I’m a bit late in getting to it, but Foreign Policy blogger (and former TOL hand) Evgeny Morozov had a very interesting post over at Net Effect a couple weeks back entitled “What if the Trafigura case happened in Turkmenistan?” Morozov asked just that regarding the Guardian’s Twitter-abetted triumph over a certifiably evil oil company that secured an injunction against the newspaper reporting on the firm’s internal analysis of a 2006 pollution disaster - and against reporting on the injunction itself. (As The New York Times pithily put it, “the Guardian was forbidden to report that it had been gagged.”)

Prompted by a Guardian article that broadly hinted at what was afoot, the Twitterati took over, creating an online onslaught that prompted the firm, Trafigura, to relent and release the internal report. All well and good. But Morozov notes that the case points up what digital activism can’t do as well as what it can do - or, more to the point, where it can do:

“… broadly speaking, for networks of activists to exert influence on power structures, those structures have to be responsible, transparent, and fluid. The reason why the anti-Trafigura campaign succeeded is that the U.K. already enjoys a rather healthy democracy, whatever its minor shortcomings are. A similar campaign in Belarus or Uzbekistan would almost surely fail, because state newspapers have nothing to lose (they are subsidized by the government), the private sector doesn’t exist, and bureaucrats do not really care about their reputations or the reputations of the structures that they represent.

“Just look at the failure to mobilize civil society in Azerbaijan over the case of two activist bloggers who are now facing jail sentences. No matter how many Twitter users stand up for their cause, I doubt any digital activism campaigns could sway the Azeri authorities.”

I don’t think Morozov is trying to pour cold water on digital activism in Azerbaijan, Britain or anywhere else. But, as he often does in his blog, he casts a welcome critical eye on the sometimes overheated claims being made for social tools as political tools. In repressive regimes, as he points out, the hard slogging still has to be done on the ground, not just in the ether.

Today and in the future – what is the role of civil society organizations in the public space? Global issues and new tools for civic engagement are influencing CEE societies as well as the rest of the world. The Trust for Civil Society in Central and Eastern Europe wants to explore the changing map of civil society - beyond formal institutions, concepts and agendas developed in the first years of democratization.

The Civil Society Forum takes place 17 and 18 September in Bratislava. Take part in discussions and share your thoughts directly with participants and speakers through the online livestreaming!