Introduction: Foreign influence regulation in Europe
Traditionally, restrictions or even bans on foreign funding to domestic civil society organizations (CSOs)Footnote 1 have been associated with autocratic regimes, developing countries, or countries experiencing democratic backsliding, with studies suggesting that being democratic makes the adoption of restrictive laws or measures against CSOs less likely (e.g., Bromley et al., Reference Bromley, Schofer and Longhofer2020; Christensen & Weinstein, Reference Christensen and Weinstein2013; Dupuy et al., Reference Dupuy, Ron and Prakash2016; Dupuy & Prakash, Reference Dupuy and Prakash2018, Reference Dupuy and Prakash2022; Glasius et al., Reference Glasius, Schalk and De Lange2020: 458, 460; Poppe & Wolff, Reference Poppe and Wolff2017). Nevertheless, harmful foreign influence has emerged as a salient policy problem across established democracies, generating incentives for the diffusion of foreign influence regulation, which could have negative consequences for the voluntary sectorFootnote 2, particularly as CSOs with foreign ties are increasingly viewed as potential “agents of subversion” (Frankenberg & Nicola, Reference Frankenberg and Nicola2025: 63; 75).Footnote 3 Demands for such regulation in liberal democracies—regimes endorsing freedom of association, pluralism, and, relatedly, free cross-border exchange—create a tension. In theory, liberal democracies should consider foreign influence as positive, echoing their condemnation of “illiberal” foreign influence regimes adopted, for example, by Russia (Kamhi, Reference Kamhi2006). Simultaneously, liberal-democratic policymakers across Europe increasingly seek to regulate foreign influence to counter covert, malign, or hostile foreign interference (Jones, Reference Jones2023), exemplified by the European Commission’s controversial “Defence of Democracy package,” which calls on EU member states to establish “foreign interest registration schemes” (Robinson, Reference Robinson2024: 22–31; 2025).
Liberal democracies thus face a regulatory challenge: they must define what constitutes harmful foreign influence and design measures countering it without curtailing benign or even beneficial forms of foreign influence and without burdening organizations with unproblematic ties abroad (Sidel, Reference Sidel and Michaels2011: 308). Considering this tension between pressures to regulate and the inevitable contentiousness of foreign influence regulation in liberal-democratic frameworks, we examine how democracies translate broader understandings of foreign influence perceived as a regulatory problem into distinct notions of “harmful” (as opposed to benign or beneficial) foreign influence, and how those notions inform specific regulatory designs, which may be more or less “fit for purpose” (Kusik, Reference Kusik2025: 932; Robinson Reference Robinson2025: 2; Sahlin & Wedlin, Reference Sahlin, Wedlin, Greenwood, Oliver, Suddaby and Sahlin2008: 225; Stone, Reference Stone2012: 485–489). Specifically, we ask three questions. First, how has foreign influence regulation evolved across European democracies since 2000? Second, how are different notions of harmful foreignness translated into distinct regulatory designs adopted in these contexts? Finally, to what extent do these designs functionally address the particular notion of harmful foreign influence they purport to counter, while avoiding regulatory overreach, that is, unnecessary legal constraints on benign actors or legitimate cross-border activities?
Our study makes several contributions to the literature. Whereas existing cross-national studies primarily focus on outright restrictions on CSOs, such as bans on foreign funding, which are rarely adopted in established democracies (Bromley et al., Reference Bromley, Schofer and Longhofer2020; Christensen & Weinstein, Reference Christensen and Weinstein2013), we propose a broader definition of foreign influence regulation. We conceptualize this term as legal provisions intentionally and visibly designed to regulate the exercise of societal or political influence within domestic arenas by foreign actors, whether located inside or outside the jurisdiction. Based on this definition, we empirically map its evolution across 12 European countries from 2000 to 2022. To provide a more up-to-date picture, we further consider regulatory schemes introduced after 2022 that apply to all CSOs, as well as those targeting specific subsets thereof (see “Methodology and data” for details). We introduce a new measurement approach capable of capturing variation in regulatory instruments that are less visible and formally less restrictive, deliberately moving beyond analyses limited to the adoption or repeal of overtly “restrictive laws,” as recent voluntary sector research has called for (e.g., Chaudhry, Reference Chaudhry2022: 552; Fransen & Dupuy, Reference Fransen and Dupuy2024: 441–442; Heiss, Reference Heiss, Zvobgo and Parente2026: 3–5).
Finally, we examine how different understandings of foreign influence as a regulatory problem within democratic orders are translated into concrete regulatory designs and assess whether these translations align with core liberal-democratic standards. Building on translation theory and expanding research on political finance, we propose three qualitatively distinct notions of harmful foreignness—jurisdictional, state-based, and community-based—that can inform the regulation of foreign influence in democracies. In developing this framework, we flag that foreign influence regulation is not inherently restrictive and might pursue legitimate goals (e.g., Frankenberg & Nicola, Reference Frankenberg and Nicola2025; Robinson, Reference Robinson2025). Such regulation can justifiably seek to counter different forms of harmful foreignness, provided its design remains consistent with liberal and democratic standards. This condition, however, is not always met, as we demonstrate in our analysis.
