EU Civil Society

Patterns of Cooperation, Competition and Conflict

Sara Kalm, Håkan Johansson, Sara Kalm, Håkan Johansson

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781137500700
• eBook ISBN:
  9781137500724
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: European Politics
• Index: Social Sciences

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.

1

Thinking Relationally: Questions, Themes and Perspectives for the Study of EU Civil Society

Håkan Johansson and Sara Kalm

Introduction

Since the end of the Cold War, the European Union (EU) has developed a variety of means by which to interact with civil society (Armstrong, 2002; Kohler-Koch and Rittberger, 2007b; Ruzza, 2006 and 2007; Smismans, 2003). With the ambition to foster a European civil society, the EU has incentivised the formation of EU-level civil society actors by providing funding as well as opportunities for access and consultation to EU institutions. Most conspicuously, a significant number of civil society organisations (CSOs) have been created by the EU and they now regularly interact with national organisations as well as with EU policymakers in many different issue areas such as development, social issues, anti-discrimination and human rights.

The ambition to reach out to society was intensified around the turn of the millennium, with the publication of the White Paper on European Governance (European Commission, 2001) as well as the process around the proposed Constitution for Europe. The latter actually proposed participatory democracy as a guiding principle besides representative democracy, but this provision was later removed in the Lisbon Treaty. In recent years, there has been increased emphasis on the merits of active citizenship besides organised civil society. The most important institutional innovation in this vein is the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) (Article 11 [4] of the Treaty on the European Union), which provides a right to initiative for individual citizens, albeit one that is in practice circumscribed by demanding requirements.

One conceivable reason for the EU’s involvement in these areas concerns citizens’ views and the stated ambition to strengthen democracy. The representation of CSOs and direct citizen engagement have been put forward as important ways to include the voice of the citizens of Europe (Liebert, 2009; Nanz and Steffek, 2005; Persson and Lindgren, 2011; Steffek et al., 2008). Another explanation is that the EU needs the resources that CSOs possess in order to improve policymaking (for instance, knowledge and expertise, personal networks, up-to-date information and credibility with grass-roots) and legitimacy (Klüwer, 2010). Providing access to CSOs and other non-state actors is not unique to the EU, but it is an emerging international governance norm to which most intergovernmental organisations have adapted to some extent (Tallberg et al., 2013). CSOs’ involvement is expected to mediate – or even overcome – the distance between the EU and domestic societies by ‘bring[ing] Europe much closer to the people’ and thereby alleviating the criticism towards the EU for being an elitist project (European Commission, 2000b, p. 4, see also Kohler-Koch and Rittberger, 2007b).

Our broad ambition is to open up a new research agenda concerned with exploring the consequences of the EU’s participatory governance for relations internal to civil society itself. That is, instead of studying the EU’s ‘participatory engineering’ (Kohler-Koch and Finke, 2007) as a top-down or bottom-up affair, focusing either on explaining the rationale of governing institutions or the incentives of individual actors, we want to provide a relational or horizontal perspective analysing internal relations between civil society actors – including both CSOs and actors involved in the ECIs. In this introductory chapter, we carve out the object of study for this ‘relational approach’ and suggest a few different theoretical avenues forward.

A relational approach goes against the grain of the research mainstay, which tends to assume civil society to be homogeneous and predominantly driven by normative concerns (Boli and Thomas, 1997). A relational approach also pays attention to strategic forms of behaviour, as well as to conflicts and competition besides cooperative interactions among actors. While access to EU institutions has expanded overall, it has not benefited everyone equally. While some civil society actors have managed to navigate the new waters successfully, others have seen themselves and their causes marginalised or even excluded. And while novel and sometimes surprising patterns of cooperation have emerged between those that ‘normally’ pertain to different issue areas or interest-based networks, so have new fissures and conflicts also followed on these new institutional developments. We argue that in order to provide a more complete picture scholarship on EU civil society at this point requires a more nuanced kind of empirical analysis that a relational approach can bring. Such an approach also forces us to see how these interrelations are at least partially constitutive of civil society actors themselves (Crossley, 2011; Emirbayer, 1997), which allows us to account for how new patterns of interconnectedness, new incentive structures and new requirements for prestige and standing are not just acting on civil society actors from the outside but actively partaking in shaping them and their inter-organisational relations.

