Paradoxes of Civil Society under Populism: Navigating Autonomy, Dissent, and Inclusion in the Czech Republic

Abstract

Abstract This article examines how populism reshapes civil society by exploiting tensions embedded within professional organisations. Drawing on scholarship that conceptualises civil society as an inherently paradoxical sphere, this article specifies three organisational tensions through which populist repertoires operate: autonomy versus dependency, cooperation versus dissent, and inclusion versus exclusion. While existing research has focused largely on populist movements, democratic backsliding or anti-populist mobilisation, we shift attention to professionalised civil society organisations occupying an ambivalent position between state partnership and political advocacy. Using qualitative interviews with Czech organisations working with migrants, refugees and minority groups, we show how populist actors selectively target CSOs representing migrants and human rights, portraying them as elite intermediaries disconnected from ‘ordinary people’. In the Czech Republic’s context of moderated populism, however, these pressures do not result in systematic repression but instead produce an environment in which organisations must balance rhetorical contestation with continued cooperation and institutional dependence on the state. The article argues for a relational understanding of populism and civil society, demonstrating how populist repertoires exploit existing tensions within civil society rather than simply opposing, co-opting or capturing it.