Through qualitative legal analysis of the identified regulatory measures, we explore whether the measures included in our analysis actually target the harm they purport to address (functional fit) and whether they legally overreach by imposing unnecessary restrictions on unharmful actors or activities. This assessment shows that foreign influence regulation has changed qualitatively, with increasingly problematic implications for liberal democracies. This is because poorly designed measures risk producing various detrimental effects on organizations, whether intentional or not. For example, disproportionate and overreaching measures can create vague rules and legal uncertainty for legitimate organizations, particularly those caught up in extensive regulatory frameworks (Eide, Reference Eide, Krøvel and Thowsen2019; Frankenberg & Nicola, Reference Frankenberg and Nicola2025: 68; Sidel, Reference Sidel and Michaels2011). Relatedly, they may also generate chilling effects, leading organizations to self-censor, redirect their activities, become depoliticized, or even disappear (Adelsberg et al., Reference Adelsberg, Pitts and Shebaya2013; Cameron & Nicola, Reference Cameron, Nicola, Gosztonyi and Lendvai2026: 88; 90–91; Dupuy et al., Reference Dupuy, Ron and Prakash2015; Fransen et al., Reference Fransen, Dupuy, Hinfelaar and Zakaria Mazumder2021; Heinzel & Koenig-Archibugi, Reference Heinzel and Koenig-Archibugi2023: 1295–1297; Smidt et al., Reference Smidt, Perera, Mitchell and Bakke2021; Penney, Reference Penney2022). Such measures might further erode public support, strain already meagre organizational resources, and weaken organizations’ transnational connections (Cameron & Nicola, Reference Cameron, Nicola, Gosztonyi and Lendvai2026: 88–89; Christensen & Weinstein, Reference Christensen and Weinstein2013; Fransen et al., Reference Fransen, Dupuy, Hinfelaar and Zakaria Mazumder2021; Glasius et al., Reference Glasius, Schalk and De Lange2020; Matejova et al., Reference Matejova, Parker and Dauvergne2018). Thus, although foreign influence regulation might not intend to target civil society, CSOs with foreign ties have nonetheless already been shown to bear disproportionately high burdens, warranting closer analysis, particularly as more democracies seek to regulate this area.
In the following, we introduce a theoretical framework identifying three notions of “harmful foreignness” that might inform foreign influence regulation in democracies. After outlining our methodology and data, we conduct a qualitative legal analysis, using these notions as analytical templates to classify the identified foreign influence regulations according to their objectives. We then assess whether the legal instruments adopted under each regulation are functionally fit to achieve those objectives while avoiding overreach. We conclude with the broader implications of our findings and avenues for future research.
Harmful foreignness as a regulatory problem in liberal democracies: A framework for analysis
Drawing on theories of translation and scholarship on legal transplants in public policy and comparative law, which examine how broadly shared policy concerns are reframed into distinct problem definitions and institutional solutions (Czarniawska & Joerges, Reference Czarniawska, Joerges, Czarniawska and Sevón1996: 25–26; Kusik, Reference Kusik2025: 932; Sahlin & Wedlin, Reference Sahlin, Wedlin, Greenwood, Oliver, Suddaby and Sahlin2008: 225–226; Stone, Reference Stone2012: 485–489), we identify three conceptions of “harmful foreignness” that commonly underpin foreign influence regulation in liberal-democratic settings. We start from the premise that, in liberal democracies, governments can only legitimately restrict civil society in a way that does not violate core liberal democratic principles (Bolleyer et al., Reference Bolleyer, Guzzo Falci and Daur2026b). Consequently, only those notions of “foreignness” that can plausibly be justified as “harmful” within a liberal democracy can serve as a legitimate basis for regulation, which excludes, for example, xenophobic notions of foreignness. This perspective has been called “liberal legalism” (Orr, Reference Orr2019: 181) or a “rights-based approach” to foreign influence regulation (Robinson, Reference Robinson2025: 3, 16). It shapes both which harms are recognized as warranting intervention and which regulatory instruments are considered appropriate, and it affects how abstract policy concerns are translated into concrete regulatory designs (Ashworth & Zedner, Reference Ashworth and Zedner2014; Orr, Reference Orr2019: 182; Robinson, Reference Robinson2024: 49–58; Robinson, Reference Robinson2025: 3, 16; Sidel, Reference Sidel and Michaels2011: 308). Synthesizing the work on political finance regulation by Tham (Reference Tham2017) and Orr (Reference Orr2019), we identify three broader notions of “harmful foreignness” that might inform foreign influence regulation in democracies: a jurisdictional notion concerned with ensuring the legality of cross-border resources and transactions; a state-based notion countering the influence of foreign governments in domestic politics; and a community-based notion concerned with foreign influence within the domestic political or societal community.
According to the jurisdictional notion, harmful foreignness is related to the limited scope and enforceability of national legislation beyond territorial borders. The perceived risk is that resources and activities originating abroad could evade domestic regulation and undermine its effectiveness. Measures reflecting this notion seek to increase transparency to enhance the reach and enforceability of domestic law (Robinson, Reference Robinson2024: 29; Tham, Reference Tham2017: 268). If such legislation concerns compliance with domestic party finance or campaign regulations, a key motivation is to combat corruption (Tham, Reference Tham2017: 263). If the focus is on the financial or economic activities of non-party entities, the primary motivations are to combat money laundering and terrorist activity (Robinson, Reference Robinson2025: 55).
The state-based notion identifies harmful foreignness in the involvement of external state actors in domestic political processes, assuming that the influence of foreign governments or state-controlled actors could threaten national sovereignty and interests. Regulation grounded in this notion therefore aims to monitor, restrict, or prevent undue influence in domestic politics, including elections, political institutions, and political actors, when it comes from foreign governments or entities under their control (Robinson, Reference Robinson2024: 53–54; Tham, Reference Tham2017: 265).
Finally, the community-based notion conceives harm as rooted in the participation of “non-members” of the political or social community in domestic collective decision-making or social life, allegedly undermining cohesion, shared interests, or self-governance of the “domestic community.” Here, harmful foreignness is linked to the status of outsiders as such, that is, to nonnationals who lack membership in the political community, whether defined in terms of citizenship, residency, or more substantive cultural conceptions of belonging. Regulation serves to monitor or restrict associational activity in order to safeguard the community’s integrity or identity (Robinson, Reference Robinson2024: 27; Tham, Reference Tham2017: 268). Importantly, foreignness may be attributed even to individuals who are formally part of the host society. Such attribution can rest either on the absence of formal status (such as citizenship), or on association with groups framed as culturally or politically not belonging to the dominant community (Tham, Reference Tham2017: 265–268).Footnote 4 Regulatory designs grounded in this notion typically restrict the associational rights of foreigners or impose additional controls on organizations deemed “foreign” because of their composition or funding sources.