In what follows, we first provide a provisional empirical background (‘mapping’) of EU-level civil society. Next, we discuss previous research and argue for a relational approach. In the subsequent section, we present three different analytical perspectives that provide alternative ways for carrying out a relational approach – network, coalition and field models. The final section of the chapter presents an overview of the contributions that follow.

Mapping civil society actors at the EU level

The complete ecology of civil society actors operating at the EU level is much wider and complex than often assumed. Initially, it was mostly employee groups, trade union organisations and various lobby organisations that were active at the EU level with the intention to influence policies and represent interests in Brussels (Beyer et al., 2008; Mazey and Richardson, 2006). The relocation of competencies within a wide number of policy areas from member states to the EU implied a greater interest by CSOs to seek to represent their members, beneficiaries and issues in relation to the debates and policymaking processes that take place in Brussels (Coen-Richardson, 2009; Greenwood, 2007a; Karr, 2007). They sought access to and were engaged in various civil dialogue models with EU institutions (Kohler-Koch and Finke, 2007). Since then the number of EU-based civil society actors has grown considerably, and today we find a large number of civil society actors operating at and seeking access to the EU arena. A review of the Transparency Register (the EU’s official register for actors engaging with various EU institutions) for May 2014 demonstrates a total of 6,590 ‘societal groups’ run activities in relation to EU institutions. The largest category is ‘in-house lobbyists and professional associations’ (approximately 50 per cent), while the category of ‘non-governmental organisations’ amounted to approximately 25 per cent. Actors that have funding or seek to consult EU officials and institutions are expected to be registered in this database.

However, the scope of actors that could be included in the notion of EU civil society is much wider, and mapping the CSOs now operating at the EU level is a challenging task since their patterns resemble what is known in the governance literature as ‘multilevel governance’ (Hooghe and Marks, 2001) or even ‘institutional fragmentation’ (Zelli and van Asselt, 2013) – albeit on the civil society side. In the following, we will first present the pattern of organised civil society associated with what can be generally referred to as the ‘civil dialogue’, that is the organised consultation procedures that exist between EU institutions and a set of fairly institutionalised CSOs, and then turn more briefly to the actors involved in more direct forms of participation that the ECI offers.

The organising of EU civil society tends to follow a ‘Russian Doll’ pattern, with smaller units enclosed in ever-larger ones. This analogy can be taken even further by considering that individual EU-level CSOs can be made of numerous national organisations, many of which are in turn composed of several groups. While the specifics of organisational networking vary with different settings, for analytical purposes we identify three main levels of organising: individual EU-level CSOs, platforms of CSOs and CSO meta-networks.

Individual EU-level CSOs usually represent a particular group or issue and concentrate their lobbying activities on Brussels and sometimes also on the member states. They have different objectives, resources and conditions. Some are well established with offices and employed staff members in central locations in Brussels, and they often receive funding from the EU. They run professional campaigns, write position papers, arrange conferences, deliver press releases and run projects. Others are less established and might lack the type of conventional resources mentioned above. They might also be less formalised and operate more in terms of a loosely knitted network of actors and nevertheless might engage in deliberation and debates at the EU level, seeking to make their point heard in relation to both EU institutions and other CSOs. They tend to prefer ‘inside’ lobbying activities to ‘outside’ protest, which is also the action repertoire favoured by the EU (Greenwood, 2007a, 2007b). Some of these CSOs have national member organisations from a significant number of EU member and candidate countries – organisations that are themselves often umbrella organisations within their respective national context. Among other tasks and functions, these EU-level CSOs provide national members with information about EU policy developments and transmit information on national conditions upwards.

One example is Fédération Européenne d’Associations Nationales Travaillant avec les Sans-Abri (FEANTSA, the European Federation of National Organisations working with the Homeless), which has more than 130 member organisations in 25 member states (FEANTSA, 2015). Many of their national member organisations are service providers working with the homeless. Another example is the European Women’s Lobby (EWL) that represents 2,500 national organisations that are grouped into 30 national coordinations (EWL, 2015). We also count Brussels’ representation of international NGOs in this level of organising (for instance, Save the Children, Amnesty International and Greenpeace). These organisations differ from the others as they are international rather than European in aim, mission and founding. They are also comparatively broad in their scope. They sometimes pursue different strategies in Brussels than elsewhere. An example is Amnesty, which is otherwise based on grass-roots activity but here concentrates only on lobbying.

