditable results. It is sobering to see that many affluent democracies have failed to deliver sufficient personal protective equipment to frontline medical workers and that charities and other CSOs have had to take care of these basic provisions instead. While some democratically elected leaders have flouted the expertise of scientific communities and promoted contradictory and inconsistent messages, Taiwanese civil society has been spared the thankless task of correcting misinformation and disseminating scientific knowledge about personal hygiene.
The trend of civil society repurposing itself to fulfill urgent needs is absent in Taiwan.5 Yet, Taiwan’s civil society is not lying dormant in the ongoing health crisis. It has closely monitored the government’s coronavirus policies and decrees to make sure that these temporary measures do not violate the fundamental principles of democracy and human rights or unnecessarily marginalize vulnerable groups. And Taiwanese civil society has collaborated with government agencies to ensure citizens receive undistorted information and rationed face masks. In short, Taiwan’s civil society remains active simultaneously as a watchdog to, and a partner of, the government.
Monitoring Government Responses
With its stellar management of the coronavirus emergency, the DPP government is enjoying high public approval—an unusual phenomenon for a second-term presidency. In a June 2020 poll, 97 percent of respondents assessed the Taiwanese government’s response positively, while 80 percent judged the Chinese government’s performance negatively.6 Chen Shih-chung, Taiwan’s emergency commander in chief and minister of health and welfare, emerged as a household name and Taiwan’s most popular politician, receiving a startling approval rating of 94 percent in a May 2020 opinion poll.7
By contrast, those critical of the government’s policies have been met with a public backlash. The Kuomintang party’s approval rating has continued to nosedive since its electoral setback in January. One of the reasons for the slump is that opposition politicians are perceived to have politicized the government’s responses to the coronavirus, from banning exports of face masks in January to rationing them in February to donating them internationally in April.
Taiwan’s advocacy groups have stepped up their watchdog functions. The groups have been largely free from short-term political considerations because their missions are inspired by universal values or commitments to underprivileged groups. One concern of advocacy groups has been the pervasive use of digital technology by authorities to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. In a health emergency, Taiwan’s laws allow the government to link databases of immigration, household registration, and national health insurance to improve the surveillance of individuals with suspected travel and contact histories.
The government also accessed the global positioning system information of mobile network operators and sent text messages to people who might have been in the same place at the same time as those who were reported to be infected with the coronavirus.8 The government enforced a strict fourteen-day quarantine order for people who had recently returned from abroad and those who were permitted to enter Taiwan. These people were put on a rather intrusive scheme of electronic surveillance by a mandated use of government-issued SIM cards in their cell phones.
While many officials appeared complacent about these new digital tools and their efficacy, CSOs such as the Taiwan Association for Human Rights expressed grave concern about the pernicious implications of suspending privacy protections in favor of tracing the spread of the virus. Such human rights advocates have issued many statements to remind the Taiwanese government that temporary measures need to be proportionate and terminated in due course and that collected personal data must be properly disposed of after the pandemic.
Another concern flagged by civil society was that an existing law authorized the government to reveal, if necessary, the personal information of those who had violated a quarantine order. Taiwan’s human rights activists urged the government not to invoke this emergency authorization. Many feared that these reinforced measures of surveillance might become permanent features, because they had popular support and were perceived as necessary for safeguarding public health.
In February 2020, several illegal migrant workers were found to be infected with the coronavirus, which quickly generated a nationwide wave of nervousness. Many migrants had either stayed beyond their permitted period or changed employer without due process during the pandemic. Taiwan’s civil society activists and academics urged the government not to stigmatize these illegal migrants or escalate deportation measures, because, the activists argued, such steps would be counterproductive by driving the migrants further into hiding.9 Taiwan’s health officials took heed and formally promised not to take further action against illegal migrant workers.
Because the job of sex workers involves intimate contact with customers, the government ordered the immediate suspension of related businesses, such as karaoke clubs and dancing halls. The decree brought about acute economic distress to many sex workers and their coworkers because of the lack of cash income. Feminist scholars and women’s rights groups argued that the order was disproportionate and discriminatory, pointing out that confirmed cases in universities, hospitals, accounting firms, and other workplaces outside the sex industry were not shut down and were treated differently. In June, the restrictions were lifted, although it remained unclear whether CSOs’ criticisms had been influential.
