Identity and Civil Society in Latvia, Poland, and Ukraine Women's NGOs

This research tests the hypothesis that social identities play a key role in the success or failure of democracy, since individuals often hold ethnic and regional identities in particular in a mutually exclusive fashion, resisting calls to act politically on other identities that cut across them. Activists in women's non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were interviewed in Latvia, Poland, and Ukraine, in order to examine the policy process in an area that cuts across ethnic and regional lines. In newer democracies, the effects of identities should be strongest, since institutions are new, and have less ability to constrain political behavior. The hypothesis that ethnic and regional divisions inhibit cooperation within and between NGOs was tested against alternative hypotheses that attribute cooperation, or the lack of it, to outside funding. The results support the argument that ethnic and regional divisions harm cooperation on women's issues, though the other hypotheses cannot be ruled out.