Security Politics “from Below”

Civil society in transition

Pressure on civil societies is growing. Their scope for action and the space for dissent and criticism are increasingly narrowing. Across Europe, funding for non-state actors is becoming more difficult due to tightening public budgets. Governments and OSCE institutions, on the other hand, under­estimate the power and relevance of the tasks that civil society forces are capable of performing, including in security-related areas.

The OSCE itself does not have a narrowly defined concept of civil society. Traditionally, it has pursued a non-discriminatory ap­proach in order to be flexible enough to ac­commodate the views and proposals of a broad spectrum of organisations in the OSCE area. However, it can no longer be taken for granted that civil society forces “east and west of Vienna” support the Helsinki Con­sensus. The so-called “non-civil” or illiberal civil society, which has recently been gain­ing momentum in Western liberal democ­racies as well, makes the call for “more” civil society engagement a somewhat am­bivalent undertaking. However, there are certainly efforts to counter the influence of GONGOs (government-organised non-govern­mental organisations) within the organisation, and thus to counteract the instrumentalisation of the OSCE by authoritarian governments.

The relevance of civil society is often still limited to its role as an informant, a mouth­piece for citizens and a service provider. In the OSCE context, civil society is mostly heard in the third, human dimension. How­ever, representatives of the Civic Solidarity Platform (CSP), a network of civil society organisations in the OSCE that exists since 2010, criticise the missing link between the first and third dimensions. They argue that there is still an “invisible wall” that reduces the engagement of part of the NGO commu­nity (especially activists and grassroots or­ganisations) to the human dimension. Think tanks and academic institutions are pre­dominantly invited to discussions and meet­ings of the Forum for Security Co-operation (FSC). This no longer lives up to the chang­ing international threat context (which is characterised by cyber and hybrid attacks, disinformation and GONGO propaganda) and a civil society that is specialising accordingly.

In 2023, at least the CSP’s demands for a coordinator for cooperation with civil soci­ety were met and a corresponding position was created. Anu Juvonen, director of the NGO “Demo Finland”, was appointed the OSCE’s third Special Representative for Civil Society in 2025. She has set herself the goal of bringing civil society concerns into the organisation more efficiently. Since OSCE decisions are not legally binding and there are no reporting mechanisms or formal appeal procedures, Juvonen sees the watch­dog role of civil society – i.e. to monitor both the policies of participating States and OSCE institutions – as paramount.

In the OSCE context, there are several categories of organisations that could continue to play an important role in the future due to their function: Firstly, the actors at the local level who are deeply rooted in their respective societies (women’s, human rights and victim protection organisations, as well as watchdogs that monitor government action). Secondly, the international humanitarian organisations that act in an advisory capacity but are also entrusted with implementation tasks (for example in the areas of civil protection, reconstruction, mine clearance, etc.). Finally, the civil rights and human rights associations that are committed to trans­national advocacy work in the OSCE area and have, for example, joined forces under the umbrella of the aforementioned CSP to promote the preservation and implemen­tation of the Helsinki Principles. Ultimately, these organisations, primarily NGOs, have no democratic legitimacy and are not sub­ject to regular evaluation. They derive their mandate and legitimacy primarily from their commitment, their self-imposed obligations and the important functions they perform.

Conflict cycle and civil society

To this day, the relevant literature criticises the fact that civil society’s potential in the OSCE’s conflict work remains insufficiently tapped.

This finding is often linked to calls for a better integration of civil society. However, conflict contexts vary. In many cases, the parties to the conflict simply do not want civil society to be involved in official nego­tiations, blocking better integration. And yet the results of the research project on which this analysis is based show that civil society organisations in the OSCE area are still not sufficiently recognised, especially in the phases of conflict prevention and post-conflict rehabilitation. This is more crucial today, particularly as the active war / conflict phase is increasingly merging with the post-conflict rehabilitation phase. For example, reconstruction and humanitarian demining often begin during the ongoing conflict / war, as the Ukrainian case shows.

Structural challenges

As a primarily intergovernmental organisation, the role of civil society in the OSCE context is ambivalent: on the one hand, its involvement is officially desired, but on the other hand, the OSCE is a complex organi­sa­tion, which complicates cooperation in practice due to a lack of focal points. This is compounded by the fact that the OSCE always decides by consensus, meaning that decisions can only be made if all participating States agree. This also applies to conflict resolution formats. Since these formats’ specific arrangements have usually been determined long ago by the parties to the conflict together with the OSCE and the respective mandate, they are relatively inflexible today. Renewing the consensus on this is currently impossible in many areas due to Russia’s obstructive behaviour.

Conclusions

In the context of the eroding liberal con­sensus, which does not stop at the OSCE core states (Austria, Switzerland, Germany and the Nordic states), civil society repre­sen­tatives are finding themselves in an increasingly difficult position. The question also arises as to whether an incoherent, multi-layered actor such as civil society can still guarantee the implementation of the 1975 Helsinki principles today. Much with­in the OSCE depends on Russia’s current and future behaviour. In this un­clear situa­tion, the organisation is not only looking for a new role, but also for concrete ways to circumvent the consensus principle, for example in the form of extra-budg­etary projects, which are mostly financed by like-minded states.

Similarly civil society could eventually cease to be viewed as a collective actor, but in a differentiated manner – with the con­sequence that certain tasks would be taken over by like-minded civil society organisations that are committed to the Helsinki principles and have the backing of govern­ments that support extra-budgetary pro­jects.

The German Federal Foreign Office should therefore refrain from cutting fund­ing for the successful Eastern Partnership / Russia Programme (cooperation with civil society in the Eastern Partnership coun­tries and Russia). On the contrary, the programme needs to be upgraded to strength­en the resilience of civil society in this region in the interests of crisis prevention, espe­cially after the withdrawal of USAID.

Since security is a process that often works from the bottom up, and since the OSCE is a regional organisation, whose strengths lie primarily in networking and expertise at the local level, it is important that it remains active “on the ground” in the context of field operations. Given the damage to the OSCE’s reputation in Ukraine since 2022, it should make all the more effort to regain ground there. It should be more proactive than before in reaching out to Ukrainian civil society, for example by creating added value for the Ukrainian society through extra-budgetary projects. The establishment of citizens’ councils to advise on security policy, for example, could ensure that local structures become integrated into a mechanism that, after the end of hostilities, adapt any security regime to local conditions. It could thus take into account the people affected, their living conditions and their security needs. How­ever, the chances of the OSCE participating in securing a ceasefire in Ukraine are cur­rently considered slim.

Despite the expected reservations of the participating States, it would be advantageous for the OSCE to develop a reliable strategy to strengthen and structurally an­chor civil society participation. Given the historically evolved role of civil society organisations and other non-state actors in the three dimensions, their systematic involvement in political-security deliberation processes is long overdue. In internal reform processes, the involvement of civil society should not be seen as an “add-on” but as an integral part of the organisation’s working processes. This requires reliable and sustainable participation formats as well as transparent communication chan­nels, which could be established, for exam­ple, by the Special Representative on Civil Society.

An institutionalised but flexible framework, supplemented by a central contact point for non-governmental organisations within the OSCE Secretariat, could be a first step. This could be supplemented by a ro­tating consultation format among civil soci­ety organisations in the respective OSCE bodies, for example linked to the respective chairing country. This would help build trust, address legitimate criticism and position the OSCE as a credible actor in an increasingly fragile international order.