A second level of organising is inhabited by platforms of CSOs. Such platforms organise individual EU-level CSOs in large networks on the basis of issue area. In cases where this cooperation is formalised, it is often funded by the EU, which wants to create broad CSO partners with whom it can consult on different issues. One example is the Social Platform, which gathers organisations in the fields of social policy and anti-discrimination (see Chapter 4 by Johansson and Lee and Chapter 5 by Cullen in this volume). EU institutions promoted its establishment in the mid-1990s and it today defines itself as ‘the alliance of representative European federations and networks of non-governmental organisations active in the social sector’ (Social Platform, 2014). It has 47 individual CSO members, among them FEANTSA and EWL mentioned above. Other members work in many different though somehow related areas such as poverty, autism, gender issues and transgender persons, youth and old age and consumer debt (Armstrong, 2002; Cullen, 2010; Geyer, 2001; Kendall, 2009). Another example is Concord (European NGO Confederation for Relief and Development), which represents 1,800 CSOs across Europe. Concord was founded in 2003, but its predecessor CLONG-EU had already been created in 1976 as one of the first CSO platforms supported by the EU (see Chapter 6 by Sanchez Salgado in this volume).

A third level of organising is CSO meta-networks. These are mechanisms of various kinds that draw together CSO platforms (mostly) in even wider forms of cooperation and dialogue. Cooperation is as a rule less structured here than in CSO platforms. One such mechanism is the Civil Society Contact Group, which aims ‘to represent the views and interests of rights and value-based civil society organisations across the European Union on major issues, which affect us across our sectors of activity’ (Civil Society Contact Group, 2014). It was formed by four CSO platforms in 2002 with the objective of promoting debate on the Convention. It now has eight members from the ‘value-based’ fields and has a broader agenda on enhancing CSO and citizen participation and promoting a vision of Europe centred on solidarity. Another example is the Liaison Group, which gathers representatives from 22 civil society platforms interacting with the Economic and Social Committee. The role of the Liaison Group is to structure dialogue and cooperation with the Committee. The most recent example of a CSO meta-network is the European Year of Citizens Alliance (EYCA). The EYCA was initiated by the Liaison Group and other civil society actors in preparation for the Year of Citizens 2013. It describes itself as ‘an open network of European and national civil society organisations willing to promote active citizenship as a core element of the European democracy’ (European Year of Citizens Alliance, 2014). While it was meant to limit its activities to 2013, it has created linkages among CSOs, which appear to linger beyond that year. It is probably the widest CSO coordination so far: among its members are 62 European CSO platforms (including all the above-mentioned ones) that together represent more than 4,000 CSOs in 50 European countries (ibid.).

This three-level logic gives us an analytical road map for discussing EU-based CSOs. As argued and elaborated in this volume, this must not overshadow the fact that the wide number of civil society actors now operating at the EU level take many different guises. Although many EU-based civil society actors are formal organisations and – at least to some extent – linked with wider networks of cooperation often engaging with EU institutions, several are not so easily sorted into such seemingly hierarchical structures. Analyses of EU civil society must also include actors that have a social movement basis, activist or grass-root orientation or just have a much less formalised structure (Imig and Tarrow, 2001; Ruzza, 2011).

Another cluster of actors are those that mobilise and organise in relation to the ECI. The ECI invites a more direct form of participation in comparison to the more elite-driven civil dialogue CSOs. It was initiated to increase the element of direct democracy in the EU, and it puts the people on a par with the European Parliament and the Council as far as legislative initiative goes. Article 11(4) of the TEU maintains that initiatives that collect one million validated signatures from at least a quarter of the member states during a one-year period can request the Commission to make proposals on any issue that falls within EU competencies. This does not mean that it necessarily will have its will implemented; it merely guarantees a meeting with the Commission and a hearing in the Parliament. Each ECI needs a citizen committee of at least seven persons living in seven different member states. The ECI is explicitly meant to engage other actors than the professional and institutionalised set of CSOs, namely ‘all citizens’ (EurActiv, 2011). However, some established CSOs take the opportunity that the ECI provides to promote a particular cause and draw attention to its favoured issue (see Chapter 10 by Bouza García, Chapter 11 By Greenwood and 12 by Hedling and Meeuwisse in this volume). The ECIs that have been successful so far are backed by established movements, for instance, trade unions and animal rights movements.

