Mapping Civil Society Initiatives

The research unit Mapping Civil Society provides an inventory of civil society initiatives that have been active, activated, or deactivated during the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath. How was civil society affected by the pandemic and the measures taken against it? Which organizations and initiatives were active and how?

Research subject

The research subject are different types of civil society organizations in Germany. The key ambition is to systematically cover formal and informal as well as political and non-political organizations. Note that we do not only focus on newly established initiatives and those responding to the pandemic more narrowly defined.

Aims

The overall goal of this unit is to…

deliver immediate, ground-level information on the activation of civil society during the COVID-19 crisis.
establish the basis for systematic sampling the other units of our exploration project.

Methods

We rely on an organizational survey conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic. We complement the survey with systematic document analysis (on- and offline) and expert interviews.