Funding Civil Society Foreign Assistance and NGO Development in Russia [Hardcover]

This book investigates the impact that Western democracy assistance programs have had on the development of women's and soldiers' rights NGOs in Russia in the post-Soviet period. The author examines Western assistance programs and NGO sectors in seven Russian regions, and finds that the norms that Western donors promote in their civil society programs, as well as the positive or negative local political environment in each city, have a dramatic influence on the extent to which the interactions between foreign donors and NGOs contribute to developing an NGO sector that is supportive of democracy.This is the first book to systematically analyze these interactions across numerous regions and across two different NGO issue sectors, and it produces important new conclusions about how different domestic political contexts and normative values shape the effectiveness of Western aid.This book investigates the impact of Western democracy assistance programs on the development of Russian women's and soldiers' rights NGOs in Russia. It argues that the normative content of assistance programs as well as the character of regional political environments fundamentally shape the influence of such programs.Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. Funding Civil Societyaddresses an important and under-researched issue: the development of civil society in Russia and the impact that Western assistance has had on this development. This book is especially important in identifying variations in regions based on political environment, and is at the cutting edge of scholarship. This is a thought-provoking and well-documented book. The overall argument will interest a wide range of readers, and the book can also be used as a reference source for students interested in particular organizations and regions. Building on several scholars' previous studies of the foreign aid/civic organizing nexus, SlÓl