Download or read book Democratic Participation and Civil Society in the European Union written by Dawid Friedrich and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2011-08-15 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can the participation of civil society organizations democratize policy making in the European Union? This book challenges the widespread optimism about civil society participation in European governance and offers a nuanced and realistic evaluation of its democratic potential. Friedrich argues that the participation of these groups is only of democratic value if participatory patterns are democratized through appropriate institutional means. This book systematically brings together insights from normative democratic theory with an empirical evaluation of concrete policy-processes. It demonstrates that the participation of civil society organization cannot be conceived as a panacea for the European Union’s democratic deficit, because the participatory pattern of EU policy-making violates the key democratic value of political equality. This book will be of interest to all of those concerned about the future of European democracy, those studying and teaching European politics, the European Union, international relations, and democratic theory.
Download or read book Citizen Participation in Democratic Europe written by James Organ and published by . This book was released on 2021-02-15 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book brings together academics as well as practitioners to give a forward-looking, holistic view of the realities of EU citizen participation across the spectrum of participatory opportunities"--
Download or read book Civil Society Participation in European and Global Governance written by J. Steffek and published by Springer. This book was released on 2007-12-04 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is often argued that the enhanced consultation of civil society contributes to the democratization of European and global governance. This collection investigates whether this theoretical argument is supported by empirical evidence. Ten original essays analyze current patterns of civil society consultation in 32 intergovernmental organizations.
Download or read book De Mystification of Participatory Democracy written by Beate Kohler-Koch and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2013-07-25 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The democratic legitimacy of the European Union has become an increasingly urgent issue. In searching for a way out, academics, EU institutions, and political forces advocate the involvement of civil society. The Commission's new governance approach and the Lisbon Treaty introduced elements of participatory democracy and elevated civil society to a key actor in democratizing the EU. Does this hold upon closer scrutiny? This is the main question of the book. It investigates how the promise of civil society participation is put into practice and, based on an elaborate theoretical framework, evaluates whether the political practice deserves the quality attribute 'participatory democracy'. The book presents the results of a large research project composed of several highly original empirical studies. The research team used various methodological approaches and generated a rich data set. The wealth of empirical insight is evaluated against clear criteria deduced from normative democratic theory. As key elements of the analyses - democracy, participation, and civil society - are contested concepts, the authors placed particular emphasize on clarifying their understanding of these concepts and on considering competing interpretations. By relying on a consistent theoretical approach the authors present an unusually balanced evaluation. They come to convincing, though rather skeptical conclusions. Civil society participation in EU governance is not the democratic remedy its advocates had hoped for. This may not be a welcome but nevertheless it is an important finding both for European decision-makers, for civil society organizations and for scholars.
Download or read book Participatory Democracy and Civil Society in the EU written by Luis Bouza Garcia and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-02-27 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is about both the symbolic and the real struggles for the control of the EU's agenda on participatory democracy in the last fifteen years. The book analyzes how civil society organizations contributed to an agenda which has implications for the regulation of interest groups to the institutions and for the democratic legitimacy of the EU.
Download or read book Civil Society and Governance in Europe written by William A. Maloney and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2008-01-01 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The research presented in this book based on new primary data demonstrates that in terms of civil society actors adapting to the European political space the Europeanization process has an uneven development. This innovative book integrates top-down approaches for the study of relationships within the developing EU-multilevel system (i.e., the consequences of Europeanization for civil society at the local level) and bottom-up approaches (i.e., the consequences of civil society for the process of European integration and democracy in the EU). The contributors argue that exploration of these recursive linkages requires a rethinking of the relationships between (local, national, and trans-national) civil society on the one hand, and multi-level governance on the other. In analyzing the opportunities for civil society associations to contribute to European integration and decision-making from various perspectives, the following findings are presented, amongst others: engagement with and confidence in the EU (compared to national institutions) is relatively weak among associational members party elites play a key gatekeeper role in the European space the EU and interest groups have had limited success in stimulating the development of citizen engagement, civil society and social capital in various countries. In the rapidly expanding field of research on democratic decision-making in Europe, this book will be welcomed by academics and scholars alike at postgraduate levels and above. Experts working in the field of European decision-making (such as lawyers and lobbyists) who are looking for conclusions based on high-quality empirical research will also find much in this book to engage them.
