IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/poango/v8y2020i3p86-96.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Can EU Civil Society Elites Burst the Brussels Bubble? Civil Society Leaders’ Career Trajectories

Author

Listed:
  • Jayeon Lindellee

    (School of Social Work, Lund University, Sweden)

  • Roberto Scaramuzzino

    (School of Social Work, Lund University, Sweden)

Abstract

The Brussels-based civil society organizations (CSOs) have been conceived by the EU to act as a bridge between the bureaucratic elites and the citizens of Europe. The institutionalized presence of the major EU-based CSOs has, however, called their legitimacy into question, as exemplified by notions such as ‘revolving doors’ implying homogeneous social, educational, and professional backgrounds shared by both EU officials and CSO leaders. This article therefore asks the following questions: To what extent do the leaders of EU-based CSOs merely reproduce the types of capital that mirror those of the political elites in the so-called ‘Brussels bubble’? To what extent do the CSO leaders bring in other sets of capital and forms of recognition that are independent of the Brussels game? How can we explain differences in the salience of EU capital found across policy areas, types of leadership positions, and types of organizations? Empirically, this article qualitatively analyzes the career trajectories of 17 leaders of EU-based peak CSOs that are active in social and environmental policy areas. Despite the highly integrated and institutionalized characteristics shared by all organizations, we find diversity in the composition of the leaders in terms of the extent to which their career trajectories are embedded in the EU arena.

Suggested Citation

  • Jayeon Lindellee & Roberto Scaramuzzino, 2020. "Can EU Civil Society Elites Burst the Brussels Bubble? Civil Society Leaders’ Career Trajectories," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(3), pages 86-96.
    • Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v8:y:2020:i:3:p:86-96
    DOI: 10.17645/pag.v8i3.2995
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/2995
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17645/pag.v8i3.2995?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Didier Georgakakis & Frédéric Lebaron, 2018. "Yanis (Varoufakis), the Minotaur, and the Field of Eurocracy," Post-Print halshs-03059237, HAL.
    2. Maloney, William A. & Jordan, Grant & McLaughlin, Andrew M., 1994. "Interest Groups and Public Policy: The Insider/Outsider Model Revisited," Journal of Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(1), pages 17-38, January.
    3. Alvaro Oleart & Luis Bouza, 2018. "Democracy at Stake: Multipositional Actors and Politicization in the EU Civil Society Field," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(4), pages 870-887, May.
    4. Alvaro Oleart & Luis Bouza, 2018. "Democracy at Stake: Multipositional Actors and Politicization in the EU Civil Society Field," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/273672, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jayeon Lindellee & Roberto Scaramuzzino, 2020. "Can EU Civil Society Elites Burst the Brussels Bubble? Civil Society Leaders’ Career Trajectories," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(3), pages 86-96.
    2. Gabriel Siles-Brügge & Michael Strange, 2020. "National Autonomy or Transnational Solidarity? Using Multiple Geographic Frames to Politicize EU Trade Policy," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 277-289.
    3. Luis Bouza García & Alvaro Oleart, 2023. "Regulating Disinformation and Big Tech in the EU: A Research Agenda on the Institutional Strategies, Public Spheres and Analytical Challenges," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/365881, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    4. Luis Bouza García & Alvaro Oleart, 2024. "Regulating Disinformation and Big Tech in the EU: A Research Agenda on the Institutional Strategies, Public Spheres and Analytical Challenges," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(5), pages 1395-1407, September.
    5. Francesca Colli & Johan Adriaensen, 2020. "Lobbying the state or the market? A framework to study civil society organizations’ strategic behavior," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 14(3), pages 501-513, July.
    6. Aydın Balyer & Erkan Tabancalı, 2019. "The Roles of Interest and Pressure Groups in Developing Sustainable Educational Policies in Turkey," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(24), pages 1-15, December.
    7. Adrià Albareda & Caelesta Braun & Bert Fraussen, 2023. "Explaining why public officials perceive interest groups as influential: on the role of policy capacities and policy insiderness," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 56(2), pages 191-209, June.
    8. Kristin L. Olofsson, 2022. "Winners and losers: Conflict management through strategic policy engagement," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 39(1), pages 73-89, January.
    9. Goutsmedt, Aurélien & Sergi, Francesco & Claveau, François & Fontan, Clément, 2023. "The Different Paths of Central Bank Scientization: The Case of the Bank of England," SocArXiv jzwdt, Center for Open Science.
    10. Leighton Andrews, 2017. "How can we demonstrate the public value of evidence-based policy making when government ministers declare that the people ‘have had enough of experts’?," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 3(1), pages 1-9, December.
    11. Emina Popović, 2017. "Lobbying Practices of Citizens’ Groups in China," SAGE Open, , vol. 7(2), pages 21582440177, June.
    12. Goutsmedt, Aurélien & Sergi, Francesco, 2024. "Redefining Scientisation: Central Banks between Science and Politics," SocArXiv dxvfp, Center for Open Science.
    13. Alvaro Oleart & Luis Bouza, 2018. "Democracy at Stake: Multipositional Actors and Politicization in the EU Civil Society Field," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/273672, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    14. Serge Savary & Sonia Akter & Conny Almekinders & Jody Harris & Lise Korsten & Reimund Rötter & Stephen Waddington & Derrill Watson, 2020. "Mapping disruption and resilience mechanisms in food systems," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 12(4), pages 695-717, August.
    15. Andreas Broscheid & David Coen, 2003. "Insider and Outsider Lobbying of the European Commission," European Union Politics, , vol. 4(2), pages 165-189, June.
    16. Jennifer A. Kagan & Tanya Heikkila & Christopher M. Weible & Duncan Gilchrist & Ramiro Berardo & Hongtao Yi, 2023. "Advancing scholarship on policy conflict through perspectives from oil and gas policy actors," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 56(3), pages 573-594, September.
    17. Peckham, Allie & Morton-Chang, Frances & Williams, A. Paul & Miller, Fiona A., 2018. "Rebalancing health systems toward community-based care: The role of subsectoral politics," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 122(11), pages 1260-1265.
    18. Håkan Johansson & Anders Uhlin & Malin Arvidson, 2022. "Capital and Closure in the EU Field. Advancement in the European Economic and Social Committee," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(4), pages 1069-1085, July.
    19. Bert Fraussen & Darren Halpin, 2017. "Think tanks and strategic policy-making: the contribution of think tanks to policy advisory systems," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 50(1), pages 105-124, March.
    20. repec:osf:osfxxx:f6t5y_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Derrill D. Watson, 2017. "The political economy of food price policy during the global food price crisis of 2006-2008," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 9(3), pages 497-509, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v8:y:2020:i:3:p:86-96. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira or IT Department (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.