A typology for understanding the strategies and tactics used to attack civic space

This document updates the typology launched in the Strategic Article 49 of the Igarape Institute: “The ‘Agora’ is under attack: Assessing the closure of civic space in Brazil and around the world”. As a sociological typology, the categories described in the article are fluid and are affected by the political and social context of the countries where they are used. And just as democracy is dynamic, marked by the constant search for consensus, so are the tactics used to erode the democratic state. New trends in threats to civic space need to be taken into account.

Populist actions during the Covid-19 pandemic justify the need to include the violation of social, economic, cultural and environmental protection rights in the typology, for example. The update is the result of the experience accumulated during the production of the GPS editions for the last quarter of 2020 and the first quarter of 2021.

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