Governance: Contested Perceptions of Civic Participation

The Preparation of the Governance White Paper

“…Views were elicited through restricted dialogue with working groups, structured hearings, and wide consultation by questionnaire; spontaneous reactions were conveyed through over 500 e‐mails (European Commission, 2001b). The governance team identified five main categories of respondent, each of which held slightly differing conceptions of governance and illustrated the difficulty of rationalising such an amorphous concept (see Sloat, 2002ab). First, regional and local actors requested greater involvement, noted the contrast between political responsibility and active subsidiarity, and cited the cumbersome nature of EU institutions.…”

A ‘new politics’ of participation?

“…27 "New politics" in its Scottish version embodies certain key themes relating to new institutions, new processes and new political culture (see, for example, Mitchell, 2000;Brown, 2000;Sloat, 2002;Keating, 2005). These aspirations are expressed in the founding documents of devolution; 28 a new institutional balance, the displacement of adversarial politics by a new, more European way of conducting business within the Parliament and a "step change" (Bonney, 2003: 460) in popular participation by citizens outside the Parliament.…”

A ‘new politics’ of participation?

“…"New politics" in its Scottish version embodies certain key themes relating to new institutions, new processes and new political culture (see, for example, Mitchell, 2000;Brown, 2000;Sloat, 2002;Keating, 2005). These aspirations are expressed in the founding documents of devolution; 28 a new institutional balance, the displacement of adversarial politics by a new, more European way of conducting business within the Parliament and a "step change" (Bonney, 2003: 460) in popular participation by citizens outside the Parliament.…”