:focus(3405x909:3406x910))
Find our most recent blog post below.
Active Citizens: the balance between autocracies and democracies
Volunteers in civic roles, representing community interests and sharing local knowledge, are the foundation of action in democratic societies. Protected under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, such as Article 19 ‘Freedom of Expression’, Article 20 ‘Freedom of Association’ and Article 21 ‘the right to take part in Government’ and ‘right to equal access’ (United Nations 1948), volunteers become involved in how their communities are governed and run.
Article 21 also states ‘that will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government’, which for democratic societies means that without active citizenship, without active participation, political power cannot be shared by all. The United Nations and many democratic societies also recognise the essential roles of volunteers in ‘building equal and inclusive societies’ (United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme 2021).
However, recent reports demonstrate the global erosion of and threat to democratic standards (Donner et al 2026; European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights 2026). At the Institute for Volunteering Research (IVR) we find that this erosion might be closely linked to the diminishing support by democratic governments and civil society organisations for volunteers as active citizens.
When volunteers are enabled to represent community interests in diverse associations and have inclusive opportunities to engage in civic roles with access to spaces for pro-democratic involvement, their active citizenship strengthens democracies. Yet support for volunteers as active citizens now appears to be outmatched by forces contrastingly strengthening authoritarian systems.
In democratic societies today, volunteers appear to be increasingly disempowered and disenfranchised by socio political trends heading from crisis to crisis. If volunteers are invited to be involved at all, they are told to just provide their unpaid labour rather than to act as active citizens. By contrast, populist and demagogue campaigners are becoming more effective at encouraging volunteers to share their messages and campaign on their behalf, online, in an increasingly digital society (see for example Dyer 2026). Volunteers can as likely choose to be involved in anti-democratic activities and cannot be taken for granted as the protectors of democratic citizenship.
If fewer volunteers become involved in democratic roles because they cannot see their involvement making any difference, and if civic organisations largely provide activities for volunteers to offer their unpaid labour without agency, while populist strategy is to engage with volunteers using messages that shift volunteering away from inclusive involvement, then the balance is tipping away from democratic societies.
)
In this context it is bewildering and concerning that at the launch of the International Year of Volunteers in December 2025 democratic governments which have traditionally supported volunteers and associations in civil society showed no active interest. Indeed, some are defunding such activities, and their rhetoric of asserting volunteers as the backbone of society (see for example Hansard 2024, 2026) sounds hollow when they withdraw their systematic support and ostracise active citizens if their views challenge officials. Concurrently, autocratic leaderships are increasingly and openly looking to co-opt volunteers into delivering their anti-democratic policy goals.
Arguments that changing lifestyles and faster internet speed take individuals away from volunteering might be convenient, as they blame the individual choice and question their motivations and commitments. However, individuals’ accounts collected by IVR and feedback from sectors where involvement has stayed strong suggests that the drive to volunteer has remained constant and widespread.
At IVR we argue that active citizens, who retain agency and have inclusive access to civic life, can tip the balance back in favour of democracies, but that disenfranchised, disempowered, unsupported volunteers who are taken for granted and, indeed, exploited, may choose to join, - or at least, side with, undemocratic, populist movements. All government and civil society organisations in democracies should take note of the threat, and act with urgency, if we do not want to follow the shift from democratic to autocratic power.
We cannot blame the volunteers who are taken for granted but we must blame ourselves for our complacency and lack of recognition of how the role of volunteers as active citizens influences the fragile balance between democracy and autocracy, in our polarised world.
References
Donner, S., Hartmann, H. and Plate, S. (2026) Repression meets resistance - BTI 2026 Global Findings, Gütersloh: Bertelsmann Stiftung.
Dyer, H. (2026) Researching Digital Society: An Introduction, London: Sage.
European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (2026) Civil Space Update: Enabling civil society to uphold EU values and strengthen democracy, European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights. Available from https://fra.europa.eu/en/publication/2026/civic-space-update [Accessed 01.04.2026].
Hansard (2024) Community and Voluntary Sector Volume 840: debated on Thursday 31 October 2024, transcript of a debate in the House of Lords available from https://hansard.parliament.uk/lords/2024-10-31/debates/3ACF1151-6002-446F-8285-7A8A3244637D/CommunityAndVoluntarySector [Accessed 01.04.2026].
Hansard (2026) Voluntary Groups and Community Centres Volume 783: debated on Wednesday 25 March 2026, transcript of a debate in House of Commons, available from https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2026-03-25/debates/318E8777-013F-4CE8-9C30-51A906AA99E0/VoluntaryGroupsAndCommunityCentres [Accessed 01.04.2026].
United Nations (1948) Universal Declaration of Human Rights, available on the website of the United Nations https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/2021/03/udhr.pdf [Accessed 31.03.2026].
United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme (2021) 2022 State of the World’s Volunteerism Report. Building equal and inclusive societies, Bonn: United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme.
Loading...