Improving territorial cohesion: the role of stakeholders in OMC and cohesion policy

Since the 1990s the political agenda of the European Union has been increasingly characterized by efforts to strengthen its democratic legitimacy, while at the same time, criticism regarding its democratic deficit have intensified. This has taken place in particular through the promotion of different programmes and tools aimed at involving civil society in the decision making process, both at European and local level, and in different policy sectors. This literature review deals with a large body of articles, books and reports that have been produced over the last decade on the involvement of stakeholders and citizens in decision making processes, especially in Programmes concerning socio-economic dialogue, poverty and social exclusion at European Level, and social and territorial cohesion and – more recently – social innovation at regional and urban level. It is structured as follows. The first section deals with the different theories and approaches related to stakeholders’ and citizens’ involvement in the decision making process. The second section focuses on how this concept has been developed in the European Agenda over the last two decades, especially in the framework of the most important programmes dealing with socio-economic dialogue, social policy, social exclusion and poverty. The third section analyses these changes focusing on EU programmes affecting the local level of decision making, the role of social innovation in defining new scenarios for citizens’ involvement in policy making on programmes, and initiatives addressing social cohesion, poverty and social inclusion. Finally some conclusive remarks on the main challenges of Stakeholders’ Involvement in European participatory practices based on the academic literature developed on the issue are presented.