Assessing the stated objectives of foreign influence regulation enables us to identify the notion of harmful foreignness a measure purports to address. The stated objectives can then serve as a benchmark to evaluate whether the regulatory design is functionally tailored to the stated harm, and to determine whether legal rules overreach beyond their stated scope. Essentially, based on the relevant notion of harmful foreignness, we conduct a twofold assessment of the instruments entailed in a regulatory scheme. First, assuming that regulations adopted in liberal democracies are designed to bring about specific ends (Davitt, Reference Davitt1960: 92), we examine functional fit by assessing whether the measures devised by lawmakers are compatible with what is necessary to counter, monitor, or curtail groups (or their activities) associated with the respective notion of harmful foreign influence that a regulation claims to address (Robinson, Reference Robinson2024: 57). Second, we assess legislative overreach, that is, whether the design chosen—intentionally or not—applies or extends to benign or beneficial foreign influence in domestic society (in terms of actors, activities, and duration), thereby exceeding what is warranted to achieve the declared objectives. In liberal-democratic regimes, regulation ought to “address the underlying disruptive force that is of concern” and not curtail legitimate activities (Ashworth & Zedner, Reference Ashworth and Zedner2014; Robinson, Reference Robinson2024: 57; Sidel, Reference Sidel and Michaels2011: 308).
Assessing these two dimensions is important for the voluntary sector, as previous research shows that poorly designed regulatory measures can have negative effects on CSOs on the ground (intended or unintended), even without using outright prohibitions or strict sanctions (e.g., Heinzel & Koenig-Archibugi, Reference Heinzel and Koenig-Archibugi2023). Broad reporting obligations, extensive oversight powers, or—as discussed—vague legal rules capturing the entire sector can threaten the existence and activities of organizations with foreign ties, even when they do not represent any harm to the state (Adelsberg et al., Reference Adelsberg, Pitts and Shebaya2013; Cameron & Nicola, Reference Cameron, Nicola, Gosztonyi and Lendvai2026: 88–89; Eide, Reference Eide, Krøvel and Thowsen2019; Matejova et al., Reference Matejova, Parker and Dauvergne2018; Sidel, Reference Sidel and Michaels2011).
Methodology and data
An operational definition of foreign influence regulation
To generate an encompassing mapping of foreign influence regulation, we define “foreign influence regulation” as any legally binding, statutory provisions in national legal frameworks that are explicitly designed to regulate societal or political influence exercised within domestic societies by nonnational actors (i.e., actors without citizenship). Under this definition, provisions must be visibly designed to counter harmful foreign influence by explicitly regulating the domestic societal or political activities of foreigners or nonnationals. We therefore do not focus on the “creative” misuse of general laws that do not explicitly reference foreign influence to suppress civil society with ties abroad—a strategy often deployed in autocracies against these CSOs (e.g., Bromley et al., Reference Bromley, Schofer and Longhofer2020; Glasius et al., Reference Glasius, Schalk and De Lange2020). To avoid biasing the legal data we compile toward a specific notion of harmful foreignness, regulatory designs may concern foreign actors or activities either abroad or domestically. Actors regulated can be individuals, to the extent that their associational or corporate activity is affected. They can also be collective/corporate actors, such as foreign parties or governments, that exercise influence through domestic organizations financially dependent on or controlled by them, or through foreign actors exercising influence directly from within a country.Footnote 5
Our conception of “foreign influence regulation” thus covers three broad types of provisions. First, legal provisions regulating organizations operating across the CSO sector or engaged in a wide range of activities (sector-wide regulation). Second, legal provisions explicitly targeting specific CSO subsets (targeted regulation), either by naming certain groups (e.g., religious organizations) or by narrowly targeting CSOs engaged in specific activities (e.g., electioneering) (Glasius et al., Reference Glasius, Schalk and De Lange2020: 457). These two types of provisions can employ means of varying restrictiveness, from bans and caps on foreign funds to registration, reporting, and transparency requirements that might be enforced through special sanction regimes (Robinson, Reference Robinson2025: 46–48). Third, we cover nonnationals’ domestic engagement in legally recognized CSOs and their ability to form such associations, signaling countries’ orientation toward nonnationals’ mobilization and involvement in the domestic social and political community.
Data collection and analysis
In line with earlier studies of CSO regulation (Bloodgood et al., Reference Bloodgood, Tremblay-Boire and Prakash2014; Bloodgood & Tremblay-Boire, Reference Bloodgood and Tremblay-Boire2011; Bolleyer, Reference Bolleyer2018; Bolleyer et al., Reference Bolleyer, Eick, Guzzo Falci, Di Mascio, Salát, Bejma, Spyropoulou and Burtejin Zorigt2026a; Christensen & Weinstein, Reference Christensen and Weinstein2013; DeMattee, Reference DeMattee2019), we systematically collected legal data through manual coding.Footnote 6 Specifically, we cover the three types of foreign influence provisions based on a standardized coding scheme covering 17 categories (Appendix, Section 1, Table 1, for categories by provision type). Data collection at the level of individual provisions was necessary, as foreign influence regulation, as defined above, does not necessarily take the form of separate “foreign influence laws,” but can be embedded in laws on broader subject-matters (e.g., electoral or association law). Our coding scheme was used to analyze primary legislation, complemented and informed by available secondary sources (Appendix, Section 1, for the process and types of legal sources used).
We mapped the adoption or removal of provisions matching our 17 coding categories annually across 12 European countries from 2000 to 2022, treating the 9/11 attacks as a critical juncture that prompted democracies to regulate CSOs more proactively (Sidel, Reference Sidel2009). To ensure a more up-to-date picture, particularly in light of the recent discussions and adoption of foreign influence schemes across Europe, we examined the legal developments introduced after 2022 across our country cases, considering both sector-wide and targeted foreign influence regulation (Appendix, Section 1), to identify additional government measures that explicitly aim to counter “harmful” foreign influence. This expanded our dataset by four measures that primarily affect “politically active” organizations, highlighting significant shifts in the rapidly changing regulatory landscape, which consequently could be considered in our qualitative analysis (Appendix, Table 2).
