Governance ‘to Go’: Domestic Actors, Institutions and the Boundaries of the Possible

Abstract

How to 'bring Europe closer to the people' has long been a preoccupation of the policy-maker at the EU level and has recently

Critical resource dependencies and the Europeanization of domestic interest groups

“…Europeanization is generally referred to as the process through which key political actors such as political parties, interest groups, national bureaucracies and legislators adapt themselves to the impact of European integration (Goetz 2000;Ladrech 1994Ladrech /2005Börzel 1999;Green Cowles et al 2001;Hanf and Soetendorp 1998;Harmsen 1999;Kassim et al 2000;Knill 2001;Olsen 2003). Many studies on the Europeanization of interest groups suggest that this impact is largely mediated through, and conditioned by, existing domestic institutions, policies, cultures and identities (see also Sidenius 1999;Cram 2001;Beyers 2002;Eising 2003;Grote and Lang 2003;Saurugger 2005). There is no automatic shift of activities and loyalties to the European level.…”

“…Several authors have tried to identify such constraints and their impact on the propensity of national interest groups to Europeanize. Eising and Kohler-Koch for instance, refer to the 'Beharrungsthese' (obstinacy thesis) where a negative correlation is found between the extent to which a group is integrated in domestic policy networks, and the extent of its integration in Europeanized networks (2004, 46;see also Sidenius 1999;Cram 2001;Eising 2003). In the same vein, Cram points to the relationship between domestic institutions and interest groups (preferential, selective, pluralist) on the likelihood that the latter will stick to their domestic polity (2001,.…”

“…Cram, for instance, refers to the issue of funds organizations gain from domestic sources (Cram 2001). She argues that national organizations that receive large amounts of money from their national government are not very autonomous; but that the other extreme, i.e.…”

Civil society participation in EU governance

“…Others have explored the impact of EU action on the Europeanization of civil society at the level of member states (see Gasior-Niemiec and Glinski 2007;Gray and Statham 2005;Cram 2001). The Europeanization of civil society in Eastern Europe deserves special attention in this respect, as EU institutions particularly focused on civil society during the accession process.…”

“…She argues that the properties of organizations targeted by EU instruments, the domestic political context, and the role of collective beliefs and values mediate the impact of EU-level action on civil society organizations in member states. However, Laura Cram qualifies the impact of EU institutions on the Living Reviews in European Governance http://www.livingreviews.org/lreg-2007-2 Europeanization of civil society by highlighting the significance of "banal Europeanism" (Cram 2001;see Trenz 2006). This means, according to Cram, that individuals start to "enhabit" the EU and "forget to remember that the current situation is not how things always were" (Cram 2001: 614).…”