The Challanges of Civil Society Organizations

We live in a world where the citizens have the power of making a change for their societies. In the last years we all witnessed uprisings against the regimes ending up with success in most cases.  There is no doubt that social mobilizations and protests are a very legitimate way of people`s representation, their voice should act as a check and balance mechanism in democratic societies. However, Gezi Park Protests in Turkey and unfortunate break of the democratization process in Egypt led to a new debate regarding the intention of protests. Although it is not easy to measure the success of civil organizations the soft power enjoyed by the organizations are often open for manipulation and misuse. The article claims that there should be a distinction between the `motivation` and `outcome` of protests. And this is due to the fact that the nature of protests and protestors are subject to a transformation while the event becomes more public and powerful.