(This research is an independent academic work for another institute that was later submitted to the KHAR Center for publication.)
Introduction
The state of civil society in Azerbaijan has entered a period that can best be described as ‘hopeless.’ The situation has significantly worsened with the civic shrinkage intensifying dramatically in 2023 and 2024. (Fattah 2025; Interviewee 1, pers.comm., 2025; Interviewee 3, pers.comm., 2025). The Azerbaijani government’s severe crackdown on rights and freedoms, which systematically and substantially dismantled civic space, is attributed to a calculated and comprehensive strategy. The international organizations’ response, widely perceived as inadequate, unsystematic, and often delayed, has further exacerbated internal repression. (Fattah. pers.comm., 2025 2025; Interviewee 1. pers.comm., 2025; Interviewee 4. pers.comm., 2025). Widespread self-censorship, the cessation of activities across almost the entire civic sector, and a significant psychological burden on activists and journalists, both within the country and among those forced into exile, have been cumulative effects of the shrinkage, determining a nascent, suffocating environment. (Interviewee 1. pers.comm., 2025; Interviewee 3. pers.comm., 2025; Interviewee 4. Pers.comm., 2025).
This research examines the state of civil society in Azerbaijan, 2023 onwards, drawing on a structured interview with Elman Fattah, Director of the Khazar Research and Analysis Center (a think tank in exile specializing in democracy and authoritarianism studies), as well as 4 more anonymized civil society members beside considering international reports and other written sources on the recent shrinkage of civic space in Azerbaijan. Furthermore, as a focus of the investigation, the research article examines the reactions of international organizations, the manifest impact of these reactions, the internal challenges faced by Azerbaijani civil society, and outlines proposed future strategies and priority needs. Epistemologically based on stakeholder acknowledgements and crisis sensitivity, the research seeks to answer the following question: How and to what extent did the 2023-2024 crackdown affect the modus operandi of Azerbaijan’s civil society? To what extent could international organizations’ responses mitigate the crisis of Azerbaijan’s civil society?
Conceptual Underpinnings of Civic Spaces
This section aims to present the conceptual underpinnings of the concepts of “civil society”, “civic space”, “closing civic space”, and “shrinking civic spaces”, to enhance the clarity of the discussion.
Conceptualization of “Closing Civic Space” and “Shrinking Civic Space”
At the base level, we will conceptualize the phenomenon of “shrinking civic space” through addressing several literatures. One of these works is Thomas Carothers’ and Saskia Brenchenmacher’s (2014) collaborative work called “Closing Space: Democracy and Human Rights Support under Fire.” The authors describe the crucial element of “shrinking civic space” as ‘governments’ legal and logistical barriers’ to democracy and human rights support programs, portraying them as politically intrusive, alongside villifying, harassing, and expelling international groups as well as their local partners. Complementarily, Richard Youngs and Ana Echagüe (2017), in their study conducted for the European Parliament, set a broad definition for civil society as the sphere of non-coercive association between the individual level and the state level. Subsequently, they understand the notion of “shrinking civic space” as diminishing structural opportunities for the emergence of such associations (Youngs and Echagüe 2017).
The concept of "shrinking civic space" stands for an expanding global phenomenon, presumably with different connotations in different geopolitical contexts, as governments increasingly limit the ability of civil society to operate freely and effectively in varied settings (Carothers and Brechenmacher 2014, 150). Thus, the trend is observed not only in authoritarian contexts but also in established liberal democracies, though frequently with differing impacts (Strachwitz and Toepler 2022, 1, 6). It denotes the decreasing structural opportunities for the emergence and functioning of non-coercive associations between individuals and the state, as well as governments’ legal and logistical barriers to democracy and human rights support programs, parallel to villifying, harassing, and expelling such associations, their partners, and international groups. (Youngs and Echagüe 2017; Carothers and Brechenmacher 2014).
Developing the conceptualization further, as a core structure of “civic space”, the notion of civil society signifies structured and non-structured agencies fulfilling several functions that contribute to the common good and, often, challenge state power (Strachwitz and Toepler 2022, 10), while the term “civic space” denotes broader scope of opportunities and abilities of civil groups to organize the social spheres through actions. These functions may include the following forms (Strachwitz and Toepler 2022, 10):
● Service delivery, such as assisting vulnerable groups.