Some activism and protests erupted around Taiwanese-Chinese family links. Affected family members took the lead in organizing these protests, and their voices were amplified with the endorsement of Kuomintang politicians. In what became a controversial move, certain Chinese nationals with kinship ties to Taiwan were forbidden from entering the island from late January 2020 onward. The DPP government initially attempted to lift the ban in late February, but an outpouring of negative opinion brought about a policy U-turn. Protests by the affected families followed, and the ban was finally lifted in mid-July.
Collaborating for Disease Prevention
Clarity and accuracy of information about the pandemic has been another focus of emergent civic activism. In Taiwan’s experience, transparent information has been necessary to maintain citizens’ trust in the government’s emergency responses. One of the reasons for Chen Shih-chung’s surging popularity is that he held daily press conferences over one hundred consecutive days. In this period, tuning in to his daily announcements became an everyday routine that helped people manage their anxieties. Chen was not a charismatic speaker, but his willingness and patience to answer all the reporters’ questions, including some patently hostile and misinformed ones, made him an effective political communicator during the crisis.
However, despite officials’ commitment to transparency, rumors and fears were bound to circulate in the present age of disinformation. Starting in February, news that purported to reveal mass deaths in Taiwan began to spread on several online platforms. Lurid and untrue information, such as a claim that mass graves had been dug in many places to bury the dead hastily, went viral. Additionally, unfounded conspiracy theories were abundant, for example that officials kept a secret stash of face masks from which to profiteer during nationwide rationing. Many of these rumors were found to have been generated by online chatbots based in China and deliberately spread by pro-China collaborators based in Taiwan.
As Western countries later experienced, China’s propaganda machine was at full throttle, even when the coronavirus was killing thousands of people on a daily basis. In response, the Taiwan FactCheck Center (TFC), a nonprofit set up by communication scholars and activist journalists, launched a project to monitor coordinated inauthentic behaviors in cyberspace and respond with fact-checked clarifications. TFC attempted to cultivate digital media literacy so that users were less likely to be misinformed. TFC also collaborated with Facebook, and as a result, more than sixty accounts were taken down because of their role in spreading coronavirus-related disinformation.10
Another area of partnership between the government and civil society focused on providing information about the distribution of face masks when the government began to ration them in February 2020. G0v, an open-source platform for digital activists and programmers, worked with the government to design several free cell phone apps that gave real-time information about the locations of face mask distribution centers and stocks of masks so that citizens could find and buy their rations. This collaboration was made possible by Taiwanese Digital Minister Audrey Tang, a former Silicon Valley entrepreneur and a pioneer of Taiwan’s civic technology. It was due to her intervention that software engineers could access the government’s database and build accessible platforms for cell phone users.
Conclusion
The worldwide coronavirus pandemic is far from over, and Taiwan’s achievement in containing the virus remains precarious at best. Yet, Taiwanese civil society has been an integral part of the country’s effective strategy for dealing with the unprecedented health crisis and is an often-ignored source of the island nation’s resilience.
CSOs can assume different roles vis-à-vis the government. They can scrutinize the executive’s policies and raise red flags when those policies have consequences in the form of human rights violations or discrimination. Alternatively, CSOs can enter into partnership with the government to improve legislative measures. Whether Taiwan’s civic activism can maintain these two sources of vitality and resourcefulness remains to be seen for the post-pandemic era.
The coronavirus pandemic has exposed democracies’ vulnerabilities across the globe. Many popularly elected leaders have either ignored scientific expertise or hesitated to implement necessary but unpopular preventive measures for political reasons. Unfortunately, the universal guarantee of citizens’ rights has often been abused for frivolous lawsuits, divisive protests, or the spread of inauthentic information, which all stand in the way of a coordinated response to the health emergency. In the spring of 2020, China promoted the narrative that its decisive yet draconian lockdown in Wuhan province was instrumental in flattening the curve of contagion. Yet, Beijing’s claim was met with universal skepticism because it was precisely the dictatorial regime’s lack of transparency that had led to the global spread of the virus.
