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Civil society, cross‐national comparisons and the problem of statistical capture
Author(s) -
Clarke Gerard
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of international development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.533
H-Index - 66
eISSN - 1099-1328
pISSN - 0954-1748
DOI - 10.1002/jid.1729
Subject(s) - civil society , realm , citizenship , politics , state (computer science) , political science , index (typography) , political economy , public administration , economic growth , sociology , law , economics , algorithm , world wide web , computer science
Since the late 1980s, civil society has come to be regarded as a vital counterpart to the state and market economy in developing and transitional countries, both as a source of vital social services, and as an associational realm in which people organise to press political claims and to hold power‐holders to account. Yet statistical capture of the contours of civil society, including cross‐national comparisons, remains in its infancy. This article therefore considers and compares three recent indices of the cross‐national strength of civil society: the 2004 John Hopkins Global Civil Society Index (JHGCSI), the 2007 CIVICUS Civil Society Index (CCSI), and the International Social Survey Programme's 2004 Survey of Global Citizenship (ISSP‐SGC). The resulting analysis points to significant remaining challenges to the meaningful capture of the health of national civil societies around the world, especially in developing and transitional countries. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.