Keynote 1

Professor Annette Zimmer: Non-Profit Civil Society Organizations in Non-Democratic Settings

Professor Zimmer will speak about her ongoing work on the Third Wave of Democratization Transitions and civil society studies. How civil society has developed in non-democratic/transitional settings? She identifies three stages of government/civil society relations and argues that the spaces of activity for civil society organizations are currently shrinking. She will illustrate her arguments with two examples: Poland and Hungary.

Annette Zimmer is Full Professor of Social Policy and Comparative Politics at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Münster, Germany. Her research focuses on the topic of civil society – government relationships as well as on the role and function of nonprofit organizations in selected policy fields. She was the President of the International Society for Third Sector Research (ISTR), and she currently serves as a Board Member of selected German grant making nonprofit-organizations.

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