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Smismans, Stijn --- "Civil Society and European Governance: The Interdisciplinary Challenge of Reflexive Deliberative Polyarchy" [2006] ELECD 144; in Smismans, Stijn (ed), "Civil Society and Legitimate European Governance" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006)

Book Title: Civil Society and Legitimate European Governance

Editor(s): Smismans, Stijn

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781843769460

Section: Chapter 14

Section Title: Civil Society and European Governance: The Interdisciplinary Challenge of Reflexive Deliberative Polyarchy

Author(s): Smismans, Stijn

Number of pages: 20

Extract:

14. Civil society and European
governance: the interdisciplinary
challenge of reflexive deliberative
polyarchy
Stijn Smismans

CIVIL SOCIETY'S CHALLENGE TO EU STUDIES

The relationship between civil society and European governance constitutes
both an analytical and a normative challenge to EU studies. This book has only
taken a first step to reply to these challenges.

The Analytical Challenge

Beginning with the EU lobbying literature one has gradually obtained a better
picture of the involvement of interest groups and associations in European
policy-making. In addition to the initial more descriptive accounts, there has
also been a further development of different theories to explain the dynamics
of this reality, such as epistemic communities (Haas 1992; Richardson
1995), advocacy coalitions (Sabatier 1998; Ruzza 2004), political opportunity
theory (Ruzza 2004; Hilson 2002), theory of demand and supply of access
goods (Bouwen 2002); or policy network analysis (Schneider et al. 1994;
Conzelmann 1995; Richardson 1995;1 Kohler-Koch 2002). The `civil
society­European governance' perspective provides additional lenses to
examine this reality and to place it in a broader framework.
The governance dimension allows us to analyse not only the role of civil
society participation in agenda-setting and policy-formulation, but also to
address the role of civil society organisations at multiple stages of policy-
making, such as in the implementation and control of EU regulation (for
example Heinelt and Meinke in this volume) or in the implementation of EU
programmes (for example Etherington 2002). It is not merely a question of
assessing their ...