● Community building activities.
● Advocacy, for instance, for political rights.
● Media and reporting.
● Watchdog activities, which are often viewed by the state as an infringement on government mandates.
● Charity activities.
● Self-help activities, such as HIV+ self-support groups.
● Political participation, i.e., protest movements and other forms of civic engagement.
● Personal growth.
Many civil society actors conduct multiple functions simultaneously, exhibiting multi-functionality. Despite often having fewer resources, civil society inherently possesses a political dimension through participating in the power distribution struggle alongside the market and state, and can effectively prompt reactions to societal challenges and emergencies (Strachwitz and Toepler 2022, 9). Notably, it is also pertinent to mention that there is a growing tendency to approach the concept of civil society analytically rather than purely normatively, recognizing that Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) are not intrinsically "good" and they can be misused either (Strachwitz and Toepler 2022, 13, 14). Setting standards for CSOs’ working environment and margin of operational framework depends on the states’ interpretations, and such a setting itself does not necessarily guarantee respect for UN-recognized human rights and basic freedoms.
Given the authority of nation-states over designing the working environment for CSOs, the term "closing space" frequently refers to governments’ creation of legal, logistical, and other structural restrictions. It may happen alongside vilifying, harassing, and expelling international organizations, international aid groups, and their local partners involved in democracy and human rights support (Carothers and Brechenmacher 2014, 150, 154). "Shrinking operational space," comparatively, is a broader term encompassing repressive measures coupled with “closing space”, including criminalization, arbitrary arrests, physical harassment, administrative discretion, stigmatization, and limiting public discourse (Strachwitz and Toepler 2022, 17).
The Agony of Civil Society in Azerbaijan
The most crucial and consistently emphasized finding from the interviews is that the civic environment in Azerbaijan has encountered a systematic and thorough dismantling, reaching a point where "everything outside the government, including the political sphere, human rights, civil society, and the media, has been reduced to zero completely" (Fattah. pers.comm., 2025). A series of strategic governmental actions has led to a severe and systemic deterioration of civic space, where the dynamics of ‘closing civic space’ intertwined with those of ‘shrinking civic space’ in a substantive way (Fattah. pers.comm., 2025).
There is a growing tendency to associate the political-military victory of Azerbaijan, in the recent war with Armenia over occupied Karabakh, with the attack against CSOs and media organizations, risking committing the logical fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc (“after this, therefore, because of this”), while several third factors, being isolated or combined, could have triggered the crackdown. In the time fracture between 2020-2023, many factors in regional politics have seen a rise, leaving complex consequences. But in the background, when turning to the topic of Karabakh, it should be noted that there was an overwhelming consensus among the Azerbaijani civil and political society on the case of Karabakh being widely viewed as a continuous breach of the basic rights of internally displaced people (IDPs). The “international community” was regularly condemned through both governmental and non-governmental channels. Azerbaijan's Public TV was airing the same text incessantly every day for decades, showing the persisting government policy to keep the Karabakh case in the spotlight, while the opposition was criticizing the government for inaction:
“Located between the 39th and 49th parallels, the Republic of Azerbaijan has been living in a state of war with Armenia for nearly 30 years. Twenty percent of our lands have been occupied by Armenian aggressors, and more than 1 million of our citizens have become displaced. The UN Security Council resolutions 822, 853, 874, and 884, which call for the unconditional liberation of the occupied territories, have not been implemented to this day. The world community still tolerates this injustice.”
Thus, the 2020 war and subsequent military victory were decisively transformative for the Azerbaijani society (Fattah, pers.comm., 2025), addressing the unmet expectations of society, whose post-Soviet national identity formation coincided with the massive influx of IDPs (Ashrafov 2020). Subsequently, parallel to this, the government also took it as ‘the perfect opportunity’ to consolidate power, as the cult of personality surrounding Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev was disseminated and reinforced through state-controlled media and official narratives, and subsequently “internalized by society” (Fattah. pers.comm., 2025). Apparently, it is elusive to conclude that victory in war was the leading factor in the shrinkage of civic space, as “third factors” can possibly be brought up. However, it might be secure to assume that the pride gained from a successful war increased the government’s legitimacy, despite the absence of reliable surveys to realistically assess the actual level of that legitimacy.
