Political foundations of state support for civil society: analysis of the distribution of presidential grants in Russia

ABSTRACT We argue that limited authoritarian regimes like Putin’s Russia have to work out a delicate balance between suppressing civil society and buying its loyalty by allocating funds to the organizations willing to cooperate with the regime. Using the data on the distribution of presidential grants among civil society organizations working on human rights projects in 2017–2018, we show that organizations whose leaders take part in consultative bodies and pro-governmental organizations such as the All-Russian People’s Front receive larger amounts of money on average. Organizations with links to the parliamentary parties also have some premium in grant disbursement, while affiliation with the ruling party does not increase the amount of funding. These findings imply some degree of political bias in state funding for the third sector in Russia. We also found that professionalism matters, and seasoned civil society organizations have considerably more funding than less experienced organizations in the field.