Conferences

ESRA2009:

Conference main page

Overview of sessions

Time table

Warsaw 2009: Presentations and short courses

The improved ‘Civil Society Index’ as a pragmatic approach of combining theory and available data

Session: Measuring Civil Society - What are the issues?

Author:

Michael Hoelscher; University of Heidelberg, Germany

Abstract:

The Civil Society Index by CIVICUS has been used in extensive research in more than 50 countries until now. Recently, the methodology has been improved, streamlining the applied techniques, fitting them better to their purpose and allowing for better international comparability. The paper will present the advanced toolkit for the CSI and discuss some problems in the light of prior experiences.

Especially the following questions will be addressed:

- The CSI has an important activity-component for civil society actors in the specific countries attached to it. How can this be combined in a useful way with scientific rigour?

- The situation of the civil society sector is very different in different countries. How can the CSI measure the CS in each country in a valid way and guarantee at the same time international comparability?

- How is the CSI connected to international available survey data?

- The CSI comprises different tools, reaching from a population survey, to an organizational survey, to expert interviews, and media analyzes. How can the results from the different instruments best be integrated?

- What are the next steps to further improve the CSI?

As these questions are connected to all sorts of methodological problems, this session won’t offer final solutions. However, the idea is to discuss these topics by finding certain particular aspects that can be tackled in more detail and may serve as a basis for an interesting discussion afterwards.