Download or read book Participatory Governance in the EU written by K. Lindgren and published by Springer. This book was released on 2011-09-13 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An empirical assessment of whether participatory governance reforms within the EU enhance or endanger democracy. Many consider allowing civil society to take an active role in EU policy-making to offer the most effective means of enhancing democracy in the EU, whereas others argue that such attempts deepen the EU's democratic deficit.
Download or read book Civil Society and Activism in Europe written by William A. Maloney and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-04-05 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the role of civil society organizations in several advanced European democracies: Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Specifically the book focuses on how voluntary organizations contribute to civic and democratic health and assesses the impact of different organizational types on social capital. Building on Citizenship and Involvement in European Democracies and Social Capital and Associations in Europe (2007), this volume seeks to widen and deepen the analysis by introducing new data on activists and combining it with the organizational data and the population data. It evaluates the impact of the organizational context on individual activity profiles and attitudes and values of activists and provides a unique assessment on the contribution that voluntary associations make to civil and democratic society. Part One deals with the consequences of associational involvement for several attitudinal and behavioural orientations and Part Two expands the scope of the effects of voluntary associations towards European attitudes. This book is essential reading for students and scholars of civil society, democracy, political participation, politics and sociology.
Download or read book Their Members Voice written by Meike Rodekamp and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-06-17 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The role of civil society organisations in Brussels is debated. Some view them as representatives of their members and thus as legitimising agents for policy-making in the European Union. Others see them as being elitist and out of touch with their membership bases, therefore ill-suited to promote democracy at the EU level. Taking civil society organisations in the EU’s external relations as an example, Meike Rodekamp submits these controversial views to a reality check. Interviews with representatives of civil society organisations in Brussels and their member organisations in the EU show that the Brussels offices have not lost contact with their members. However, member organisations differ substantially in their participation in internal decision-making processes, which raises doubts about the legitimacy gains through civil society participation in EU policy-making.
Download or read book Building Civil Society and Democracy in New Europe written by Sven Eliaeson and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2009-03-26 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The European enlargement process culminating in 2004 was - as a follow-up to die Wende and the implosion of the Russian empire - an event of the same magnitude as 1815 and 1919. Like 1918-19, it was an “exit into history”, a momentous event in post-Westphalian Europe. Even if acceptance of ten new countries was premature, it was appropriate to the moment history provided. The presence of the “New kids on the block” meant both problems and prospects. The end of the cold war meant the fall of the iron curtain – but a mental remnant of the curtain remains, in terms of attitudes regarding civility, corruption, and transparency, and expectations for democratic politics. Several of the “new” countries are “late children of 1848”. For them, entering NATO was more important than joining the EU, and also preceded EU-membership. Poland is bigger than the other 2004 countries together and has a heavy historical legacy. It is - as Germany used to be - imprinted by its special path between East and West and fear of being encircled by enemies. Although the Building of Civil Society and Democracy in countries in transformation can draw on experiences from the countries already within the EU, there is no primrose path for EU-integration. It is, moreover, an irony that the new member states, as a result of the expectations for post-Communist politics, build institutions of a kind that are no longer sufficiently efficient for “old” Europe. The new countries became a full-scale experiment in rule by experts: now by neo-liberals instead of Communists. A common European public sphere and civil society might emerge, but its form remains visible only at the horizon.
