How do you measure whether a society is working? Not through political opinion or economic output alone — but through the full relationship between institutions, citizens, and the world they operate in.
The Civix21 Framework is an independent, evidence-based model for assessing national civic health. It draws on 15 authoritative global datasets to produce scores that are transparent, comparable across countries, and trackable over time.
Most assessments of how well a country is doing focus on economic performance, democratic rankings, or corruption indices in isolation. The Civix21 Framework takes a different approach: it asks three distinct questions at three different levels, and synthesises the answers into a single, interpretable picture.
The framework is designed to reveal what aggregate statistics often obscure — particularly the growing divergence between how institutions perform and how much citizens trust them. That divergence, which we call the Trust Gap, is the framework's most significant finding.
Each tier addresses a distinct dimension of civic health. Together they produce a complete picture.
Measures the internal health of a nation's institutions. Produces a Structural Score (what institutions can actually do), a Relational Score (whether citizens trust and engage with them), and the Trust Gap between the two.
Data live on Trustgap · 90 countries scored
Explore Tier 1Measures a nation's external position — the influence it projects outward (Power Score) against the dependencies and vulnerabilities it absorbs from the outside (Exposure Score). Produces a Net Strategic Position.
In development · Tier 2 methodology published
About Tier 2Synthesises Tiers 1 and 2 into a single durability classification — from High Resilience down to Systemically Vulnerable. The band captures both internal legitimacy and external exposure in one interpretable output.
In development · Dependent on Tier 2 completion
About Tier 3Tier 1 is the published, live dataset. It scores 90 countries on two equally weighted pillars — and the gap between them is the finding that matters most.
What institutions are capable of doing. Measures formal governance capacity, political stability, rule of law, and the conditions that enable economic mobility.
World Bank Worldwide Governance Indicators
World Bank WGI
World Justice Project + Transparency International CPI
WEF Social Mobility Index + Gini coefficient + OECD Education
How citizens actually experience and engage with those institutions. Measures trust, social cohesion, media credibility, and civic participation — the legitimacy layer.
Edelman Trust Barometer
Bertelsmann Transformation Index + World Values Survey + V-Dem
Reuters Digital News Report + RSF Press Freedom + Edelman Media
IDEA Voter Turnout + OECD/Gallup + V-Dem Institute
"The Trust Gap — Structural Score minus Relational Score — is the single most important number the framework produces. A gap exceeding 20 points flags a country as at risk of democratic instability, regardless of how well its institutions appear to function on paper."Civix21 Framework — Tier 1 Methodology
Every scored country is placed in one of four quadrants, based on the combination of its Structural and Relational scores.
High structural capacity. High citizen trust. The healthiest classification — and the rarest in practice.
Structural ≥65 · Relational ≥65
Institutions function. Citizens don't trust them. The dominant pattern across liberal democracies — and the central warning of our dataset.
Structural ≥65 · Relational <65
Both structural capacity and citizen trust are weakened. Political division dominates. Institutional reform is contested at every turn.
Structural <65 · Relational <65
Critically low structural capacity. Institutional failure is active, not latent. Regime characteristics often prevent reliable measurement.
Structural <50 · Relational <50
Countries with a Trust Gap exceeding 20 points are flagged as at risk of quadrant migration — regardless of their current classification. This flag has proven to be a leading indicator of democratic stress in the dataset to date.
See Country Scores on Trustgap →Internal legitimacy alone does not determine a country's durability. A nation with strong institutions and citizen trust can still be acutely vulnerable if it is economically dependent on a single partner, energetically exposed, or geopolitically surrounded.
Tier 2 measures this external dimension through two equally weighted components:
The influence a state projects outward. Draws on economic scale (IMF GDP/PPP), military capability (SIPRI/IISS), soft power and reputation (Brand Finance), and diplomatic reach (Lowy Institute).
The vulnerabilities absorbed from outside. Measures trade dependence (World Bank/UNCTAD), energy dependence (IEA), supply chain vulnerability (OECD TiVA), and geopolitical exposure (UCDP/sanctions registries).
The difference — Power minus Exposure — produces a Net Strategic Position. A highly positive score indicates a state that shapes its environment more than it is shaped by it. A strongly negative score indicates strategic fragility even where domestic institutions are healthy.
Tier 2 scoring is currently in development. Methodology is finalised; dataset publication is planned for 2025.
Tier 3 synthesises the Trust Health score from Tier 1 and the Net Strategic Position from Tier 2 into one interpretable output — the Resilience Band.
Functioning institutions · Positive strategic position
Functioning institutions · Balanced strategic position
Functioning institutions · Exposed strategic position
Compromised institutions · Positive strategic position
Compromised institutions · Balanced strategic position
Compromised institutions · Exposed strategic position
Tier 3 classification will be available once Tier 2 scoring is published. The six-band model is finalised and stable.
Four features distinguish the Civix21 Framework from other national assessment models.
All scores run on a fixed 0–100 benchmark — not ranked relative to other countries. A score of 72 in 2024 means the same as a score of 72 in 2019. This enables genuine longitudinal tracking.
Triggered when V-Dem falls below 0.30 and RSF press freedom rank is 130/180 or worse. Applies downward adjustments of −10 to −20 to Relational indicators where state suppression makes official survey data unreliable.
CPI used exactly as published. WEF Social Mobility receives a mandatory −7 outcome adjustment for measurement overshoot. Political Stability recency adjustments capped at −10. Rules are fixed and non-negotiable across all country scores.
Every indicator draws directly from its primary data source — World Bank WGI, V-Dem Institute, Edelman, Reuters, SIPRI, IEA, Lowy Institute. No aggregated indices used as proxies for other aggregated indices.
The Civix21 Framework draws on 15 primary datasets, each selected for methodological rigour, geographic coverage, and annual publication. All are publicly accessible and independently produced.
Full methodology documentation — including weightings, conversion rules, and the Authoritarian Context Protocol — is published on trustgap.org.
The Tier 1 dataset — 90 countries, scored and published — is live on Trustgap. Country profiles, score breakdowns, and the full Trust Gap ranking.