We study Austria, France, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, Poland, Greece, Latvia, and Malta. While these countries share commonalities—notably, they were all EU member states for most of the examination period, and liberal or electoral democracies throughout (except for HungaryFootnote 7)—they were selected to maximize variation in structural characteristics associated with the regulation of CSOs and foreign influence in existing research, allowing us to capture a country sample representative of varying contexts. These include institutional characteristics, namely, regime type, time of EU membership, legal tradition, and democratic age. While foreign influence regulation has become commonplace in autocratizing countries, it has recently emerged in established democracies as well. Moreover, these countries vary in their exposure to crises that have the potential to affect regulatory activity, including terrorism, migration, the sovereign debt crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Terrorism and migration in particular are commonly invoked to justify CSO foreign influence regulation, as they can be framed as posing a foreign threat (Adelsberg et al., Reference Adelsberg, Pitts and Shebaya2013; Bloodgood & Tremblay-Boire, Reference Bloodgood and Tremblay-Boire2011; Bolleyer, Reference Bolleyer2018; Reference Bolleyer, Sajó, Uitz and Holmes2022; Robinson, Reference Robinson2024: 79; Sidel, Reference Sidel2009; see Appendix, Section 2, for central systemic differences and countries’ relative crisis exposure).
The resulting primary dataset (2000–2022) includes 35 instances of preexisting and newly adopted foreign influence provisions. The only predefined coding category not found in any country was “sector-wide bans or caps on CSOs’ foreign income”. The data show that foreign influence regulation—while not a new phenomenon (Orr, Reference Orr2019: 179–180)—is rising, especially since 2015 (Appendix, Section 1, Table 2). The 35 detected provisions are nested in 14 broader regulatory measures or schemes, already in place or adopted in 10 of our 12 countries since 2000, and addressing different variants of foreign influence. Only Malta and Latvia neither introduced new measures during this period nor had relevant preexisting provisions. Eight of the 14 measures were adopted after 2015.
As mentioned, this upward trend continued after our main examination period, with the United Kingdom, France, Poland, and Hungary adopting new measures. The United Kingdom and France introduced foreign influence registration schemes, while Hungary established a “Sovereign Protection Office” and Poland set up a special commission to track Russian influence on its internal security and interests between 2007 and 2022. As we included these measures in our analysis, we have a total of 18 regulatory measures—each comprising one or more coded provisions—which serve as the units of analysis for the qualitative examination that follows (Appendix, Section 6, lists and classifies all measures).
Translating notions of harmful foreignness in foreign influence regulation: A qualitative assessment of regulatory designs
Employing qualitative legal analysis, we used our 3 notions of harmful foreignness as analytical templates to classify the 18 instances of foreign influence regulation according to their stated regulatory objectives.Footnote 8 Eight measures address jurisdictionally defined harmful foreign influence, three address state-based harmful foreign influence, and seven address community-based harmful foreign influence, with the last two groups becoming increasingly prominent. These notions are used as analytical benchmarks to assess the compatibility of each measure with two basic liberal-democratic standards: first, whether regulatory instruments are reasonably directed toward countering the notion of harmful foreignness they claim to address (functional fit); and second, whether regulatory measures unduly extend to benign cross-border exchanges (legislative overreach). We analyze the regulatory measures corresponding to each of the three notions in turn.
Regulatory responses to harmful foreign influence defined in jurisdictional terms
The most common notion shaping regulation of foreign influence follows a jurisdictional logic, monitoring the legality of cross-border exchanges, foreign resources, or activities to ensure compliance with domestic regulation. We find eight such measures across seven countries, including restrictions on foreign funding in electoral campaigns and party finance laws, restrictions on access to leadership positions in CSOs, and one law targeting foreign-funded CSOs.Footnote 9
Four countries have adopted relevant measures embedded in the regulation of electoral campaigns and party finance: the United Kingdom and Ireland since the early 2000s, and more recently Spain and Italy (Appendix, Table 5, presents an overview by country). All focus on the foreign funding of nonparty actors, including CSOs engaged in electoral campaigning or affiliated with political parties, and rely on bans or caps combined with transparency requirements. These measures extend regulatory instruments originally designed for parties and candidates to other political actors. Their objective is to reinforce compliance with domestic rules on electoral campaigning and party finance, often by closing loopholes through which foreign funds might otherwise reach candidates or parties via nonparty entities (Gauja & Orr, Reference Gauja and Orr2015: 253–255; Tham, Reference Tham2017: 265). Specifically, the United Kingdom and Ireland regulate foreign funding to “third party” campaigners as part of electoral law since 2000 and 2002, respectively, to ensure “financial transparency” and “openness and accountability” in elections. Third parties (“non-party campaigners” in the United Kingdom) are stakeholders in election campaigning that are neither parties nor candidates, including CSOs. More recently, Spain and Italy introduced similar but slightly narrower rules as part of their party finance laws. While they also aim to increase transparency in party politics, their scope is limited to organizations closely linked to partisan actors that may unduly channel foreign funds to parties. The rise of these measures mirrors a broader development in the regulation of political parties. Whereas many democracies once imposed only limited constraints on party financing, they now commonly ban or cap foreign funding for parties and candidates (e.g., Orr, Reference Orr2019). Applying similar restrictions to CSOs engaged in electoral campaigning or closely linked to parties aims to prevent circumvention of existing party finance rules (Ohman, Reference Ohman2020: 19).
