Although violence has always been in governments’ toolkit against civil society organizations (CSOs), there has been a global trend where governments set legal and logistical barriers to non-violently repress CSOs, especially INGOs (International Non-Governmental Organizations) since the mid-2000s. During this period, states present variations in CSO repression, ranging from moderate regulation to violent expulsion. Why do countries vary the repression? I argue that different levels of repression are based on governments’ perceived repression effectiveness in reducing INGOs’ threats. For better illustration, I propose the effectiveness-perception framework, where repression effectiveness comes from the interaction between regime type and local trust in INGOs, while the perception of effectiveness is rooted in the domestic political structure. To conduct empirical tests, I create a latent variable, local trust, to measure threats of INGOs conditional on local communities. Relying on the sample from 1996 to 2012, I find that consolidated democracies and autocracies, compared to middling countries, are more likely to adjust the repression levels based on local trust in INGOs. I expect the finding to produce some strategy-relevant insights for INGOs’ survival in the current political environment.

尽管暴力一直是政府针对公民社会组织 (CSO) 的工具包，但自上世纪中期以来，全球趋势是政府设置法律和后勤障碍以非暴力镇压公民社会组织，尤其是 INGO（国际非政府组织） 2000年代。在此期间，各州对公民社会组织的镇压有所不同，从适度监管到暴力驱逐不等。为什么各国的镇压方式不同？我认为不同程度的镇压是基于政府在减少国际非政府组织威胁方面的镇压效果。为了更好地说明，我提出了有效性-感知框架，其中镇压有效性来自政权类型与当地对 INGO 的信任之间的相互作用，而对有效性的看法植根于国内政治结构。为了进行实证检验，我创建了一个潜在变量，即本地信任，以衡量以当地社区为条件的国际非政府组织的威胁。依靠 1996 年至 2012 年的样本，我发现与中等国家相比，巩固的民主国家和专制国家更有可能根据当地对国际非政府组织的信任来调整镇压水平。我希望这一发现能够为国际非政府组织在当前政治环境中的生存提供一些与战略相关的见解。