High quality political institutions are a precondition for a strong civil society

Strengthening civil society is often assumed to be a mechanism for promoting improved governance. Thilo Bodenstein assesses this perspective using comparative data on the strength of civil society across different regions. He finds that the single biggest factor leading to a strong civil society is the presence of high quality political institutions within a given country. Crucially, however, this effect only appears to operate in one direction: high quality political institutions help create a strong civil society, but a strong civil society alone is unlikely to lead to significant improvements in the quality of a country’s institutions.