Andrew Firmin

Civil society more than the sum of CSOs

In trying to understand and grasp what civil society is and how it can be strengthened, those who seek to support the sector may have been looking in the wrong places. This is one of the startling conclusions suggested by the 2008-11 CIVICUS Civil Society Index (CSI) project. This conclusion is endorsed by the events of the so-called Arab Spring, which suggest that the real strength of civil society lies not in civil society organizations (CSOs) but in more informal groups and in the emerging forms of online activism.