Authoritarianism is emphatically not a solution to the common threats that confront human beings, be they climate change or the coronavirus pandemic. In this regard, Taiwan’s success story stands out as a vindication of democracy. Democratically elected leaders are obliged to abide by the norm of transparency so that official figures are unlikely to be doctored. What is more, a vibrant civil society can thrive only in an environment that fully respects human rights and the rule of law. As such, while robust and timely government responses make up the necessary frontline defense against the coronavirus, CSO efforts embody the resilience that can sustain a democratic nation over the longer term.
Notes
1 Paula Hancocks, “Taiwan Led the World in Closing Down for Covid-19, Now It Wants to Do the Same With Opening Back Up,” CNN, September 22, 2020, https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/21/asia/taiwan-model-coronavirus-hnk-intl/index.html.
2 C. Jason Wang et al., “Response to COVID-19 in Taiwan: Big Data Analytics, New Technology, and Proactive Testing,” Journal of the American Medical Association 323, no. 14 (2020): 1341–1342, https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762689.
3 Ya-wen Lei, “National Health Insurance, Health Policy, and Infection Control: Insights From Taiwan,” Contexts Magazine: Sociology for the Public, March 25, 2020, https://bit.ly/2C6KM99.
4 Ming‑Cheng Lo and Hsin‑Yi Hsieh, “The ‘Societalization’ of Pandemic Unpreparedness: Lessons From Taiwan’s COVID Response,” American Journal of Cultural Sociology, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1057/s41290-020-00113-y.
5 Saskia Brechenmacher, Thomas Carothers, and Richard Youngs, “Civil Society and the Coronavirus: Dynamism Despite Disruption,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, April 21, 2020, https://bit.ly/2DeeM3z.
6 Radio Taiwan International, June 2, 2020, https://bit.ly/2DbVKux.
7 Newtalk, May 13, 2020, https://bit.ly/3e2ZGe2.
8 Chi-Mai Chen et al., “Containing COVID-19 Among 627,386 Persons in Contact With the Diamond Princess Cruise Ship Passengers Who Disembarked in Taiwan: Big Data Analytics,” Journal of Medical Internet Research 22, no. 5 (2020): 1–9, https://www.jmir.org/2020/5/e19540/.
9 Ming-cheng Lo, “Taiwan’s State and Its Lessons for Effective Epidemic Intervention,” Contexts Magazine: Sociology for the Public, March 25, 2020, https://bit.ly/2C6KM99.
10 Yi-ting Lien, “Why China’s COVID-19 Disinformation Campaign Isn’t Working in Taiwan,” Diplomat, March 20, 2020, https://bit.ly/3e53yLm.
Confrontation Versus Cooperation in Polish and Romanian Civil Society
Two European Union (EU) member states, Poland and Romania, show not only the importance of the civil society dimension of the coronavirus pandemic but also the ways in which civic responses have differed markedly across countries. In Poland, the pandemic has sharpened tensions and hostilities between the government and civil society organizations (CSOs). Polish CSOs have mobilized around the pandemic, but the government has failed to channel this energy into coordinated efforts, exacerbating social conflicts and deepening an existing rift with civil society. In contrast, in Romania the government and CSOs have worked together in a more cooperative fashion to mitigate the impacts of the coronavirus.
The pandemic has had equally important but contrasting effects on civil society in these two countries. In turn, CSO actions have differed, becoming more partnership oriented in Romania but more critical in Poland.
Poland: Sharpened Confrontation
The coronavirus has deepened mistrust between the Polish government and CSOs. Instead of treating civic actors as partners and allies, the government in Warsaw has aggravated existing tensions and created new ones. The pandemic seems to have made the right-wing Law and Justice government more determined to deepen the rift that separates it from large segments of civil society. While in some countries the pandemic has been an impulse to enhance cooperation between state and civic actors, the Polish government has not only escalated tensions with civil society but also, in some cases, deliberately started new conflicts to consolidate its power.
