IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/erp/lregxx/p0005.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Civil society participation in EU governance

Author

Listed:
  • Finke, Barbara

Abstract

The debate on the European Union's legitimacy crisis led to the discovery of civil society in EU governance. With the waning of the permissive consensus, politicians, bureaucrats, and academics shifted their attention towards the input-oriented dimension of democratic legitimacy which results from authentic participation and governance `by the people'. Participatory democracy via civil society involvement came to be considered as a promising supplement to representative democracy and entered EU documents such as the White Paper on European Governance and the draft Constitutional Treaty around the turn of the millennium. However, the origins of the current debate on civil society in EU governance can also be traced back to interest group research which has flourished since the early 1980s and the debate on `participatory governance' that unfolded in the 1990s. These approaches are more concerned with effective political problem-solving and the output-dimension of democratic legitimacy which can, from this point of view, be improved by stakeholder participation and civil society engagement. In fact, two scholars who refer to `civil society' do not necessarily mean the same thing and this is even less obvious if journalists, politicians or public officials allude to civil society. In order to enhance the basis of the discussion, we should seek to identify the conceptions they rely on. This will help us to understand where different arguments come from. Hence, this essay seeks to identify the different layers of the current debate on civil society participation in EU governance by unfolding the traditions of thought academic and political advocates of civil society in EU affairs currently draw on. This essay will basically distinguish between output-oriented approaches which explore the contribution of civil society groups to effective governance and problem-solving on the one hand and research that is interested in input-oriented legitimacy and participatory democracy on the other. Full online version available at http://www.livingreviews.org/lreg-2007-2

Suggested Citation

  • Finke, Barbara, . "Civil society participation in EU governance," Living Reviews in European Governance (LREG), Institute for European integration research (EIF).
    • Handle: RePEc:erp:lregxx:p0005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.livingreviews.org/lreg-2007-2
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://europeangovernance.livingreviews.org/Articles/erpa/../lreg-2007-2/download/lreg-2007-2Color.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Greenwood, Justin, 2007. "Organized Civil Society and Democratic Legitimacy in the European Union," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 37(2), pages 333-357, April.
    2. van den Hove, Sybille, 2000. "Participatory approaches to environmental policy-making: the European Commission Climate Policy Process as a case study," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 457-472, June.
    3. Myrto Tsakatika, 2005. "Claims to Legitimacy: The European Commission between Continuity and Change," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(1), pages 193-220, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kröger, Sandra, 2008. "Nothing but consultation: The place of organised civil society in EU policy-making across policies," European Governance Papers (EUROGOV) 3, CONNEX and EUROGOV networks.
    2. Rodekamp, Meike, 2010. "Representatives or experts? Civil society organizations in the EU's external relations," TranState Working Papers 137, University of Bremen, Collaborative Research Center 597: Transformations of the State.
    3. Rosa Maria Fernandez, 2018. "Conflicting energy policy priorities in EU energy governance," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 8(3), pages 239-248, September.
    4. Acar Kutay, 2017. "How Does the European Commission Create a European Civil Society with Words? A Discourse Theoretical Inquiry," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(5), pages 1094-1109, September.

    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. Tanja Börzel, 2010. "European Governance: Negotiation and Competition in the Shadow of Hierarchy," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(2), pages 191-219, March.
    2. Kirsty L. Blackstock & Elizabeth A. Kirk & Alison D. Reeves, 2005. "Sociology, Science and Sustainability: Developing Relationships in Scotland," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 10(2), pages 125-140, July.
    3. Arndt Wonka & Frank R Baumgartner & Christine Mahoney & Joost Berkhout, 2010. "Measuring the size and scope of the EU interest group population," European Union Politics, , vol. 11(3), pages 463-476, September.
    4. Anne-Sophie Merot & Frédérique Grazzini & Jean-Pierre Boissin, 2014. "Gouvernance et développement durable : Le cas de la responsabilité élargie du producteur dans une filière de gestion des déchets," Post-Print halshs-01185814, HAL.
    5. Rosa Sanchez Salgado, 2014. "Rebalancing EU Interest Representation? Associative Democracy and EU Funding of Civil Society Organizations," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(2), pages 337-353, March.
    6. Vandermeulen, V. & Van Huylenbroeck, G., 2008. "Designing trans-disciplinary research to support policy formulation for sustainable agricultural development," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 352-361, October.
    7. Blackstock, K.L. & Kelly, G.J. & Horsey, B.L., 2007. "Developing and applying a framework to evaluate participatory research for sustainability," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(4), pages 726-742, February.
    8. Joost Berkhout & David Lowery, 2010. "The changing demography of the EU interest system since 1990," European Union Politics, , vol. 11(3), pages 447-461, September.
    9. Vivien Schmidt, 2010. "Democracy and Legitimacy in the European Union Revisited - Input, Output and Throughput," KFG Working Papers p0021, Free University Berlin.
    10. Vincent Caby & Lise Frehen, 2021. "How to Produce and Measure Throughput Legitimacy? Lessons from a Systematic Literature Review," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 9(1), pages 226-236.
    11. Kunsch, P.L. & Kavathatzopoulos, I. & Rauschmayer, F., 2009. "Modelling complex ethical decision problems with operations research," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 1100-1108, December.
    12. Rauh, Christian, 2022. "Clear messages to the European public? The language of European Commission press releases 1985–2020," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue Latest Ar, pages 1-19.
    13. Vivien A. Schmidt, 2009. "Re-Envisioning the European Union: Identity, Democracy, Economy," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47, pages 17-42, September.
    14. Wendy Proctor & Martin Drechsler, 2006. "Deliberative Multicriteria Evaluation," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 24(2), pages 169-190, April.
    15. Christian Engau & Volker Hoffmann, 2011. "Corporate response strategies to regulatory uncertainty: evidence from uncertainty about post-Kyoto regulation," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 44(1), pages 53-80, March.
    16. Nicolle Zeegers, 2016. "Civil Society Organizations’ Participation in the EU and Its Challenges for Democratic Representation," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 4(4), pages 27-39.
    17. Pelenc, Jérôme & Etxano, Iker, 2021. "Capabilities, Ecosystem Services, and Strong Sustainability through SMCE: The Case of Haren (Belgium)," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    18. Åse Gornitzka & Cathrine Holst, 2015. "The Expert-Executive Nexus in the EU: An Introduction," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 3(1), pages 1-12.
    19. Felix Rauschmayer & Sybille van den Hove & Thomas Koetz, 2009. "Participation in EU Biodiversity Governance: How Far beyond Rhetoric?," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 27(1), pages 42-58, February.
    20. Acar Kutay, 2017. "How Does the European Commission Create a European Civil Society with Words? A Discourse Theoretical Inquiry," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(5), pages 1094-1109, September.

    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:erp:lregxx:p0005. 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: Michael Nentwich (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://eif.univie.ac.at .

    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.