In response to growing contestation and politicisation of trade policy, policy makers have aimed to enhance the 'inclusiveness' of trade policy through the institutionalisation of deliberative forums in which civil society organisations participate. However, it is not clear whether these processes actually enhance inclusiveness. This article adds to our understanding of this question by, first, developing an analytical framework (the 'inclusiveness ladder') and, second, applying it to the civil society mechanisms (CSMs) of European Union (EU) free trade agreements. The unique feature of CSMs is their focus on ensuring that the actual implementation of trade agreement does not run counter to sustainable development principles. Specifically, our empirical research involves a mixed methods analysis of primary and secondary sources and a survey of civil society participants. We find that CS is largely included at the level of logistics and partly at the level of information sharing, whereas monitoring capacities remain limited and impact on policy-making is quasi-absent. Moreover, results suggest differences between business participants, who seem largely satisfied with the lower steps on the 'ladder', and non-governmental actors who insist on policy impact. Finally, we outline avenues for further research and reflect on policy implications.
is a post-doctoral researcher at the Centre for EU Studies. Her doctoral dissertation studied the EU's cooperation policies towards African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. During a two-year assignment at the United Nations Development Programme and United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs in New York, she continued working on trade and development issues as trade policy analyst. In 2016, she took up a position at the World Trade Organization in Geneva to work on SPS and TBT related issues. She also contributed to a study on the future relationship between the EU and ACP countries (post-Cotonou) during a consultancy for the European Commission (DG Devco). Before taking up the position at the United Nations, Lotte worked as a research coordinator for the Ghent University College and as a researcher for the KULeuven. She holds a master's degree in international politics and a master's degree in EU law, both from Ghent University. Diana Potjomkina is a PhD Fellow on the project GREMLIN: Global and REgional MuLtistakeholder Institutions. Her doctoral research focuses on multistakeholderism in the EU's trade policy and in global trade governance in general. Diana has acquired professional experience in the civil society sector, having worked as a project manager at the European Movement -Latvia and a researcher at the Latvian Institute of International Affairs. In addition, she served as an expert for three opinions of the European Economic and Social Committee. Diana holds master's degree (with distinction) in International Relations from Riga Stradins University in Riga, Latvia, and spent 9 months in the Washington, DC metropolitan area as a Fulbright Visiting Student Researcher at the George Mason University.
This article advances a context-sensitive, critical approach to (1) conceptualizing, (2) assessing and (3) explaining participatory inclusiveness of multistakeholder mechanisms, and applies it to the empirical case of the Domestic Advisory Group (DAG) established in Georgia in the framework of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) with the European Union (EU). Such multistakeholder mechanisms, promoted by the EU, are expected to democratize trade policymaking and refute criticism concerning the negative impact of trade on sustainable development. Our conceptual perspective highlights the importance of not only formal rules, but also micro-level power relations among stakeholders and their ties to macro-level power relations existing in a society, as well as the linkage between social and material sides of power. In our typology, ‘genuine’ multistakeholderism enables just consideration of diverse perspectives through high de jure and de facto horizontal and vertical inclusiveness. Yet our empirical analysis, based on extensive interviews and secondary sources, exemplifies difficulties in reaching ‘genuine’ inclusiveness. Situating the Georgian DAG in the broader societal context helps explain the low degree of inclusiveness we observe, and lack of significant progress in advancing a genuine multistakeholder debate as well as the trade and sustainable agenda in Georgia. Trade, Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement, sustainable development, multistakeholderism, civil society, participation, inclusiveness, Georgia, European Union, critical institutionalism
A former security bureaucrat who has fled the world of security professionals in order to make sense of it, his research focuses on two interconnected issues -first, security discourses and everyday, as well as ceremonial practices of Central European security professionals under post-socialism; and second, urban marginality and the relationships of marginalization, ethno-racial stigmatization and class reproduction to the spread of frames of insecurity and practices of surveillance, repression, and punishment in Central Europe. Contact: lubomir.luptak@gmail.com. Diāna Potjomkina is a Research ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSFrom the position of authors responsible for the editorial work on this volume, we would like to thank several people who commented on its drafts at various stages. Dagmar Rychnovská, Tomáš Karásek, and Marian Majer contributed with their valuable reflections and helped to improve the quality of individual chapters as well as the whole publication as such. We also appreciate the contribution of Mirka Pavlíková, who helped us with the finishing touches of the text and Matt Rees, who was responsible for the proofreading and copyediting. This publication is the second one in the Global Politics Special Series and in this regard we would like to thank Aleš Karmazin for his work on the previous publication in the Special Series, which paved the way for this one. Our thanks go also to the rest of editorial board of Global Politics. Furthermore, we would like to express our gratitude to the director of the International Institute of Political Science (IIPS) Prof. Vít Hloušek, and the head of the Department of the International Relations and European Studies at Masaryk University, Dr. Petr Suchý -as well as other staff at these institutions -for their long-standing support of Global Politics in general and the Special Series in particular. Especially the help of Lucie Mořkovská from the IIPS was essential and the books of Special Series would perhaps never been published without her.Obviously, the authors of this volume declare that they are wholly responsible for any possible inaccuracies or mistakes. Jan Daniel and Richard Turcsányi V VI SUMMARYThis book employs various theories of contemporary security studies to explore some of the most important and most common security issues in Central Europe at this time. Individual chapters of the book adhere mainly to European branches of critical and constructivist security studies, through which they look at some of the salient topics of Central European security politics.The distinction between internal and external security issues is employed throughout the book for analytical purposes. Under this framework, alliance building, security guarantees, "special relationships," the relational politics of identity, and relations with major powers -documented in the book on the case of Latvia's relations with United States -are examples of external security issues. Various pressing domestic security challenges, illustrated on the case of Hungarian far-right movements and the...
This paper elaborates on the relatively unknown concept of meta-participation: stakeholders’ attempts to reorganize the way in which their participation in decision-making is organized. It also applies these conceptual insights to an empirical study of Peruvian civil society. Relying on primary documents and interviews with stakeholders, the article analyzes meta-participation in the framework of Peru’s Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the European Union, showing why and how Peruvian civil society has sought to improve the way in which the participation opportunities offered in the framework of the FTA have been implemented. The article has been developed in an abductive manner, with conceptual and empirical insights building on each other. Finally, the article also discusses the limitations of these meta-participatory activities. Resumen: Metaparticipación en mecanismos multilaterales: La sociedad civil peruana y el Tratado de Libre Comercio con la Unión Europea El artículo elabora el relativamente desconocido concepto de metaparticipación: Los intentos de las partes interesadas en reorganizar el modo en el que se organiza su participación en la toma de decisiones. Asimismo, aplica estas perspectivas conceptuales a un estudio empírico de la sociedad civil peruana. Basándose en documentos primarios y entrevistas con las partes interesadas, el artículo analiza la metaparticipación en el marco del Tratado de Libre Comercio (TLC) de Perú con la Unión Europea y muestra por qué y cómo la sociedad civil ha intentado mejorar la implementación de los espacios de consulta proporcionados en el marco del TLC. El articulo ha sido desarrollado de manera abductiva, en la que las ideas teoréticas y empíricas se refuerzan unas a otras. Finalmente, el articulo también analiza los límites de estas actividades metaparticipativas.
Erin Hannah offers a timely and thought-provoking analysis of civil society’s participation in the European Union’s trade policy. Relying on two case studies, the book shows that while the EU has created diverse instruments for engaging with civil society, in practice procedural improvements do not necessarily lead to greater influence for non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Going beyond a purely technical view on NGOs’ access to policy-makers, we should also consider the ideational factors at play.
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