Explaining the strength of civil society: Evidence from cross-sectional data

Abstract

A number of societal and institutional factors enhance the development of a vibrant civil society, such as a country’s socioeconomic traditions and societal structure, political institutions, or foreign influence. But the question of which one of these factors contributes most to a vibrant civil society still remains unanswered. Using ordinary least square techniques, this article statistically tests the competing factors with a large- N design that includes 42 countries. Our dependent variable is the new Civil Society Index, composed of a structural and a value dimension of civil society. The results show that a country’s quality of political institutions and a high degree of religious fragmentation have the strongest impact on the development of a vibrant civil society. In order to examine the causal relationship, we reassess our findings by conducting two case studies on Chile and Russia. The case studies corroborate the causal direction from the quality of political institutions to a stronger civil society.

Promoting Social Justice through Philantropy: Women`s Activism as Civil Society (A Reflection on the Emergence of Yayasan Sahabat Ibu in Yogyakarta)

“…Civil society includes various voluntary organizations, philanthropic institutions, socio-political movements, public spaces, social networks and community involvement in politics and patterns of behavior of groups of a certain value [8]. Civil society plays an important role in promoting development [9], advancing public sphere and forums of public [10] and generating the participation of citizen [11]. At the local level, civil society and non-profit organizations are part of community development and empowerment strategies [8].…”

Cultural capital and the density of organised interests lobbying the European Parliament

“…Yet, apart from economic resources, historical legacies and cultural traditions might also be important among the supply-side factors that stimulate the number of organised interests from a country. Putnam (1993) has for example argued that a country's legacy with respect to associational engagement may have an impact on the status of its current civil society (see also Bailer et al 2013). Such associational activity has often been regarded as an important component of the concept of 'social capital' , which is a term used to evaluate the quality of the social environment among people (Coleman 1990: 304;Putnam 1995).…”

Political Opportunity Structures in Dictatorships? Explaining ENGO Existence in Autocratic Regimes

“…Finally, despite my state-centered theoretical approach for explaining ENGO existence via political opportunity structures in autocratic regimes, several of the controls included pertain to the demand side of ENGO existence and, hence, can be seen as factors influencing the decision-making process of ENGOs. I largely follow Lee (2010) and Bailer et al (2013) to control for alternative factors that may lead to the existence of social movements and ENGOs. Here, I summarize these control covariates briefly and refer the reader to Lee and Bailer et al for a detailed overview of these variables' underlying theoretical rationales.…”

“…To address problems associated with endogeneity, all time-varying explanatory variables are lagged by 1 year. First, Lee (2010) and Bailer et al (2013) argued that international influences might affect the existence of domestic civil society organizations and, thus, ENGOs. Generally, states more integrated into international political or economic networks are more likely to be more open toward nongovernmental actors (Bailer et al 2013, p. 296;Lee, 2010, p.…”

“…Second, I also follow Lee (2010) and Bailer et al (2013) by controlling for domestic influences. On one hand, there is income that is measured as the value of GDP per capita (GDP per capita).…”