Some Thoughts on Measuring “Civil Society”
David E. Campbell
University of Notre Dame
Prepared for the Conference on Measuring Democracy, May 23-24, 2009
The term “civil society” like “democracy,” is highly contested. Thus, any attempt to
measure it will invite controversy. The key to doing so, therefore, is to be fully
transparent regarding the assumptions undergirding the choice of indicators.
I have come late to this project, and so I apologize for the brevity of this memo and for
my inability to attend the meeting. I recognize that many people have strong opinions
on what does, and does not, constitute appropriate measures of civil society (note, for
example, my studious avoidance of the term “social capital,” in order to avoid a debate
over that particular concept). My intention here is to offer a few suggested indicators,
some of which were contained in John Gerring’s paper, “Measuring Democracy: A
Multidimensional, Historical Approach.” I consider these ideas to be a starting, not an
ending, point, and welcome further ideas and elaboration.
Civil Society Organizations, Legal Framework
First, I would recommend measuring the legal framework for civil society organizations
(borrowing from Gerring’s paper, “’Civil society organization’ refers to any of the
following: an interest group, a social movement, church group, or classic NGO, but not a
private business, political party, or government agency. Must be at least nominally
independent of government and the private sector”). By “legal framework,” I mean
whether such organizations are permitted to exist, and the extent to which they are
independent of the state. Similarly, it is important to measure whether such
organizations are given a voice in the political process. Are they consulted by lawmakers
and other government officials?
In measuring civil society organizations, the assumption is that political decision-making
is more fully representative when groups can express the preferences of their members.
The Civil Society Index and Civil Society Watch, as compiled by CIVICUS, appears to
include relevant indicators of the legal framework for civil society organizations. It is not
clear whether historical measures can be easily compiled.
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Civil Society Organizations, Behavioral Indicators
Second, I would recommend including behavioral indicators of civil society involvement.
To what degree is the mass public involved in such organizations? Existing cross-national
surveys, like the World Values Survey, Eurobarometer, European Social Survey,
Eurobarometer, Afrobarometer, Latinobarometer, etc. can easily provide such
measures.
The assumption behind measuring behavioral indicators is that while the legal
framework for civil society organizations is important, it would largely be a dead letter if
no one actually participates in such groups. However, I would be hesitant to conclude
that one nation is necessarily more democratic because a higher proportion of its
population belongs to such groups. That is, rather than a linear relationship—more
group membership, more democracy—I might instead suggest the possibility of
thresholds, i.e. having X percentage of group members qualifies a nation as having a
strong voluntary association network.
Other Behavioral Indicators
I would further recommend the inclusion of individual-level involvement in political
activity beyond voter turnout: petitions, writing letters to elected officials, protests,
working on political campaigns, etc. As above, existing cross-national surveys often
collect such data.
The assumption justifying the inclusion of these measures is that a democratic system
requires that individuals, and not only groups, express voice in the political system.
However, there should be judicious use of such measures as an indicator of
“democracy,” since different political systems encourage or facilitate some types of
involvement over others, and so a high level of one type of involvement is less an
indicator of democracy per se, and more a reflection of how political campaigns or
parties or referenda operate within a nation. Nonetheless, precisely because such
measures reflect differences in the practice of democratic politics, they are worth
collecting.
Political discussion/News consumption
The measurement of political discussion and news consumption complements the
category of Civil Liberty (#2). That category includes various measures of whether a free
press exists, and whether citizens of a nation feel free to express political opinions to
one another. Equally important are measures of the degree to which political news is
consumed, and the extent to which politics is discussed among citizens. As behavioral
indicators, such data points are best collected by the same group of cross-national
surveys described above (World Values Survey, etc.).
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The assumption underlying these measures is that a robust civil society requires a
citizenry that follows and is engaged by current affairs. The same caveat as above
applies as well, however, as it is likely the case that fine-grained distinctions among
nations above certain (yet-to-be-determined) thresholds may not be informative.
Civic Education/Political Knowledge (?)
I would also recommend the consideration of including a measure of whether children
and adolescents are taught democratic values in the primary and secondary schools. The
best, but regrettably incomplete, source of data on civic education comes from the IEA
Civic Education Study (known as “CIVICED”). This is a survey and exam, on civics,
administered to adolescents in a wide range of nations, patterned after the TIMS and
PISA exams on math and science. While the data are rich, not every nation participates
in the data collection. Henry Milner, of the University of Laval, has also created a
working group to measure civic education cross-nationally, but to my knowledge they
have not produced an index.
The assumption motivating the inclusion of civic education is the importance of civic
education to ensuring a strong democratic culture. I concede that this assumption may
be controversial, as democratic values can obviously be imparted outside of formal
educational channels, but I would nonetheless recommend the consideration of schoolbased civic education as a democratic criterion.
One might ask why political knowledge should not be measured, since it is the
presumed outcome of civic education. It is worth discussing the utility of such a
measure, but my own sense is that there are few if any valid, cross-national measures of
political knowledge available, and mounting a cross-national effort to develop and
administer an appropriate survey to measure political knowledge would be enormously
expensive. (Existing measures are extremely limited). However, others may feel that
existing measures—again, found in the usual suspects of cross-national surveys—are
better than nothing.
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