Putnam revisited: Determinants of civic activities in Austrian municipalities

Thirty years ago, in his historical study of Italy, Robert Putnam impressively demonstrated that there is a positive connection between civil society organisations and a functioning public life. It is still unclear, however, how exactly these realms are connected. Based on an empirical investigation of Austrian associations in their local context, Julia Litofcenko will investigate the interactions between regional politics, economy, organised civil society and civil activities.

In this quantitative dissertation project, the development of a corresponding database is crucial. In addition to linking different administrative data sources, automated methods of text analysis are used to generate information on associations and civil activities.

Project duration: 2018 - 2024

Publications:

Maier, Florentine, Karner, Dominik, Litofcenko, Julia. 2018. The Life and Death of Nonprofit Associations: Exploring the Influence of Governance Arrangements. 13th ISTR International Conference, Amsterdam, Niederlande, 10.07-13.07.

Litofcenko, Julia, Karner, Dominik, Maier, Florentine. 2018. Categorizing nonprofit organizations according to their field of activity: A discussion of rule-based categorization and machine learning, and recommendations for implementation.