The Resilience of Civil Society Organizations in Electoral Processes

Elections are supposed to be democracy' safeguard. Yet across the world, the very citizen who watch over them - citizen election observers - are being harassed, defamed, criminalized, and driven into exile. The question arises: Why do some survive, and others disappear? This book develops the concept of electoral resilience to answer that question. Drawing on two decades of political history in Kyrgyzstan and a global survey of citizen election observers across five continents, it shows that the ability of civil society organizations to withstand shrinking civic space in elections is not only a matter of courage or commitment. It also depends on structural foundations - formal networks, organizational preparedness, local expertise, and international support - that can be built, sustained, and ultimatly lost again. The findings of the books arrive at a critical moment. The suspension of US democracy assistance in 2025 exposed the fragility of the international democracy aid system. It also raises questions about what domestic democratic actors require to maintain their capacities. Electoral Resilience offers the first systematic framework for understanding why citizen election observers resist, adapt, or resign in the face of autocratization, and what it would take to protect them. It is essential reading for scholars of democratization, practitioners of democracy assistance, and anyone who believes that free and fair elections still matter.