How civil society in India is marginalized. Civic space as relational process

Restriction of civic space is widely understood as a condition that constrains the autonomous role of civil society organizations. However, this conceptualization is delimiting. This paper explores civic space as constituted in the dynamics between civil society organizations and state actors, contributing to an emergent shift to a more processual, relational and agential understanding of civic space, involving a redefining of civil society roles by state and civil society actors acting and reacting within their everyday work. We explore the case of India. Based on 36 interviews with state and civil society actors, the paper. shows how the state marginalizes civil society through three pathways: delegitimation, displacement and repurposing. A fourth pattern, however, qualifies this marginalization: political roles for civil society continue to be sought and found, depending on situations and the specific actors involved, based on their interpretations and political advantages at stake for them. The broader significance of these findings is, first, that everyday understanding and experience of civic space may prominently revolve around changes in civil society roles. Second, these changes in roles may best be understood at the level of concrete cases of relating and political contention, doing justice to the agency of the actors involved.