Reconfiguring Collaborative Governance under Autocratization: Civil Society Exclusion and Policy Capture in Domestic Violence Policy

Andrea Krizsan (CEU), Conny Roggeband (University of Amsterdam)

May 6, 15:00 CEST

Abstract. Collaborative governance — understood here as institutionalized arrangements in which civil society actors share agenda-setting, deliberation and oversight with state authorities — is structurally vulnerable to autocratization. In this session we examine how illiberal regimes dismantle such arrangements not by abolishing them outright, but by hollowing them out: maintaining the formal architecture of participation while systematically replacing independent civil society actors who have a long-standing expertise in the field with regime-aligned organizations. We argue that this process of substitutive capture produces a dual effect — it neutralizes democratic accountability while generating a veneer of legitimacy — and that its consequences extend well beyond procedural change into substantive policy transformation.