However, these measures vary in terms of functional fit and the risk of overreach. The UK’s regulation is strictly limited to election periods and donations whose purpose is electoral influence. This aligns with its declared objective of enhancing financial transparency in elections and minimizes potential regulatory overreach into CSOs’ political activities outside election periods (Rowbottom, Reference Rowbottom2020: 723). By contrast, while Irish measures are functional to enhance transparency in campaigning by banning foreign donations to campaigning third parties and imposing registration and reporting requirements, they overreach because “third parties” are defined very broadly as anyone receiving over 100 euros annually for “political purposes.” The latter includes not just election campaigns, but “any campaign […] in relation to a policy or policies or functions of the Government or any public authority” (Electoral [Amendment] Act 2001, s. 49[aa][ii]). This formulation applies to advocacy and public policy campaigning, which might silence legitimate political voices and obstruct vital advocacy (O’Connell & Whyte, Reference O’Connell and Whyte2018). In practice, the Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPO) has repeatedly applied the law broadly against CSOs advocating for abortion or education issues (Ohman, Reference Ohman2020: 30). Italy and Spain adopt a narrower approach, targeting entities, including CSOs, effectively controlled by political parties. Their regulatory designs—with registries, caps, and transparency requirements—are functionally aligned with the objective of preventing illicit indirect party financing. Neither country prohibits foreign funding outright (although Italy did so briefly in 2019). Given their focus on clearly defined party-linked entities, these measures present a lower risk of overreach.
Ireland and Greece introduced a different type of jurisdiction-based regulation by restricting who may serve in leadership positions within CSOs, justified by concerns about financial compliance and corporate accountability. While these measures are functionally linked to ensuring legal responsibility, they risk overreach. In Ireland, most CSOs are incorporated as “Companies Limited by Guarantee” and therefore subject to company law. Under Section 137 of the Companies Act 2014, at least one director must be resident in the European Economic Area (EEA). Noncompliance can result in fines or even dissolution by the Registrar of Companies (Companies Registration Office, 2020). This is intended to ensure a “real and continuous link” of organizations, which prevents the use of Irish corporate structures to evade accountability, for example, with tax law. While these are functional means, their scope overreaches: limiting the rule to for-profit entities would sufficiently address risks of corporate and financial fraud, whereas its blanket application to CSOs unduly interferes with associational autonomy and freedom of association (van der Ploeg et al., Reference van der Ploeg, Van Veen and Versteegh2017: 233). Similarly, the Greek law excluded non-EU nationals from serving on the boards of charitable associations to ensure compliance with financial legislation (Sitaropoulos Reference Sitaropoulos2004, 136). As charitable organizations enjoy tax benefits, the measure is functional in reinforcing accountability. But again, this applies to all charitable organizations, not just those showing signs of illegal behavior. This leaves aside the fact that restrictions on group membership curtail freedom of association.
Finally, Hungary adopted a controversial foreign influence law in 2017—the so-called “NGO Law,” repealed in 2021 after being declared incompatible with EU law by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). The law’s official purpose was to enhance transparency and traceability of cross-border financial transactions of CSOs (Alemanno & Sames, Reference Alemanno and Sames2023: 8). Viewing foreign funding above a defined threshold as inherently problematic (Bárd, Reference Bárd2020), the scheme required CSOs receiving more than around 24,000 euros per year from abroad to sign up to a public register, disclose detailed information on donors and recipient organizations, and label their organization in all communications as “supported from abroad.” Noncompliance was punishable by heavy fines or dissolution. These requirements applied to nearly all nonprofit organizations, irrespective of their field of activity or funding sources and without any risk assessment. The law was not functionally targeted to its stated aim of enhancing financial transparency. The law’s focus on civil society and not on for-profit organizations further calls into question its functionality. Moreover, the self-labeling requirement did not contribute to financial transparency and seems to have been motivated by an attempt to stigmatize unwanted civil society (Bárd, Reference Bárd2020; Swiney, Reference Swiney2019: 409). The law thus clearly overreached, casting a shadow over the entire sector. It showed little concern for addressing any serious harm meriting constraints on fundamental rights, or for trying to minimize negative side-effects on benign foreign-funded CSOs in a liberal democracy. The regulatory design chosen deviated from what could be considered “democratic translation attempts,” which is consistent with Hungary’s successive autocratization and lawfare against civil society since the Orbán government’s takeover in 2010 (Kövér, Reference Kövér, Antal and Deák2021; Nicola & Cameron, Reference Nicola and Cameron2024).
Regulatory responses to the harmful influence of foreign state actors
Although foreign governmental interference has long been a policy concern (Frankenberg & Nicola, Reference Frankenberg and Nicola2025: 59–64), none of our 12 countries had adopted regulatory schemes explicitly grounded in this state-based notion of foreignness by the end of 2022. By 2024, however, reflecting the increasing contemporary relevance of this notion, the United Kingdom, France, and Poland had introduced measures targeting foreign state influence in domestic politics, purportedly to protect national security. In doing so, they opted for different legal designs, with different repercussions for CSOs with foreign ties. The United Kingdom and France have introduced foreign influence registration regimes—the UK’s Foreign Influence Registration Scheme (FIRS) and France’s Law No. 2024-850—while Poland established a commission to investigate Russian influence on its security and interests between 2007 and 2022.
The UK’s and France’s registries target entities acting under the direction or control of foreign powers, narrowly defined as foreign governments and political parties.Footnote 10 They aim to enhance transparency in political activities carried out on behalf of such actors and to prevent associated risks. By neither singling out CSOs nor automatically applying to all recipients of foreign funding, both schemes exhibit a basic degree of functional fit with their stated objectives. Unlike traditional lobbying regulations, which address corruption or conflicts of interest more broadly (e.g., through client disclosure requirements), these schemes are specifically tailored to risks arising from foreign state involvement understood as external political interference in domestic governance and sovereignty. Rather than imposing outright bans—typical of nondemocratic regimes—they rely on transparency registers that establish mandatory reporting obligations, backed by enforcement and sanction mechanisms. Obligations only apply to those engaging in political influence activities on behalf of foreign powers, making the legislation functionally targeted and relatively narrow in scope, while also mitigating the risk of legislative overreach. That said, the UK regulatory design more consistently minimizes this risk. While the UK scheme requires the existence of formal or informal arrangements with a foreign power and clear engagement in political influence activities, the French register applies more broadly to any person or entity acting on behalf of a non-EU foreign principal (Duverger, Reference Duverger2025). Moreover, regulated foreign influence must have an explicit political aim in the United Kingdom. The French scheme, in contrast, also covers broader public communications deemed capable of affecting public policy. Finally, the UK scheme includes more extensive exemptions (Alemanno & Sames, Reference Alemanno and Sames2023: 17–18). Overall, the French scheme is less targeted and risks overreaching, particularly due to the vague definition of “foreign principal” and the broad scope of covered activities, both of which have the potential to create significant chilling effects in the CSO sector (Frankenberg & Nicola, Reference Frankenberg and Nicola2025: 74; Kirova, Reference Kirova2024).
