Braking the Backslide: Which International Mechanisms Can Best Assist Russian Civil Society?

The article proposes a general framework of the normative orientations of national governments towards democracy in semi-democratic regimes and the different international mechanisms that support domestic civil society actors who express dissent or try to promote democratic processes and civil liberties focusing on the case of Russia. It discusses the several types of international mechanisms that transnational actors can adopt to support the existence of an active civil society. It relates the characteristics of different political regimes.