The New York Times reported that an older Ministry of Justice official “recently directed more than half a dozen US lawyer’s offices to develop” Open Society Foundations – Millionaire George Soros -funded charity.
By referring to a document, the news agency said that its journalists had seen, the report listed the possible charges that foundations can face “arson in material support for terrorism”.
The philanthropical institution denied the abuse.
“These accusations are politically motivated attacks on civil society, which is intended to silence speech. The administration disagrees and weakens the right to the first change to freedom of expression,” the Open Society foundations said in response to the investigations reported. “When the power is abused to eliminate the rights of some people, it sets the rights of all people.”
The term “civil society” is not familiar to all Americans. But it is part of what helped this country grow and succeed because it covers many of the institutions that maintain American lifestyle. As a sociologist who explores non -profit organizations and civil society in the United States and around the world, I have always been interested in the relationship between the nation’s civil society’s health and its borders’ rights and freedom.
I have also noticed that the term is often used without a definition. But I think it is important that Americans know better civil society and how it helps to maintain democracy in the United States.
Civil society
The encyclopedia Britannica defines civil society as “dense network of groups, communities, networks and ties between the individual and the modern state.”
This combination of institutions consists of non -profit organizations and special stakeholders, either formal or unofficial, who seek to improve the lives of their voters. It includes charity groups, clubs and volunteers, churches and other worship houses, trade unions, grassroots associations, community organizations, foundations, museums and other non -profit organizations – including non -profit media.
Civil society does not include government agencies or profit companies.
Politicians and sociologists have long claimed that a healthy and independent non -profit sector in the United States will help maintain democracy. This is true, although most non -profit organizations do not engage in biased political activities.
Own analysis of survey data from 64 countries has shown that authoritatives have begun to use civil society groups for their own purposes. But at least in the United States, most civil society organizations continue to support democratic values.
Sometimes researchers call civil society a “third sector” to distinguish it from public and private areas.
Most researchers agree that civil society strengthens and protects democracy and that real democracy is impossible without it. These researchers distinguish liberal democracy and illiberal democracy.
Liberal democracies have the authority- referring to the government’s implementation, legislative and judiciary. They protect individual rights, allow the free press, maintain independent courts and protect minority rights.
Illiberal democracies have periodically elections, but they may not be fair or free. Civil society tends to limit more illiberal democracies than in liberals.
American strength from the beginning
The strength of American civil society helps to explain the long success of democracy in the United States.
In 1835, when Alexis de Tocqueville, a French researcher and diplomat, visited the country, he wondered the American tendency “constantly unite”. They created associations, he wrote, “Gives Fêtes, found seminars, builds inns, raises the churches, sharing books, sending missionaries to antipodes; in this way they create hospitals, prisons, schools.”
When the government started big projects in France and the nobility did so in England, volunteering for ordinary US people was behind most efforts.
What happens in no democratic countries
One way to see how important a solid civil society can be is to look at what happens in countries that do not have one.
The totalitarian countries of the 20th century, especially Communist China and the Soviet Union, denied, according to the pretending of civil society, that the party and the state represented the true interests of the people.
When the Berlin Wall declined in 1989, the United States and Western Europe dedicated a lot of diplomacy and foreign assistance to help the former Soviet Union and Eastern European countries to develop civil society institutions, believing this to the democracy of these countries.
Today, civil society is booming in former communist countries that have successfully switched to democracy, such as the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Civil society is restricted in countries in the area that do not adopt democracy, such as Belarus and Russia.
Not your grandmother’s carists
Today’s authoritarian rulers understand that civil society has the potential to support democracy and spread their grip on power. But few of these leaders prohibit civil society organizations completely.
Instead, authoritarian leaders submit civil society organizations to achieve their own goals. In China, who had no civil society before the 1990s, the Communist Party now creates NGOs or Gongos, which are organized by government, which look like non-profit organizations and are technically separate from the state but remain under state control.
Some authorities who exercise power in countries that already have a civil society sector are domesticated by these organizations and exercising their power through many oppressive tactics. They leave service organizations such as food banks, free clinics and homeless shelters, and use them to show their citizens how they bring them benefits.
However, they reject lawyers such as human rights groups, trade unions and feminist groups, as these are the source of potential opposition to the administration. They then cultivate civil society institutions that promote administration by providing them with formal and informal support.
When authoritatives reject civil society groups, they sometimes destroy offices and capture organizational leaders and staff members. But they usually use more subtle means.
For example, they may provide laws that limit the amount of funding, in particular foreign funding that are available to non -profit organizations. They increase the layers of bureaucracy that make it difficult to operate non -profit organizations, such as audits, registration requirements and information requests.
Authoris can use these obstacles selectively. Unprofitable or friendly system -friendly organizations may discover that they can work freely. Non -profit organizations that the administration discover when opponents go through extensive inspections, forced to wait a long time as they seek to include, and meet continuous demands on their personal information about their financiers, members and customers.
Attacks in the United States
Even before the announcement of Trump’s administration to investigate open societies, the news has been spoken, there were increased signs that the United States became more authoritarian countries than it was before how it treated civil society.
For example, in March 2025, President Donald Trump signed an assignment that restricted a federal program that forgives student loans to people who work in public service organizations or government. It was stated in the regulation that the institutions’ employees that the Trump administration holds a “considerable illegal purpose”, such as providing services to documentsless immigrants or serving the needs of clients serving clients, would be valid for the forgiveness of the loan.
During the summer, the congress liked three investigations of non -profit organizations. Republican party leadership marked its contempt and distrust in groups with hearing impaired titles such as “public funds, private agendas: NGOs have gone wild” how left -wing networks use federal tax dollars to promote radical agenda, ” Border crisis “”.
Following the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Vice -President JD Vance threatened to “go after a network of non -governmental organizations, facilitates and engages in violence,” including Ford Foundation and Open Society foundations, despite the support of these organizations.
Some non -profit organizations have published open letters, made public statements and issued congress certificates, opposing the requirements of the administration.
What happens next is unclear. The threat to their non -profit positioning organizations may be empty, given that the Supreme Court has already decided that it is regulated by law and that the president cannot do so at its whim.
Many researchers in non -profit organizations are watching to see if the United States are more steps on this road to authoritarianism, stays where it is or translates the course.
We are investigating how American’s flourishing civil society opposes all restrictions that largely restrict freedom – until now.
This article has been re -published in a debate, a non -profit, independent news organization that brings you facts and reliable analyzes that will help you understand the complex world. It is written by: Christopher Justin Einolf, North Illinois University
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Christopher Justin Einolf does not work, consult, own shares, or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article and did not reveal any relevant links outside their academic appointment.