Download or read book Participatory Democracy Civil Society and Social Europe written by Gautier Busschaert and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Participatory democracy has become a buzzword in current discussions about how to democratize the EU. European institutions associate it with civil society involvement in European governance and claim that it might reduce its so-called democratic deficit. The Treaty of Lisbon formalizes this promise by enacting a new Article 11 TEU specifically dedicated to participatory democracy as a founding principle of the EU legal order. However, two fundamental paradoxes have been overlooked. Whereas participatory democracy was traditionally meant to further the maximum participation of citizens in political life, the EU supports a modern version of the participatory ideal where citizens are represented by a self-designated elite of civil society experts. This book takes a critical stance on that technocratic form of government. At the same time, it examines whether there are realistic ways for a bureaucratic organization like the EU to involve a truly civil society of active citizens in governance. This book claims that European civil society may only flourish if social Europe acts as a counterweight to economic Europe. It analyzes whether the EU has developed a social dimension strong enough to protect civil society from the colonizing forces of European economic integration. (Series: Law and Cosmopolitan Values, Vol. 8) Subject: EU Law]
Download or read book Civil Society and Democracy Promotion written by T. Beichelt and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-01-28 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With contributions from experts on democracy promotion, this volume examines civil society development and external civil society promotion in post-socialist Europe. It focuses on countries with a failed or deficient process of democratic consolidation looking at unintended consequences of external democracy promotion on civil society development.
Download or read book The New Politics of European Civil Society written by Ulrike Liebert and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-08-21 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past two decades, civil society has played a pivotal role in Europe, from the demise of Communist rule to the reunification of Europe, followed by the expansion of the single market to the reconstitution of democracy in the enlarged European Union. European civil society has emerged as a social space between EU governance and the citizens of the member states, populated by non-state agents claiming to represent, speak for or participate on behalf of the most varied social constituencies in EU decision making. This book consolidates European civil society research by re-viewing its conceptual, normative and empirical-analytical foundations. With contributors from political science to sociology to law, it captures the evolving practices of European civil society that stretch across the national (local), the European and the global realm. Developing an analytical framework that highlights the interplay between civil society building and polity building from above as well as from below, within the legal and institutional framework of the EU, they examine whether and how civil society can contribute to making democracy work in normative democratic theoretical perspectives. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of civil society, European politics, political science and sociology.
Download or read book Governance and European Civil Society written by Acar Kutay and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-02-24 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a critical analysis of the European Union’s approach to ‘governance’, focusing on the way in which civil society is incorporated within the EU decision-making process and arguing that it is not conducive to the democratisation of EU governance. Using a governmentality approach, Kutay demonstrates that civic actors are not incorporated into EU decision-making processes as they are; rather, they are formed, manipulated and guided by political programming. The author explains how this acts to prescribe and construct particular types of subjectivities, thereby limiting and constraining the types of participation that might emerge as part of European civil society and the process of political participation. Governance and European Civil Society will be of interest to students and scholars of European Union politics, global governance, civil society and democracy, Central and East European studies and political and international theory.
Download or read book New Participatory Dimensions in Civil Society written by Jan W. van Deth and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-03-15 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines citizen engagement in contemporary democratic politics and the development of new participatory forms. Based on empirical information gathered from citizens, activists and organizations, it examines the changing face of democratic participation. Advanced democracies are ‘plagued’ by the complex problem of basing political decisions on the active engagement of citizens and citizens’ organisations. Although the benefits of an active citizenry appear great, the reality is that most citizens positively embrace a relatively marginal role in organised politics. The conventional activist –citizens as active members engaged in voluntary associations and collective decision-making – seems to be replaced by passive supporters and donors or ephemeral or episodic democratic participators. This volume aims to address several issues at the core of this transformation: the rise of checkbook participation, the growing attractiveness of individualized forms of participation, and the increasing relevance of professional expertise. Looking beyond the traditional single focus on participation or on organizations in isolation, the book innovatively examines the empirical link that can be established between actual developments in democratic participations and the organizational framework in European countries. New Participatory Dimensions in Civil Society is essential reading for students and scholars of democracy, participation, civil society, politics and sociology.
Download or read book Promoting Democracy Through Civil Society written by Kristi Raik and published by CEPS. This book was released on 2006 with total page 37 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book EU Civil Society written by Sara Kalm and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-04-29 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume provides a novel and relational sociological approach to the study of EU civil society. It focuses on the interactions and interrelations between civil society actors and the forms of capital that structure the fields and sub-fields of EU civil society, through new and important empirical studies on organized EU civil society.
