The Constructing Of The Civil Society Index In China

At the beginning of 1990's, more and more power factors flow into the society, along with the reform and the open of China and the development of the market economy. The civil society has obtained rapid development from less to more. Its function and value have already gained widespread acceptance. Establishing the civil society index in the country is a realistic demand of civil society and theories research. Because the civil society in China has started late and has just researched its theories for several years, China still hasn't got its own civil society index.The paper reviews the concept, the structure, and the promote function to society progress of civil society. Then it chooses the widely index method in the field of the social scientific research method to be a method of systematically evaluate the civil society's condition of China. These two aspects researches form the theoretical and methodology foundations for the research.The paper introduces two kinds of civil society index: one is CIVISUS-CSI, and the other is Hopkins civil society index. It evaluates these two kinds of evaluate systems according to the analysis of the particularity in our country's civil society. The paper points out that the overseas evaluation systems of civil society can't be applied directly to value the civil society of China, it should build up its own civil society evaluation system, named "The civil society index of China".At last, the paper provides the system frame and the way of thinking for setting up "The civil society index of China", through identifying the ranges of civil society in the country, inducing the related factors that can evaluate the civil society condition in China, and by using index's method and procedures in social science research.