The pandemic has been a catalyst for a great deal of new civic activism. According to a survey by the Klon/Jawor Association, a nongovernmental organization, 32 percent of Polish CSOs started new activities in response to the pandemic and another 17 percent were planning such activities.1 New forms of assistance and activism have ranged from organizing social and information campaigns and helping people in high-risk groups to assisting medical workers and producing face masks. Only 4 percent of organizations that took on new and creative ways of dealing with the health crisis have partnered with the government or other state institutions.
Given the unprecedented nature of the challenge, the state and civil society might have been expected to form national and local cooperative networks to deal with the crisis. But such partnerships have been few and far between. The situation is slightly different, however, at the local level. There, many of the CSOs that actively seek to help vulnerable citizens or exposed professionals have worked with local authorities. This difference between the national and the local level is deeply political, as it reflects mistrust between CSOs and the central government that predates the pandemic.
When Law and Justice came to power in 2015 after eight years in opposition, reshaping the landscape of Polish civil society quickly became part of its agenda. The government did not openly say it was intent on suppressing civic activities but claimed it wanted a balance between different types of CSOs. The main proponent of this rebalancing was Piotr Gliński, who, as newly appointed minister of culture, initiated the creation of the National Freedom Institute—Center for the Development of Civil Society (NIW-CSO). This new institution was tasked with taking over the financing of existing civic activities in various ministries and developing new activities. The institution received a significantly larger budget than those of earlier, separate programs, benefiting Polish civic organizations.
NIW-CSO’s main goal was to enhance the capacities of organizations that worked outside large urban centers and lacked sufficient funds to secure their long-term activities. The aim was allegedly a de-oligarchization of the Polish third sector, even though the percentage of funds administered by large Polish CSOs is very similar to that in other countries with a robust civic life: in Poland in 2018, 74 percent of funds were governed by 4 percent of the biggest CSOs, while in the United Kingdom, 74 percent of funds were managed by 3 percent of the largest organizations.2
The Polish government’s somewhat misguided justification for reforming the third sector would not have been so detrimental to its pre-pandemic image in the eyes of many CSOs if it had not been accompanied by a smear campaign in state-controlled public media. This campaign targeted some organizations that criticized Law and Justice’s reforms for undermining the independence of the judiciary or cutting public funds for organizations that help groups deemed by the government to be unwelcome or potentially dangerous, such as refugees or LGBTQ individuals. Moreover, in some cases, public funds were provided to organizations that lacked necessary experience but were ideologically close to the government; such practices did not go unnoticed by Polish civil society and exacerbated mistrust toward central authorities.
When the coronavirus broke out in Europe, after some initial foot-dragging, in mid-March the Polish government imposed a lockdown and physical distancing measures. Trust in the Polish healthcare system is very low in comparison with other EU countries. According to the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound), an EU agency, the average level of trust in the Polish healthcare system, on a seven-point scale in which 7 is the highest, is 4.1. That is below the EU average of 6.4 and places Poland among three EU countries whose citizens are the most distrustful of their healthcare systems.3
Given this widespread belief that Poland’s medical services are inadequate, it did not come as a surprise that most Poles accepted a severe lockdown and physical distancing measures. A fear of becoming infected with the coronavirus was accompanied by a well-grounded belief that if the number of infections exceeded a certain level, the healthcare system would not be able to cope and might collapse.
CSOs were aware of the dire situation and started new initiatives to compensate for this lack of trust in government-run medical responses. They repurposed many of their activities to help medical professionals in their daily efforts to contain the pandemic. These new activities took many different forms, from delivering hot meals to hospitals to crowdfunding for protective gear. These actions were usually spontaneous and were rarely coordinated with the central government.
The government responded with further attacks on civil liberties. Tensions reflected not only an existing legacy of mistrust but also the harsh way in which the government treated medics who had pointed out the unpreparedness of the Polish healthcare system to deal with the pandemic. There were disciplinary dismissals of healthcare workers who had spoken out about bad conditions in their institutions; hospital directors forbade doctors from talking to the media; and the health ministry officially obliged its regional consultants not to comment in public on the epidemiological situation.4 Instead of treating whistleblowers as allies who were working to close loopholes in healthcare systems and effectively contain the coronavirus, the government treated them as disloyal, further discouraging civil society from cooperating with the authorities.