Starting from 2021, the government rigorously established a normative framework to underpin its subsequent crackdown, which, as a part of it, can be described as ‘repression through law.’(Fattah. pers.comm., 2025). Notable legislative actions subsumed the approval and adoption of a "very strict law on media freedom", which entered into force expeditiously in February 2022 (Fattah. pers.comm., 2025). Azerbaijan adopted its new media law on December 30, 2021, which independent experts have criticized for raising serious concerns about its compliance with international human rights standards on freedom of expression and media freedom (CSO Meter 2022). The law was regarded as overly regulatory, granting the state broad discretionary powers over the media sector, including licensing, and was passed without meaningful public debate (CSO Meter 2022). On the contrary, the Azerbaijani authorities claimed that the law contributes to the enhancement of the pluralistic media environment, strengthens the protection of copyright rights, and “meets all requirements of the contemporary democratic society”, “ensuring unrestricted and effective implementation of the professional activities of journalists, protecting the creative and editorial independence and pluralism of media, stimulating media to report in an objective and professional manner, respecting the fundamental freedom to seek, receive, and impart information” corresponding to Azerbaijan's international obligations, including Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (CSO Meter 2022; Media Development Agency of Azerbaijan 2022). The executive director of the Media Development Agency of Azerbaijan, Ahmad Ismayilov, in his response letter to the former Human Rights Commissioner of the Council of Europe (CoE), Dunja Mijatović, reiterated the arguments mentioned above, stressing that the licensing applies only to television and radio broadcasting, but avoiding discussions over many problematic sides of the law, such as restriction of the definition of “journalist” excluding, for example, citizen-journalism and non-profit journalism, limitations imposed on funding media activities, restricting media ownership of political parties and religious organizations, measuring sustainability of online media to the purpose of defining the status without clear rationale behind, and disallowance of “use of words, expressions, and gestures with immoral lexical content” (CSO Meter 2022; Media Development Agency of Azerbaijan 2022).
This was closely followed by "an equally strict and regressive law on political parties", later that same year (Fattah. pers.comm., 2025). The European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission) and the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR) issued a joint opinion on Azerbaijan's Law on Political Parties, which was approved and adopted in March 2023 and replaced the 1992 version. Alongside being more detailed, the law has introduced stricter regulations in several areas, posing a chilling effect on political pluralism and infringing upon the rights to freedom of association and expression (OSCE/ODIHR 2023; Venice Commission 2023). It has created several complications, urging an increase in the minimum number of members required for party registration from 1,000 to 5,000, the mandatory re-registration process for existing political parties, cumbersome establishment and registration procedures, an overly regulatory approach to internal party structures, and excessive control by the Ministry of Justice over party activities and member registers (OSCE/ODIHR 2023; Venice Commission 2023). Furthermore, the law permits the suspension or dissolution of political parties on grounds that do not necessarily constitute serious legal violations (OSCE/ODIHR 2023; Venice Commission 2023).
According to Fattah, these legislative measures were openly "intended to form the legal basis for the physical repression that would start at the end of 2023" and, as determinants of the “closure of the civic space”, provided the government with the means to justify its crackdown under the guise of legality (Fattah. pers.comm., 2025). Not to even mention that, Azerbaijan has already passed strictly restrictive NGO legislation back in 2009, 2013, and 2014, alongside related legal acts such as the Law on Grants and the Law on Registration of Legal Entities. Reviewing Azerbaijan’s NGO law, Venice Commission (2014) concluded that the existing legislative norms:
1) Envisage concerning centralization of registration, rendering the registration process opaque and difficult to navigate;
2) Stipulate lengthy registration processes with unlawful delays and high penalties for “false information”, provisions that carry the risk of being applied arbitrarily;
3) Grant authorities wide discretion for refusal, as they have wide freedom in refusing registration based on a strict test of conformity with legal requirements, which can be applied to minor technical omissions;
4) Grant excessive control abilities over NGOs’ internal documents;
5) Outline questionable registration requirements, unjustified operational restrictions, unclear authorization rules, and restricted funding schemes for foreign NGOs;
6) Vaguely narrate the responsibilities of foreign NGOs, requiring them to ‘respect national and moral values’ and prohibiting ‘political and religious propaganda, ’ contravening international standards, particularly through the sweeping ban on professional religious activity.