Finally, in 2023, Poland established a nonjudicial commission with broad powers to investigate alleged Russian influence between 2007 and 2022, focusing on the activities of public officials and other actors, including much of the voluntary sector, such as associations and trade unions.Footnote 11 Problematically, the law is fundamentally vague about who the potentially liable actors are, raising concerns about regulatory overreach. Although limited to Russian influence, it is insufficiently tailored to entities in Polish society that are controlled by, or act on behalf of, hostile governmental or quasi-governmental actors. Instead, it treats contact with anyone who is connected to, or collaborating with, Russian representatives as potentially problematic (Sadurski, Reference Sadurski2023). This broad reach is exacerbated by the absence of a definition of “influence,” suggesting that activities beyond direct political influence can fall within the Commission’s remit. It is therefore unclear how a proper risk assessment of liable actors and their activities could be conducted. The law’s limited temporal scope (2007–2022) raises questions about its functional fit. The end date of 2022 calls into question the measure’s effectiveness in addressing genuine harmful foreignness, given that Russian influence presumably did not cease in 2023 (Sadurski, Reference Sadurski2023). Furthermore, it is unclear how ex post sanctioning of formerly legal behavior without legal safeguards for those accused—both of which violate rule-of-law standards (Bolleyer et al., Reference Bolleyer, Guzzo Falci and Daur2026b: 5–6; Fuller, [1964] Reference Fuller1969)—would contribute to protecting national security and Polish interests currently. The Commission can also issue public reports on liable actors, which would likely be highly stigmatizing without clearly enhancing national security against Russian influence (Amnesty International, 2023: 2–3; Ozeel Reference Ozeel2023).
Regulatory responses to harmful foreign influence within national communities
Seven of the 18 foreign influence measures examined regulate harmful foreign influence within domestic communities. Across these cases, restrictions placed on the associational rights of foreign individuals and organizations are primarily motivated by their lack of formal membership in the political community, often framed as threatening the interests and self-governance of the national society. Recently, Austria and France have adopted measures regulating the foreign ties of religious organizations, purportedly to protect community interests and their foundational principles.
The 2015 Austrian “Islam Law” (Islamgesetz) selectively targets Islamic organizations by prohibiting foreign funding for the “ordinary religious activities” of Islamic communities, including religious education, salaries for imams, and community services. Adopted as part of a broader update to the 1912 “Islam Law,” the reform imposed new restrictions on Islamic organizations, including reporting obligations and greater state influence over religious education. The ban on foreign funding was intended to ensure transparency of financing, guarantee organizational autonomy and independence, and protect the interests of the democratic society. The regulatory design, however, does not fit well with these objectives. Besides risking the stigmatization of the Muslim community, the selective targeting of Muslim organizations neither promotes transparency nor protects democracy, especially as it does not subject all actors (religious or other) with potentially problematic foreign financial ties to regulation. Furthermore, by restricting a source of funding without establishing accountability, the law may deprive organizations of vital resources, thereby undermining rather than enhancing their independence. The law also overreaches insofar as the ban applies indiscriminately to all foreign sources and activities of Muslim organizations, irrespective of the nature or purpose of funding, which disregards the fact that risks associated with different activities and funding sources might vary. Notwithstanding these and other serious concerns raised by critics (Hafez, Reference Hafez2017; Richter et al., Reference Richter, Johansson and Castro2021: 254–255), the Austrian Constitutional Court controversially held in 2019 that the provision does not infringe equal treatment (Appendix, Section 5, provides details on the judgment).
France’s 2021 Law on Consolidating the Principles of the Republic introduced transparency requirements for all religious associations, requiring the disclosure of any foreign financial contributions exceeding 10,000 euros per year, including information on their source. These requirements were accompanied by additional restrictions, such as enhanced scrutiny over associations’ accounts and internal governance, and faster procedures for dissolving them (de La Ferrière & Chelini-Pont, Reference De La Ferrière and Chelini-Pont2021). Like the Austrian law, the French reform addresses financial transparency. However, as part of a broader legislative package aimed at reinforcing “republican principles,” it also aims to ensure that organizational resources are used in conformity with those principles, framed in terms of safeguarding the political community and public order. Rather than banning foreign funding outright, the law relies on expanded reporting requirements and administrative oversight. These measures can plausibly enhance financial transparency and facilitate the identification and prevention of risks to public order. In this sense, the French law can be considered more functional than its Austrian counterpart. However, because it formally applies to religious groups without distinction based on the nature of their activities, the type and purpose of the funding, or the level of risk involved, it also overreaches, extending beyond what would be necessary to achieve its objectives.