This ‘mapping’ exercise shows that the system of EU civil society actors is complex in its organisation and demonstrates signs of both fragmentation and concerted actions. It includes a very large number of civil society actors that vary in size, aims and forms of organisation. The types of relations that exist between them may include competition over resources and positions, political, ideological or other kinds of conflicts, as well as efforts at cooperation and alliance building (Cullen, 2005, 2010).

Exploring new research questions

The emergence of the EU’s participatory regime, combined with the growth of civil society actors operating at the EU level, has created an upsurge in academic research on these and related areas, and much current research can be sorted into three major strands.

One group of scholars has adopted a top-down perspective, analysing the discourses, policies and governance methods deployed by different EU institutions (mainly the Commission) vis-à-vis EU-level CSOs (Greenwood, 2007a, 2007b; Kohler-Koch, 2009; Smismans, 2003, 2008; Trenz, 2009). The White Paper on European Governance is the hallmark of these debates, illustrating the EU’s aspirations and desire to experiment with new types of governance mechanisms and involve CSOs in deliberation, debates and policymaking processes at the EU level (European Commission, 2001). This research has revealed the Commission’s entrepreneurial role and shown that over the years it has indirectly as well as directly mobilised and/or set up platforms of CSOs in policy fields it deemed relevant. The EU’s forms of financial, technical and ideational support have marked this remarkable bureaucratic activism (Bowen, 2009; Coen-Richardson, 2009; Kohler-Koch and Finke, 2007; Sanchez-Salgado, 2007).

Another strand of research employs a bottom-up perspective as it puts civil society actors’ tactics and strategies at the centre of attention. Scholars have demonstrated that EU-based CSOs oriented towards Brussels tend to employ ‘insider’ strategies and deploy activities such as lobbying, legal action, expert opinions, position papers, conferences and participation in various advisory or consultative committees, rather than more confrontational activities such as demonstrations and protests (Balme and Chabanet, 2008; Cullen, 2003, 2010; Kriesi et al., 2007; Sanchez Salgado, 2007; Saurugger, 2006). A related but separate field of study instead concerns the Europeanisation of protest and asks whether social movement claims and targets have a European dimension (Della Porta and Caiani, 2007 and 2009; Imig and Tarrow, 2001; Ruzza and Bozzini, 2008; Teune, 2010). Findings suggest, among other things, homogenising effects on social movement groups/organisations as they enter into an EU sphere, as they adopt similar organisational structures, high levels of professionalism, similar types of resources and a politically neutral discourse (Ruzza, 2011).

A third category of research seeks to evaluate the democratic quality of EU–civil society relations (Kröger and Friedrich, 2012; Trenz, 2009). Some scholars argue that the participation of CSOs follows a transmission belt model, meaning that EU-level organisations could be transmitters of EU information to domestic members/actors while acting as collectors of knowledge and information from the domestic level and bringing it into the EU debate (Kohler-Koch, 2010; Kröger, 2013; Rodekamp, 2014; Steffek and Hahn, 2010; Steffek et al., 2008; Tomšič and Reik, 2008). The transmission belt model has, however, been questioned in recent empirical research (Johansson and Lee, 2014; Johansson and Schütze, 2014), demonstrating that the expected transmission between EU and domestic CSOs is less obvious that the theoretical models envisage. Researchers have also assessed the implications of the Commission’s explicit preference for some selected ‘representative’ organisations at the EU level (Greenwood, 2007b; Greenwood and Halpin, 2007; Johansson and Lee, 2012a; Kohler-Koch, 2008; Kohler-Koch and Quittkat, 2009; Obradovic, 2009). Although the Commission never supported a formal accreditation system and expressed its intention to have its windows open for various CSOs (Obradovic, 2009, p. 303), many commentators have pointed out that it has had preference for larger peak organisations hampering other expression of interests and forms of organising (Armstrong, 2002; Greenwood, 2007b; Greenwood and Halpin, 2007).

What is overlooked in these strands of research is how civil society and its actors themselves engage in collaboration and partnerships as well as in competitions for power, status and resources. We do not ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Notes on Contributors
• List of Abbreviations
• 1. Thinking Relationally: Questions, Themes and Perspectives for the Study of EU Civil Society
• Part I: Trends, Interactions and Positions within Platforms of CSOs
• Part II: Membership and Identity Struggles within and between EU-Level CSOs
• Part III: The European Citizens’ Initiative: A New Arena for Civil Society Activism?
• References
• Index