The crisis of democracy and civil society: Challenges and perspectives for the #ShiftThePower movement
This paper aims to analyze the current political and funding crisis facing civil society in the context of the far right’s advance and mounting attacks on democracy. This work adopts a complexity approach—a philosophical and epistemological paradigm (associated with Edgar Morin, 2005) that conceives reality as an interconnected, non-linear, and uncertain system.
The paper examines the crisis of democracy and the rise of the far right on the international stage, the current crisis of international funding and its impacts on civil society, as well as the impacts of the funding crisis on Brazilian civil society and the role of local philanthropy in this context. It closes by considering strategies and actions that can be taken to address the crisis, and the prospects for civil society’s future.
Author: Graciela Hopstein, 2024 / 2025 #ShiftThePower Fellow
Published by: GFCF
Published: February 2026