Abstract
Contemporary civil society organisations (CSOs) face ever more settings of closing space, and an emerging literature has begun to show how such hostile conditions shape accountability practices for local CSOs. However, less is known about how funders of such organisations themselves account for involvement with advocacy-based CSOs that are a target of state-sanctioned repression. Drawing on annual reports and associated documents issued by the prominent Russian human rights non-governmental organisation (NGO) Memorial and its international non-governmental funders over three decades, we derive four modes of transparency of funders vis-à-vis their commitment to Memorial and their involvement in Russia. We also analyse shifts and patterns in funders’ public disclosures, against a backdrop of mounting hostility against foreign-funded CSOs in Russia. We find that funders are generally restrictive in what they disclose about their involvement in a hostile setting and responsive to deteriorating circumstances for a potentially vulnerable grantee. In particular, funders embedded in the hostile conditions faced by their grantee engage in protective opacity to render their own and recipient organisations’ activities and associates more opaque. We argue that this shielding tactic can support and sustain funders’ involvement in hostile conditions where public dissemination of information has the potential to be weaponised. Our findings offer a timely problematisation of the hitherto dominant trope that NGO funders are distanced and self-interested promoters of greater transparency and upward accountability.