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Warsaw 2009: Presentations and short courses

Identifying Civil Society Measurement Gaps – Evidence from Germany

Session: Measuring Civil Society - What are the issues?

Author:

Norman Spengler; University of Heidelberg, Germany

Abstract:

Development in researching civil society requires more observation tools to allow testing theoretically derived hypotheses. Improving conceptual assumptions and operational descriptions must be based on thorough empirical analysis. Established survey systems deliver an important asset of raw material of useful unexploited data. By exploring these available potentials for civil society measurement, a better understanding of this complex research object could be contributed.

The paper explores and investigates the inventory of selected survey data for civil society measurement purposes by considering the German case. The following issues are intended to be addressed and discussed:

1. When considering civil society theory, which aspects and topics could be operationalized by survey systems?
2. Which gaps can be identified that may be – from civil society research perspective – of interest for further survey improvement?

This paper neither seeks to introduce a new maximalist operable measurement model of civil society, nor tries to offer a ‘wish list’ of imaginable survey items. However, the paper aims to deliver an input for a stimulating discussion whether similar conclusions can be reported from other countries and in what way these lessons learned can be applied on European level.