7) Set forth a series of other disproportionate operational and reporting requirements for civil society organizations.
Apparently, already back then, the new framework for NGO law demotivated newcomers to the civic sector, while a wide range of misdemeanor and trumped-up criminal charges were imposed against human rights activists, including narcotics and weapons possession charges, hooliganism, incitement, and even treason (Human Rights Watch 2013). The Azerbaijani government again intensified its crackdown on media and civil society over the course of the last two years, as a culmination of a decade-long oppression (Human Rights Watch 2024).
Already by 2024, Azerbaijan experienced a decisive escalation in repression that effectively eliminated independent media and civil society. As Fattah notes, by “spring of 2024, or toward early autumn 2024, even the last ‘Mohicans,’ including those sitting abroad and operating from the outside, were completely silenced” (Fattah. pers.comm., 2025). The state targeted not only “organic, independent media” but also “surrogate media linked to Azerbaijan” (Fattah. pers.comm., 2025). Long a symbol of alternative reporting, Radio Liberty’s Baku office was “reduced to zero” (Fattah. pers.comm., 2025), other free media organizations such as Meydan TV, Abzas Media, and Toplum TV were forced into exile, and subsequently cut off from in-country contributors by late 2024 (Fattah. pers.comm., 2025). One feminist-activist interviewee observed that the trajectory of the crackdown began even earlier, in 2022, with preparations around arrests and smear campaigns (Interviewee 3. pers.comm., 2025). Then, overt repression by 2023, including the arrests of Abzas Media journalists, AzTV (the main state television channel) propaganda, and scapegoating campaigns, explicitly signaled to activists that “the sector is being targeted.”(Interviewee 3. pers.comm., 2025).
After the last crackdown on civil society and media, the number of internationally recognized political prisoners reached 361, including civic activists, religious people, opposition politicians, rights defenders, labour rights activists, journalists, scholars, and academics (Geybullayeva 2025). Azerbaijan has held extraordinary presidential and parliamentary elections, as well as hosted the international climate protection event COP29, all while continuing arrests and the shrinking of civic space (ProtectDefenders.eu 2024).
As Elman Fattah argues, since 2023, Azerbaijan has undergone a transformation into what scholars and practitioners increasingly would define as hard authoritarianism as the country has moved beyond the “modern authoritarianism” observed in states such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, moved toward a regime like Turkmenistan’s model of tight control (Fattah. pers.comm., 2025).
Dire consequences became obvious, as interviewees describe repercussions as “very hopeless period that kept getting worse,” where organizations were forced to retreat into semi-underground modus operandi, cancel projects, and engage in constant self-censorship (Interviewee 1. pers.comm., 2025). Social media activity almost totally ceased, as visibility itself became a privilege (Interviewee 1. pers.comm., 2025). The fear of further raids created a climate of paralysis and a sense that ‘doors could be knocked down at any moment,’ after those carried out against media organizations such as Abzas Media and Toplum TV. (Interviewee 1. pers.comm., 2025).
‘What if Someone Knocks Now?’: Anxiety under Conditions of Repression and the Erosion of the ‘Safety Wall’
As a result of sustained repression in Azerbaijan, a climate of “constant anxiety” emerged among activists, seriously affecting both their emotional well-being and their professional activities (Interviewee 2. pers.comm., 2025). One activist described the fear they carried even while going to sleep at night: “What if someone knocks now? They might come at any moment” (Interviewee 2. pers.comm., 2025). The unpredictability of the crackdown led to “highly stressful weeks,” where even holding simple meetings in the office became impossible, since “scale, direction, or speed” of the crackdown could not be known in advance. Discussions were instead moved to cafés, where, rather than strategizing about solutions or ways to continue activities, people mainly “shared their anxieties” (Interviewee 2. pers.comm., 2025). As one interviewee noted, this situation for many resulted in “personal wounding” and left “marks on our bodies and minds” (Interviewee 2. pers.comm., 2025). They also emphasized that the decision to “pause” activities was not driven by mistrust but rather by the intention “not to burden colleagues with heavy risks” (Interviewee 2. pers.comm., 2025). The prevailing sentiment was that the “safety wall” had collapsed, and that “anyone connected to these issues in Azerbaijan is at risk,” thereby eliminating the earlier illusion of relative safety for so-perceived non-political activists. (Interviewee 2. pers.comm., 2025).
