Halting Autocratic Consolidation in Nicaragua: Strategic Civic Resistance under International Human Rights Law

With the consolidation of autocracy, civic space in Nicaragua is closed (CIVICUS, 2023). The increase in repression figures among the three highest worldwide (V-Dem, 2022). Does resistance to autocracy by civil society persist in such an adverse context? How is it configured? This paper proposes to conceptualize Strategic Civic Resistance under International Human Rights Law to encapsulate the local incentives that aim at halting autocratic consolidation. It complements Laebens and Lührmann’s (2021) approach concerning pressures from civil society on powerful incumbents with an International Law perspective. Referential strategies include (a) the documentation of human rights violations and crimes against humanity, (b) the invocation of State responsibilities and activation of regional and international complaint procedures, and (c), coalition building on grounds of a shared agenda. An in-depth case study of Nicaragua from 2018 to 2022 explores typologies of Strategic Civic Resistance in context. Interest in actor-based resistance rises against the backdrop of a third wave of autocratization (Lührmann and Lindberg, 2019). Respectively, Tomini et al. (2022), Gamboa (2022), and Baldus et al. (2019) have refined opposition strategies and configurations that halt democratic erosion. Laebens and Lührmann (2021) propose three accountability mechanisms. Civil society pressures constitute one of these. Accordingly, non-state actors contribute to holding executives accountable from outside of institutions. Democratic erosion is halted in an interplay with independent legislative and judicial branches as well as competitive party systems and free and fair elections. These mechanisms potentially react to civic pressures and make them effective. Does autocratic consolidation inevitably eradicate both responsiveness to civil society and the latter's incentives to pressure incumbents? Lauth (2017) suggests that civil society must count on a high degree of activism, strategic capabilities, and organizational competencies to maintain itself as a countervailing power to the executive. This paper follows his argumentation and claims that civil society applies Strategic Civic Resistance as a new accountability mechanism to halt autocratic consolidation. Civil society hence collectively addresses human rights organs and state obligations under International Law. A boomerang effect (Keck and Sikkink 1998) is used strategically. An in-depth analysis discusses the case of Nicaragua as a consolidated autocracy with closed civic space which provokes resistance by newly emerging protagonists. A variety of observatories and databases, demands, and coalitions are set up by civic incentives. Furthermore, they are echoed by significant numbers of resolutions within the Inter-American Human Rights System and by the United Nations Human Rights Council with the creation of a Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua. This leads to discussing International Human Rights Law as a main source of civic resistance in contexts of autocratic consolidation.