Alongside these more targeted regulations, four countries imposed general restrictions on nonnationals’ or nonresidents’ rights to associate. This includes limits on founding or joining CSOs, additional procedural hurdles to establish CSOs, and expanded state oversight and dissolution powers over associations of nonnationals. Embedded in broader association laws, membership requirements for founding or joining associations were or remain present in the legal frameworks of Poland, Hungary, and Spain. As Ireland and Greece (discussed above), these countries use criteria such as citizenship, residence, or legal status to shape organizations’ composition. However, their placement in rights-based legislation suggests that the main concern is not preventing rule evasion, but rather defining the scope of the right to participate in domestic civil society and, by extension, who is entitled to exercise it. To this day, Poland’s Law on Associations bars foreigners residing outside the state territory from forming associations, while the Spanish regulation made freedom of association dependent on foreigners’ legal status in the country. Until 2014, Hungary stipulated similar criteria for administrative and representative roles in associations. While these measures were suited to ensuring that CSO members or leaders maintained ties to the domestic community, they overreached by interfering with associational autonomy. By restricting freedom of association, they conflict with international standards (e.g., the ECHR), which guarantee association rights to all individuals, not just citizens or residents (Council of Europe, 2007; van der Ploeg et al., Reference van der Ploeg, Van Veen and Versteegh2017: 234–235). Indeed, the Spanish regulation was struck down by the Constitutional Court in 2007, and similar provisions are absent in the current Hungarian Civil Code, effectively repealing the measure. Although the Polish measure remains in force, critics argue that it infringes international standards and the constitution (Kaźmierkiewicz & Frelak, Reference Kaźmierkiewicz and Frelak2007: 3–4).
Since 2002, German law has made the full enjoyment of associational rights conditional on membership status by establishing a parallel public-law regime for so-called “foreigners’ organizations” (Ausländervereine), that is, associations composed predominantly of non-EU nationals. This distinct legal framework subjects Ausländervereine to stricter requirements than other associations and is justified by the need to protect public order and national security in light of associations’ foreign ties, a rationale that gained traction with the 2002 Anti-Terrorism Law. It imposes additional bureaucratic burdens, including mandatory registration with local authorities and expanded reporting obligations concerning activities, membership, funding, and foreign branches, with information made available to security and intelligence authorities. The law also expands grounds for prohibiting such organizations beyond those applicable to other associations. While increased reporting and oversight can be considered functional to identify risks, the regime overreaches by applying categorically to all foreigners’ associations rather than being triggered by evidence-based suspicion. By using membership as a proxy for risk, it treats foreigners’ organizations as inherently suspect and has therefore been criticized as discriminatory and incompatible with equality standards (Blätte, Reference Blätte and Blätte2014: 83; Becker et al., Reference Becker, Mantey, Mohammadzadeh, Reymann, Sieber and Tschumi2025).
A final example of community-based foreign influence regulation, adopted outside our main coding period but illustrative of the rise of this conception of harmful foreignness, is Hungary’s Act on the Protection of National Sovereignty (PNSA), introduced by the Fidesz-KDNP government in 2023. The law frames foreign influence as a threat arising from civil society actors receiving funding from abroad and endangering regime stability and constitutional identity. Its stated objectives—protecting sovereignty and Hungary’s “constitutional identity”—reach beyond safeguarding the integrity of political institutions, as in the UK and French registration schemes, and extend to the country’s broader “political and social life.” To this end, a powerful oversight body was established—the Sovereignty Protection Office (SPO)—with extensive investigative powers over organizations and individuals receiving foreign funding “for political purposes” or engaging in activities “in the interest of a foreign entity.” The latter encompasses broadly defined conduct, including the dissemination of “misinformation” or the alleged distortion of “democratic discourse” in ways said to benefit foreign interests (Enyedi & Mikola, Reference Enyedi and Mikola2024: 42; Nicola & Cameron, Reference Nicola and Cameron2024; Venice Commission, 2024). The SPO can initiate investigations into CSOs, publicly stigmatize them, and refer matters to law enforcement authorities if it identifies conduct deemed unlawful. Like its predecessor, the 2017 “NGO Law”, the measure is not functional and overreaches. The delegation of sovereignty-related risk assessment, coupled with broad investigative powers, allows the SPO to target any organization receiving foreign funding or acting on behalf of foreign interests that seeks to contribute to public debates in the country, extending beyond activities that represent any risk to national sovereignty. Regulatory overreach stems from the breadth and indeterminacy of the Office’s competences, which grant it excessive discretionary power to investigate organizations and activities that contribute to the public debate without requiring a likelihood assessment based on concrete grounds for reasonable suspicion that specific organizations threaten national sovereignty. A case against the law is still pending before the CJEU. However, on 30 June 2026, the Hungarian Parliament voted to abolish the SPO under the newly elected Tisza government.
Conclusion
Of the 18 foreign influence measures analyzed, only five translate the notion of harmful foreignness into regulatory designs that ensure basic functional fit and are reasonably limited in reach, consistent with basic liberal democratic standards. Other measures either exhibit problems of overreach (nine cases), or, in a few cases, both overreach and lack of functional fit. Of the four measures that fail to meet both standards, two are found in Hungary, a country now autocratized, and one is in Poland, a country that experienced significant democratic backsliding (Bernhard, Reference Bernhard2021; Gerő, Reference Gerő2024). Still, the widespread tendency toward overreach—in older and recent measures—underlines the challenges inherent in regulating foreign influence in liberal democracies. Ensuring functional fit—that is, aligning regulatory measures with the objectives associated with a certain notion of harmful foreignness—does not appear to pose particular difficulties for democratic lawmakers, as most measures analyzed meet this standard. Limiting regulatory reach, however, has proven more difficult. Overreach is particularly pronounced in regulation informed by the community-based notion of harmful foreignness: all such measures extend onerous requirements and obligations beyond what is necessary to counter the respective harm. Notably, two of the four measures that both overreach and lack functional fit fall under this category: the Hungarian PNSA and the Austrian “Islam Law.”
By adopting an inclusive understanding of foreign influence regulation and analyzing how different conceptions of “harmful foreignness” are translated into regulatory designs across European democracies, we show that foreign influence regulation predates Hungary’s controversial 2017 “NGO Law.” Simultaneously, such regulation has become more widespread, and many schemes—regardless of the underlying notion of harmful foreignness—display problematic designs. Foreign influence regulation has gained traction since 2015, with new measures addressing state- and community-based notions, shifting attention from the lawfulness of cross-border exchanges toward the protection of sovereignty and self-determination.
