Abstract

This dataset aims to quantitatively assess both formal and informal co-optation strategies targeting environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Russia during the year 2023. It is theoretically grounded in the typology of government-organized NGOs (GONGOs) proposed by Hasmath and Hsu (2019), which examines the origins of NGOs and their institutional ties to the state. Building upon this foundational framework, the dataset expands the analytical scope to incorporate a wider array of stakeholders, including public enterprises, private businesses, and foreign actors. The current version of the dataset encompasses 75 variables across a sample of 41 environmental NGOs that participated in major government-sponsored forums in 2023. This approach enables a detailed examination of the degree and nature of co-optation experienced by each organization through interactions with various institutional actors. The dataset is organized into six thematic sections: (1) general information, (2) institutional constraints, (3) foreign influence, (4) ties with the government, (5) ties with public enterprises, and (6) ties with private businesses. Variable construction draws on established academic literature on the shrinking space for civil society and the mechanisms of NGO co-optation in authoritarian regimes. All data were compiled using open-source materials, including content made publicly available by NGOs on their official websites. In the case of GONGOs, additional information was sourced from news media, legal filings submitted to Russian tax authorities, annual reports, and other relevant documents. In total, the dataset is informed by over 4,000 individual sources. Given the constraints of operating in an authoritarian context, access to comprehensive information is often limited. Therefore, a value of “0” for any variable signifies the absence of publicly available evidence supporting the associated assumption, rather than a definitive absence of the phenomenon itself. This dataset is designed to support a range of scholarly inquiries, including analyses of co-optation dynamics in authoritarian regimes, patterns of foreign and domestic partnerships among NGOs and GONGOs, variations in state-civil society relations, and the participation of NGOs in state-aligned or propagandistic initiatives. It offers a unique empirical foundation for understanding the evolving strategies of stakeholder-led co-optation in Russia and may be adapted for comparative studies in other authoritarian settings.