Building on these tensions, the government sought to tighten its control over the civic sector on the back of the pandemic. The ministers of justice and the environment proposed a new register of CSOs that benefit from foreign funding.5 The official justification for the register was that it would enhance transparency, but most organizations are already obliged to submit financial reports to governmental institutions, and those that are well respected publish extensive information about their financing on their websites. The government also proposed that CSOs whose foreign financing exceeds a certain level must label all their materials accordingly. Neither proposal seemed to serve any practical purpose apart from stigmatizing CSOs and presenting them as alien or even hostile to Polish national interests.
Mistrust between civic actors and the government was also deepened by the way in which Warsaw handled the political crisis caused by the timing of the May 10, 2020, presidential election. Before the vote, the government failed to announce a state of emergency, which would have allowed the election to be pushed back because of the coronavirus in accordance with the constitution. There followed heavy criticism from the opposition, internal strife with a coalition partner, and a series of innovative civic protests, which were conducted despite the lockdown and involved honking car horns and playing an alarm signal from balconies. The government did not want to risk a record low turnout in the election and decided to postpone it simply by announcing the fact and presenting the country’s electoral commission with a fait accompli. The turmoil, and the fact that approximately 70 million zloty ($18 million) was wasted on postal ballots that became useless after the vote was postponed, created another point of contention between the government and civil society.6
The coronavirus fed into other instances of ongoing tension, too. The central authorities further stoked polarization by holding the reading of a bill that would effectively make it illegal to terminate a pregnancy under any circumstances and ban sexual education in schools. The bill had been proposed by radical antiabortion organizations during the previous term of the parliament and was signed by the required number of citizens, so the ruling majority was legally obliged to hold the reading. But by keeping this obligation (and ignoring others), despite the health crisis and without any indication that it would distance itself from the new law, the government provoked a series of creative, physically distanced street protests in many Polish cities. The bill was later buried in a parliamentary committee, but the tension with civic organizations that were critical of the government escalated further. The pandemic has accentuated Poland’s culture wars, rather than encouraging actors to set their differences aside.
Romania: Refocused Partnerships
The situation has been different in Romania. There, the government has managed to avoid a major political and economic crisis and worked constructively with civil society, the private sector, and other relevant stakeholders to contain the negative effects of the coronavirus. Romanian civil society has been proactive in contributing to solving the medical and socioeconomic problems generated by the pandemic and adopted a fairly collaborative attitude toward the government, rather than the zero-sum approach prevalent in some other countries in the region. In this regard, there has been a noticeable shift from the confrontational relationship between Romania’s previous social democratic government and civil society, which focused during much of the 2010s on fighting corruption and upholding the rule of law and the independence of the justice system.
Some watchdog organizations have drawn attention to the corruption that lies at the root of the poor functioning of the medical system and insufficient sanitary supplies and hospital staff in the context of the pandemic; but this is generally regarded as the nefarious legacy of three decades of poor governance in the country.7 CSOs’ main priority has been to help with service provision and emergency relief, complementing the state’s capacity in those areas. As such, civil society in Romania has gone through a slight change of focus during the coronavirus pandemic but has not taken on a new identity or undergone structural change.
Many nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), including those that focus on democracy and governance issues, have redirected their activities to service delivery to help provide medical supplies and a wide variety of social services, particularly for disadvantaged and vulnerable people. In this context, CSOs have formed several coalitions and partnered with public institutions and private companies to join the fight against the virus. For instance, several prominent CSOs have started fundraising campaigns to buy medical equipment and supplies, mainly protective gear for doctors and nurses.8
One of the most proactive CSOs has been Red Cross Romania, which has substantive expertise in preventing and combating diseases, working in permanent collaboration with central and local authorities, and offering logistical support in the fight against the coronavirus.9 Red Cross Romania signed a memorandum with the government and launched a national fundraising campaign. In partnership with public authorities, Red Cross Romania also conducted a national campaign to raise awareness of the coronavirus among the population and combat fake news.
