ABSTRACT
The worldwide protest against the war in Iraq in February 2003 led the New York Times to describe ‘global civil society’ as the ‘second superpower’ (quoted in Kaldor et al., 2003:3). Sweeping claims about globalization and empowerment are made not only with regard to the role of multinationals, but also with regard to international civil society. To what extent can the proclaimed advancement and ‘emancipation of civil society’ be substantiated (Figure 4.1)? One major problem is that national statistics do not capture the exact size of civil society, the ‘free space between the state and the market, beyond family and the personal’ (Anheier et al., 2001:17). Employment in the non-profit and ‘informal’ sectors is an approximation of the direct economic significance of civil society. It has increased in importance since the late 1980s (Hupe and Meijs, 2000), so it is safe to assume that the economic importance of civil society has increased. If taken separately the non-profit sector (excluding religious groups) would constitute the eighth largest economy in the world (Kaldor et al., 2003).
