Critical reception
In 2007, Nicolas Guilhot (a senior research associate at the French National Centre for Scientific Research) wrote in Critical Sociology that the Open Society Foundations is functionally conservative in supporting institutions that reinforce the existing social order, as the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation have done before them. Guilhot argues that control over the social sciences by moneyed interests, rather than by public officials, reinforced a neoliberal view of modernization.
An OSF effort in 2008 in the African Great Lakes region aimed at spreading human rights awareness among prostitutes in Uganda and other nations in the area was rejected by Ugandan authorities, who considered it an effort to legalize and legitimize prostitution.
Open Society Foundations has been criticized in the pro-Israel publications Tablet, Arutz Sheva and Jewish Press for funding the activist groups Adalah and I'lam, which they accuse of being anti-Israel and supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Among the documents released in 2016 by DCleaks, an OSF report reads "For a variety of reasons, we wanted to construct a diversified portfolio of grants dealing with Israel and Palestine, funding both Israeli Jewish and PCI (Palestinian Citizens of Israel) groups as well as building a portfolio of Palestinian grants and in all cases to maintain a low profile and relative distance—particularly on the advocacy front."
In 2013, NGO Monitor, an Israeli NGO, reported that "Soros has been a frequent critic of Israeli government policy, and does not consider himself a Zionist, but there is no evidence that he or his family holds any special hostility or opposition to the existence of the state of Israel. This report will show that their support, and that of the Open Society Foundations, has nevertheless gone to organizations with such agendas." The report says its objective is to inform the OSF, claiming: "The evidence demonstrates that Open Society funding contributes significantly to anti-Israel campaigns in three important respects:
Active in the Durban strategy;
Funding aimed at weakening United States support for Israel by shifting public opinion regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Iran;
Funding for Israeli political opposition groups on the fringes of Israeli society, which use the rhetoric of human rights to advocate for marginal political goals."
The report concludes, "Yet, to what degree Soros, his family, and the Open Society Foundations are aware of the cumulative impact on Israel and of the political warfare conducted by many of their beneficiaries is an open question."
In November 2015, Russia banned the group on its territory, declaring "It was found that the activity of the Open Society Foundations and the Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation represents a threat to the foundations of the constitutional system of the Russian Federation and the security of the state".
In 2016, India's Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) placed the OSF on a watchlist forbidding them from extending any financial assistance to other NGOs or individuals without prior explicit permission.
In 2017, Open Society Foundations and other NGOs for open government and refugee assistance were targeted by authoritarian and populist governments emboldened by the first Trump administration. Several right-leaning politicians in eastern Europe regard many of the NGO groups to be irritants if not threats, including Liviu Dragnea in Romania, Szilard Nemeth in Hungary, Nikola Gruevski in North Macedonia (who called for "de-Sorosization"), and Jarosław Kaczyński of Poland (who has said that Soros-funded groups want "societies without identity"). Some of the Soros-funded advocacy groups in the region said the harassment and intimidation became more open after the 2016 election of Donald Trump in the United States. Stefania Kapronczay of the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, which received half of its funding from Soros-backed foundations, claimed that Hungarian officials were "testing the waters" in an effort to see "what they can get away with."
In 2017, the government of Pakistan ordered the Open Society Foundations to cease operations in the country.
In May 2018, Open Society Foundations announced they would move its office from Budapest to Berlin, amid Hungarian government interference.
In November 2018, Open Society Foundations announced they would cease operations in Turkey and close their Istanbul and Ankara offices due to "false accusations and speculations beyond measure", amid pressure from the Turkish government including detention of liberal Turkish intellectuals and academics even tangentially associated with the foundation.