For many years, there had been a perception about Azerbaijani civil society that it consisted of two segments: on one side, organizations that “openly expressed their political views” and engaged in politics, and on the other, grassroots initiatives that refrained from making political commentary (Interviewee 2. pers.comm., 2025). For instance, organizations such as Abzas Media, Majlis.info, Toplum TV, and the Institute for Democratic Initiatives accepted that they were “targets of the authorities” (Interviewee 2. pers.comm., 2025). Grassroots initiatives, however, felt that they were somewhat more secure; they believed that by staying away from direct political commentary, their civil society activities would remain “safe” (Interviewee 2. pers.comm., 2025).
Yet this distinction quickly disappeared, as authorities made it clear that even non-institutionalized grassroots activists who had chosen to “keep it safe” were equally at risk. The “wall collapsed,” and crackdown “declared everyone a target regardless of the type of activity,” creating a general atmosphere of hesitation and a state of “paralysis” (Interviewee 2. pers.comm., 2025).
Reactions of International Organizations: Loss of Influence and Effectiveness
Interviewees found it pertinent to mention that international organizations’ reaction to the deepening and abrupt crisis of civil society in Azerbaijan has been unsatisfactory both in terms of consistency and adequacy. These reactions have been delayed, unsystematic, insufficient, and accompanied by difficulties in understanding the local context and the concrete risks faced by activists (Fattah. pers.comm., 2025; Interviewee 1. pers.comm., 2025; Interviewee 3. pers.comm., 2025; Interviewee 4. pers.comm., 2025). Analyzing the collected data reveals the following general picture: although activists had long seen international institutions and NGOs as the main defenders of freedom, their concrete interventions in Azerbaijan, especially after the repression waves intensified following 2023, failed to keep up with developments.
Elman Fattah, director of the “Khazar” Research and Analysis Center and a figure with long-term experience in Azerbaijan’s civil society and politics, describes the responses of international organizations as “unsystematic and delayed” (Fattah 2025, 1, 4). In his view, the approach of international organizations has been primarily “reactive, contradictory, and unsystematic” (Fattah 2025, 4, 12). This is an assessment that overlaps with those of other interviewees’ reflections.
The shortcomings were not only in terms of timing but also of quality. Fattah notes that international reports often contained “numerous unprofessional examples” in terms of information; for instance, names were misspelled or professional statuses were misrepresented (Fattah 2025, 14, 45). An experienced journalist could be introduced as a civil society activist, or an NGO leader could be described as a journalist. While such mistakes might appear minor, they highlighted once more how detached international organizations were from local realities, as for people inside the country, this created an impression of neglect and disrespect (Fattah 2025, 14, 45).
Overall, the effectiveness of international organizations has sharply weakened compared to previous periods. According to Fattah, their influence and impact have become “incomparably weaker than 20 years ago” and have been “essentially neutralized” since 2015 (Fattah. pers.comm., 2025). Instead of innovative strategies, organizations increasingly focused on “procedural” formalities, and weak coordination resulted in “direct inefficiency in international advocacy” (Fattah. pers.comm., 2025).
Fattah categorizes international actors into two groups and analyzes them separately: intergovernmental organizations (such as the Council of Europe and the European Union) and international human rights NGOs (Fattah. pers.comm., 2025). He notes that intergovernmental organizations did make certain gestures, for example, the suspension of Azerbaijan’s delegation’s mandate at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe at the end of 2023/beginning of 2024, or the inclusion of the ministry of internal affairs and the head of the State Security Service in Magnitsky-type sanction proposals discussed in three European Parliament sessions in 2023–2024. Yet, he argues, these remained “only declarative steps” (Fattah. pers.comm., 2025). Most importantly, the Council of Europe “took no practical measures” (Fattah. pers.comm., 2025). This showed that even such large organizations could not establish long-term and systematic engagement and failed to create real impact (Fattah. pers.comm., 2025).
As for human rights NGOs, Fattah characterizes their stance as “traditional,” mentioning that in the last 30 years, “no special change” has occurred in their approach (Fattah. pers.comm., 2025). Moreover, since 2024, the situation has worsened further. Their activities have largely shifted into a reactive phase, and they have lost their previous ability to “function effectively” (Fattah. pers.comm., 2025).