Another well-known CSO, Give Life, which launched the construction of Romania’s first oncology and radiotherapy hospital for children with money donated by private citizens and companies, started an online crowdfunding campaign. The initiative was joined by other associations, such as Day of Good and Save the Children.10 The funds collected have been used to equip hospitals and staff working directly with coronavirus patients with protective and medical equipment and to help build a modular hospital to supplement the number of beds for severe coronavirus cases. According to one of the founders of Give Life, Carmen Uscatu, “for Romania to be able to face the coronavirus epidemic, collaboration between authorities, doctors, and civil society is necessary.”11
There are hundreds of examples that showcase the strong impact of CSOs on the local communities in which they work. According to data collected by the Association for Community Relations from over eighty organizations, CSOs have provided hospitals with medical equipment worth over $16 million. The groups raised money to buy more than 115 ventilators, twenty-one polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing devices, 30,000 PCR tests, seventy monitors, and another 60,000 medical devices. More than 1.5 million surgical masks and almost 500,000 filter masks have reached medical units throughout Romania.12
Hundreds of other local organizations and informal civic groups not captured by the official numbers have been actively working to protect doctors, support vulnerable people, and do their utmost to fulfill their civic missions. These efforts, which are based on informal CSOs’ extensive links with local communities and those communities’ trust in them, mark a boost in the importance of these civic groups vis-à-vis the more professional organizations that operate at the national level. It is yet to be seen, however, whether these local CSOs and networks will be sustainable in the long term.
On the government’s side, there has been an important shift in citizen and civil society engagement from a reactive approach to more proactive arrangements through modernized tools of engagement. Since March 2020, the government has organized several public consultations with professional associations and CSOs. The aim has been to integrate civil society’s input into the creation of socioeconomic measures and a comprehensive plan to relaunch economic growth and development after the crisis.
During the consultations, senior officials have committed to develop an institutional mechanism to collaborate with NGOs, enable a permanent and systematic dialogue with CSOs on issues of interest, and devise tools for monitoring, evaluation, and reconfiguration by both sides.13 This mechanism has so far translated into several sectoral meetings with line ministries and other relevant public authorities. As a result, the government included many of the CSOs’ views and much of their expertise in the preparation of its crisis response and recovery measures, to tailor these better to the needs of citizens and local communities, as voiced by civic groups. CSOs also welcomed the government’s reestablishment of the Department for Cooperation with the Associative Environment as an important contact point for CSOs at the governmental level.14
There has been some criticism from Romanian CSOs, too. Organizations have called for increased transparency in the political decisionmaking process. In an open letter to the Romanian parliament and the parliamentary political parties, almost forty professional and civil society organizations called for participation in the online public meetings of parliamentary committees not to be restricted. These organizations complained that they had been prevented from expressing their points of view and that parliamentarians had ignored civil society during the pandemic.15 CSOs legitimately expected to find solutions for greater transparency in policymaking with public authorities, including through the use of new technologies. The government itself provided an example of the openness of other public authorities, and the 2020–2022 Open Government Partnership National Action Plan, due to be adopted later in 2020, aims to make transparency a priority.16
In addition, several CSOs have drawn attention to the fact that civil society, and the third sector in general, requires more support. The Civil Society Development Foundation drew up a position paper that shows that civil society needs to be included among the sectors deeply affected by the pandemic. The paper, supported by almost 600 CSOs, argues for active measures to support the activities of NGOs and ensure the continuity of the services they provide, including by serving vulnerable groups in critical need during the pandemic.
CSOs have also warned against possible harm to democratic processes. After local elections planned for June 2020 were delayed because of the coronavirus, CSOs made concrete proposals to improve the electoral process in the context of the pandemic. Suggestions included increasing the number of days for voting, introducing additional hygiene measures, and reorganizing polling stations.17 The government took on board many of these suggestions in its organization of the postponed elections, which took place on September 27, 2020.
In general, CSOs have not supported the criticisms from some prominent opposition party members of the government’s quarantine and isolation rules; these opposition figures have publicly encouraged citizens to disobey health and safety measures and accused the government of “instating a police state” run by