Accordingly this thematic study is about mapping civil society elites in five different contexts: i.e. England, Italy, Poland, Sweden and Brussels (EU-level), and across ten policy fields: i.e. Age, Charity, Culture, Disability, Environment, Gender equality, Human Rights and Democracy, Migration and ethnic groups, Religion, Sports and leisure. Addressing the composition of civil society elites requires an operationalization of the elite concept to be applied to the particular sphere of civil society, as well as drawing a boundary between the elite and non-elite which is a notoriously difficult task.

Departing from the so-called “positional method” in elite research, we assume that resources and influence are largely tied to positions of leadership in organisations of national relevance and that elites are those who can exert influence through their strategic positions in powerful organisations. We therefore choose as our point of departure in this study to focus on formal leaders of civil society organisations of national relevance. Based on previous research on civil society organisations, we have developed a "elite-score" by combining a number of indicators measuring a given civil society organisation's internal/external dimensions of resources and recognition. This allows us identifying the most well-established and resourceful civil socity organisations in each national context and from there we identify the leaders of the organisations. The following is our ongoing and planned empirical studies in exploring the composition of civil society elites.

Survey study: We conduct a survey study targeting the directors and presidents of the civil society organisations identified in each context. The survey questions are concerned with the civil society leaders' personal and professional backgrounds, social networks, career trajectories, experiences of influence and challenge as civil society leaders, attitudes and values concerning key social and political issues, etc. Some questions will directly tap into the reputational method of identifying powerful individuals in a given field. The survey answers will be analysed using multiple correspondence analysis, social network analysis and other methods of statistical inference. The cross-national comparison of the survey answers will allow analyses of relations between the national political structure and the structure of civil society from the leaders' perspective.

Prosopographical study: We collect prosopographical data on individual leaders holding important commanding positions in the civil society organisations. The data include a given individual's previous and current engagements not only in the civil society sphere but also in other sectors. The data will be analysed using methods such as qualitative comparative analysis and multiple correspondence analysis, with an aim to understand the path(s) to becoming civil society elites and to explore how a given civil society field (be it at a national/European levels or within a specific policy field) is structured in terms of distribution of common and/or varying characteristics of individual leaders.