Non-State Actors

By Péter MARTON To answer the question in the title:* I would. Ironically, one of the best texts so far on a subject whose study originates from the Chinese context, with examples like the Human Rights Society of China in mind, is this brief paper (by Chris Carothers). A research memo, from a workshop . It is not bad for starters, though, and at least it offers a basic typology that covers "propaganda", "militant" and "development" NGOs. And some of the uses these have for autocratic and, let's say, imperfectly democratic political regimes (such as attracting funding away from genuine NGOs/civil society, or creating the semblance of mass support for government decisions, policies and entire agendas, even). This is great, but of course the political regimes in question are more creative than this. Everyone who hasn't been living under a bucket lately is probably aware of the presence of GONGOs in politics, and how that is felt in even mo...

By Péter MARTON I am really no expert of the US militia movement but for an academic roundtable discussion I have to prepare a briefing about paramilitary-like groups in Hungary (as much as there are any that are active as well as, strictly speaking, paramilitary in nature, these days -- this is rather difficult to assess...). So I was interested to learn more of what similarities or differences one may observe between the two paramilitary scenes, and I was happy to come across a fresh video report from Vice News (related to this article ) about the III%er (Three Percenter*) movement. It offers some insight into the life of an associate group in Georgia, led by Chris Hill ("General Holy War"). I still have my homework to do -- only a couple of quick thoughts follow. The tendency of the far right to fracture is on display even in (and related to) this short video about a single group in Georgia. Their leader conceives of political identity in terms of a set of poli...

By Péter MARTON Emily Tamkin offers a really good overview here (FP, 10/10/2017) of the recent hateful discourse about George Soros (the imaginary), as well as the record of George Soros (the real person) and his open society movement over the last decades, with special regard to Central/Eastern Europe. I will not reproduce that overview here to introduce in detail the hysteria surrounding Soros and how his distorted larger-than-life image is used by governments in several countries these days to blame everything from feminism and immigration to unfavourable demographics, economic problems and international sanctions on him. I assume this is common knowledge. I will highlight just one paragraph from Tamkin's article: "In the ’90s, the idea that Open Society and Soros held some political influence, albeit indirectly, was not strictly a figment of rulers’ imagination. Those given funding were local elites, sometimes opposed to those in power, and often what...