This shift has fundamental implications for individuals and societal actors with foreign ties operating within domestic societies (Robinson, Reference Robinson2024; Sidel, Reference Sidel and Michaels2011). Earlier legal measures, largely overlooked in cross-national research, primarily covered organizations involved in electoral campaigns or with ties to political parties. They aimed to ensure the lawfulness of cross-border financial flows and regulate nonnationals’ participation in associational activities. Although narrowly targeted, several contravene international legal standards and raise concerns about equality and discrimination. They have been repealed or are currently contested in three countries that introduced them. The analysis thus shows that foreign influence regulation in Europe has changed in nature, reflecting evolving notions of harmful foreignness.
This development is further illustrated by regulations targeting religious organizations in Austria and France, as well as foreign interest registration schemes in France and the UK, the 2023 Hungarian PNSA, and the 2023 Polish commission. Unlike earlier regulations based on a jurisdictional notion, these newer regulations articulate concerns around sovereignty and self-determination that extend beyond technical questions of legal compliance with domestic regulation in cross-border transactions. While the French and UK schemes specifically frame foreign government influence in domestic politics as potentially harmful and design relatively limited legal responses, the Polish commission has a vague mandate that could allow governmental actors to shut down opposition in society and politics. The new Hungarian law casts an even wider net, treating foreign-funded societal actors more broadly as potential threats to sovereignty and public life and granting a newly created regulator expansive and intrusive powers. This design aligns with expectations for a country with undemocratic credentials and contrasts sharply with the narrower French and UK frameworks, which—despite imperfections—attempt to delimit constraints on societal actors’ rights in line with basic liberal democratic standards. Yet, French and Austrian regulations of religious organizations illustrate that even consolidated democracies have enacted measures that risk overreach and disproportionate interference with fundamental rights. As in Hungary and in cases involving broader restrictions on nonnationals’ associational rights, these measures rest on a conception of foreignness as inherently suspect within the national political community. Such exclusionary notions of political community are difficult to reconcile with liberal democratic norms, particularly when they treat members of domestic societies, in terms of residency and sometimes citizenship, as “aliens” (Tham, Reference Tham2017: 269).
Previous research has already started to show that regulatory designs that are not fit for purpose and overreach have detrimental effects on CSOs, from the straining of resources to chilling effects (e.g., Adelsberg et al., Reference Adelsberg, Pitts and Shebaya2013; Cameron & Nicola, Reference Cameron, Nicola, Gosztonyi and Lendvai2026; Dupuy et al., Reference Dupuy, Ron and Prakash2015; Eide, Reference Eide, Krøvel and Thowsen2019; Frankenberg & Nicola, Reference Frankenberg and Nicola2025; Fransen et al., Reference Fransen, Dupuy, Hinfelaar and Zakaria Mazumder2021; Heinzel & Koenig-Archibugi, Reference Heinzel and Koenig-Archibugi2023: 1295–1297; Smidt et al., Reference Smidt, Perera, Mitchell and Bakke2021; Penney, Reference Penney2022). While our analysis focuses on regulatory design rather than the actual effects “on the ground,” systematic assessments of whether or not new regulation displays functional fit and legislative overreach, ideally as part of governments’ legislative impact assessment before adoptionFootnote 12, are critical to anticipate and prevent such negative impacts on civil society. The parallel rise of foreign interest registration regimes, criticized for their excessive reach (Robinson, Reference Robinson2024; Reference Robinson2025), and the regulation of religious organizations, criticized in France and Austria as selective and potentially discriminatory (Hafez, Reference Hafez2017), illustrates how both overly broad and selectively targeted restrictions risk violating liberal norms and generating chilling effects (Sidel, Reference Sidel and Michaels2011: 298–299). Relatedly, they contribute to the “selective closure of civic space” (Roggeband & Krizsán, Reference Roggeband and Krizsán2021), especially for politically active CSOs benefiting from international support (Bolleyer et al., Reference Bolleyer, Eick, Ivanovska Hadjievska and Grevesmühl2025; Chaudhry, Reference Chaudhry2022: 568; Fransen & Dupuy, Reference Fransen and Dupuy2024). More worryingly, as the Hungarian SPO and the Polish commission illustrate, poorly designed foreign influence schemes could be used to target oppositional voices, directly impacting on CSOs’ rights and ability to hold governments to account, as in the case of the 2017 Hungarian “NGO Law” (Amnesty International, 2021; Robinson, Reference Robinson2024; Smidt et al., Reference Smidt, Johansson and Richter2025).
Future research should engage in the comparative study of how recently adopted foreign influence regulation is implemented and employed by state authorities, and how different regulatory designs affect the broader CSO sector and specific subgroups (e.g., advocacy organizations and minority religions) from an organizational perspective (Fransen & Dupuy, Reference Fransen and Dupuy2024; Heiss, Reference Heiss, Zvobgo and Parente2026). One particularly unexplored concern is the potential redundancy of regulation, especially foreign interest registration schemes. In many countries, general transparency requirements already impose similar requirements on CSOS (Breen, Reference Breen2013; Cordery, Reference Cordery2013), raising the risk of duplicative regulatory burdens (Jones, Reference Jones2023; Robinson, Reference Robinson2025). Furthermore, as democracies adopt foreign influence regulation and European policymakers promote it, such measures are likely to become “normalized” and perceived as standard safeguards that democracies should adopt, as has previously happened with limits on foreign party donations and statutory lobby regulation. As foreign influence regulation continues to spread, we may see the beginning of a new regulatory wave that extends regulation originally focusing on the partisan, electoral, and political sphere to society at large. Such a development makes careful assessment of measures’ institutional design and consequences for the CSO sector all the more urgent.
Supplementary material
The supplementary material for this article can be found at http://doi.org/10.1017/S0957876526000768.
Funding statement
This research has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) (grant agreement number 101001458, CIVILSPACE). This support is gratefully acknowledged.
Competing interests
Views and opinions expressed are, however, those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
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