30th NISPAcee Annual Conference

"Crises, Vulnerability and Resilience in Public Administration"

June 2-4, 2022

Bucharest, Romania

WG8: Non-Governmental Organisations in the CEE

Working group coordinators:

Maria Murray Svidroňová, Masaryk University Brno, Czech Republic and Matej Bel University Banska Bystrica, Slovakia, [email protected]
Iga Kender-Jeziorska, Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary, [email protected]

Paula Beudean Public Administration and Management Department, ”Babeș-Bolyai” University, Romania, [email protected]

– Report

Working Group 8: Non-Governmental Organisations in Central and Eastern Europe held three sessions at the 2022 NISPAcee conference in Bucharest, hearing eight papers presented by ten authors and co-authors. All the papers contributed to the understanding of the role and performance of NGOs in the region, with:

- the first session focusing on the changes and challenges observed in the sector during the COVID-19 pandemic (both online and offline);

- the second session presenting case studies of NGOs involvement in public service delivery or public policy formulation and civil participation (both online and offline);

- and the third session looking more into the changes and challenges faced by NGOs and how they cope when under pressure from their governments.

A total of 11 papers were submitted and accepted for presentation at the conference by our working group. However, in the end only nine papers were submitted to the conference and eight papers were presented - three online and five face-to-face.

This year, the work in our group included mostly country-case papers, with papers focusing on diverse NGO challenges and dynamic or civic participation in Slovenia, Hungary, Romania, Lithuania, Belarus, Hungary, and Poland. The thematic topics discussed were:

- Challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of NGO funding and citizen participation in civic activities;

- Civil society organisations acting under pressure from non-democratic/illiberal governments such as Belarus and Hungary;

- Civic participation and citizen involvement through tools such as citizen science and senior citizens’ councils;

- Involvement of NGOs in delivering relevant public services or supporting public policy development.

In terms of methodological approaches, there was a noticeable difference between papers. In other words, in some of them the methodology used was very sound, while in others there was room for improvement. All the authors put a lot of effort and energy into their work.