Closing space

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 2014. P.90.
T.Carothers, S. Brechenmacher. Closing space.
After decades of growing global reach, the field of international support for democracy and human rights faces a worrisome trend: widening and increasingly assertive pushback around the developing and postcommunist worlds. Governments are erecting legal and logistical barriers to externally sponsored democracy and rights programs they deem too politically intrusive, publicly vilifying international aid groups engaged in democracy and rights work as well as their local partners, and harassing or expelling such international groups altogether. Of particular concern to many national and international democracy and rights activists is the viral-like spread of new laws restricting foreign funding for domestic nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).