As a result of the developments in 2023–2024, “international human rights organizations no longer have any ability to influence the Azerbaijani government,” Fattah mentions; they have lost even the power to create “minor concern” (pers.comm., 2025). He describes the historical trajectory of this decline as follows: the 1990s–2000s were the “effective period,” 2010–2015 was the period of “headache for the government,” 2015–2020 became “merely irritating,” and after 2020 there has been “complete loss of influence” (Fattah. pers.comm., 2025).
Interviewee 3 expressed this even more sharply, noting: “I think right now no international organization has any influence over Azerbaijan” (Interviewee 3, 103). In his view, the reason is that “global politics has transformed human rights from an absolute category into a relative one” (Interviewee 2, 78, 92; Interviewee 3, 103).
One interviewee repeatedly emphasized that international organizations were “completely detached from context” (Interviewee 1. pers.comm., 2025). If implemented, their representatives often proposed suggestions that could put local activists at serious risk. Interviewee 1 described this as “exhausting,” since local actors constantly had to “explain everything from scratch” (pers.comm., 2025). Another interviewee made a similar observation: the criteria applied by international organizations often “did not correspond to the Azerbaijani context,” and they failed to understand why even non-political activities could be risky. For example, they did not grasp that even social work could be dangerous at this time (Interviewee 2. pers.comm., 2025)
The insufficient, delayed, and selective nature of international organizations’ responses has produced serious negative consequences both in terms of influencing the Azerbaijani government and for the sustainability of civil society.
A recurring pattern among interviewees is that international responses “have had no concrete impact on the decisions and policies of the Azerbaijani government” (Fattah. pers.comm., 2025; Interviewee 1. pers.comm., 2025; Interviewee 2. pers.comm., 2025; Interviewee 3. pers.comm., 2025). Fattah states plainly that since 2020, “all influence has disappeared” (Fattah. pers.comm., 2025). On the other hand, Interviewee 1 notes that “international reactions did not create positive political change; on the contrary, the situation worsened,” and after the Trump administration came to power, “it was as if everything got worse; even steps that previously seemed safe were no longer considered safe” (pers.comm., 2025). Interviewee 2 confirms the same: “No change was felt in the government’s policies and decisions” (pers.comm., 2025).
As a result, the normalization of repression has reached such a level that “no one can tell anyone else what needs to be done anymore” (Interviewee 3. pers.comm., 2025). The interviewees’ statements show that condemnatory declarations and symbolic gestures have lost their earlier deterrent effect, and the recurring pattern is that international organizations “have no deep ties to human rights in Azerbaijan,” and “global politics has turned human rights into relativity” (Interviewee 2. pers.comm., 2025; Interviewee 3. pers.comm., 2025).
Coordination Problems and Challenges of Civil Society
Alongside criticizing the shortcomings of international organizations, the interviewees also acknowledge serious problems within Azerbaijan’s civil society itself. Elman Fattah emphasizes that “in the last 20–30 years, a civil society culture has not formed in Azerbaijan” (Fattah. pers.comm., 2025), and as a result, in moments of crisis, actors “have no experience regarding what kinds of organizational or self-protection forms they should employ” (Fattah. pers.comm., 2025). Even “in normal times,” this lack of experience hindered activities and, “in such crisis situations, became one of the main sources of the severe consequences experienced” (Fattah. pers.comm., 2025). Had such a culture formed, civil society “could have anticipated similar crises in advance and prepared conditional strategic plans” (Fattah. pers.comm., 2025).
As for the creation of coordination centers for mitigation, principled activists fear that coordination centers can be easily infiltrated and then used by the government for “sabotage” (Fattah. pers.comm., 2025). This reactive strategic approach strengthens the overall “trust deficit” (Fattah. pers.comm., 2025).
Another interviewee, emphasizing tribalism and nepotism, describes the system as follows: people treat each other as “brother, sister, lover,” and this tribalism also permeates the international recognition: “if you have a ‘godfather,’ you will be recognized; if you don’t, international organizations will not see you either” (Interviewee 4. pers.comm., 2025).
According to the second interviewee, the gatekeeping mechanism and inequality in communication with global civil society further aggravate the situation: “more visible individuals” or to “close connections” are in the spotlight, while others are left out (Interviewee 2. pers.comm., 2025). Consequently, Azerbaijan’s civil sector becomes even more fragmented in a state of crisis, with divisions and suspicions deepening (Fattah 2025. pers.comm., 2025).
Other problems include elitization and declining staff turnover. Long-term employees often reach a “saturation point,” motivation decreases, and along with it, the organization’s dynamism and innovativeness weaken (Fattah. pers.comm., 2025).
Inadequacies also created a serious psychological burden. One activist commented on the consequences of the pressure by saying, “Psychologically, none of us are well. We just survived” (Interviewee 3. pers.comm., 2025). “Stress, anxiety, and inability to concentrate” were widespread and pushed people away from professional activity (Interviewee 4. pers.comm., 2025).
Narrative Recommendations
Alongside pessimistic assessments, interviewees also voiced priority needs. The most urgent need concerns survival, and if survival is guaranteed, at the next stage it will be possible to “focus on systematizing development” (Fattah 2025. pers.comm., 2025).
Elman Fattah divides the restoration proposal into three stages: (1) survival, (2) administrative consolidation for functional activity, and (3) developing human resources (Fattah 2025, 23, 58). He emphasizes that a “more systematic and stronger strategic plan” is necessary (Fattah. pers.comm., 2025).
Interviewee 1 notes the absence of “comprehensive and sustained campaigns” regarding political prisoners (pers.comm., 2025). Campaigns often “intensify suddenly and then fade,” failing to create sustained pressure (Interviewee 1. pers.comm., 2025). The shortage of lawyers specialized in human rights is also among the issues; systematically strengthening legal defense and advocacy is another urgent need (Interviewee 2. pers.comm., 2025).
Fattah is categorically opposed to “copy-paste” strategies (pers.comm., 2025). Authoritarian regimes differ sharply from one another in sociological, intellectual, and cultural respects. CSOs’ activities should not be limited to “program implementation”; rather, “great importance should be attached to impact,” and if any measure or partnership “does not create impact,” cooperation “should not continue merely for the sake of completing the program.” (Fattah. pers.comm., 2025). Plans must be “continuously updated as appropriate and complemented with various tools to increase effectiveness” (Fattah 2025, 29, 66–67).
It would be more appropriate for international organizations to be “more decisive and informed” in their decisions regarding Azerbaijan (Interviewee 2. pers.comm., 2025). This would mean that “a better understanding of the situation would bring more effective advocacy,” and “concrete decisions about working on Azerbaijan would make advocacy mechanisms more targeted” (Interviewee 2. pers.comm., 2025).
One of the interviewees proposes shifting toward volunteerism and community-based organization as an alternative: “5–10 people gather, everyone contributes what they can, and we solve it” (Interviewee 1. pers.comm., 2025). At present, since many activists are “scattered across different parts of the world,” there is a need to “build around volunteerism and human networks.” In this way, existing time, skills, and commitments can be mobilized effectively (Interviewee 3. pers.comm., 2025).
Conclusion
The particular research attempted to answer the following questions by gathering and analyzing data from predominantly primary and relatively secondary sources, using qualitative analysis: How and to what extent did the 2023-2024 crackdown affect the modus operandi of Azerbaijan’s civic space? To what extent could international organizations’ responses mitigate the crisis of Azerbaijan’s civil society?
In sum, the research concludes that the recent crackdown on Azerbaijani media and civil society, being unprecedented in size and characteristics, has had a structurally detrimental effect on Azerbaijani civic space, leaving no space for citizens to freely assemble inside the country, even in a symbolic way. The campaign has created a huge “chilling effect”, extensively demotivating civic activities. Civic space shrinkage effectively simplified the governance of Azerbaijan, lowering the institutional complexity of the state apparatus, leaving behind many contingencies related to the rule of law in the country. Platforms for public discussions have been extremely restricted, causing a lack of structural support for good governance.
According to stakeholders’ acknowledgements, international organizations’ impact on mitigating the repercussions of the crisis was minimal. Interviewees depicted this situation with mainly two determinants, e.g., the shift of priorities in international politics and unsystematic characteristics of responses associated with the lack of strategy.
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