The Monitoring Capacity of Civil Society Networks: A Social Network Analysis in the Case of Gender Equality Policy

Abstract

The role of civil society organizations (CSOs) as a watchdog in the implementation process is widely acknowledged. However, little is known about what determines their capacity to monitor EU policy implementation and how it differs across member states. This study accounts for social capital as well as human and financial capital to determine the monitoring capacity of CSOs. To capture sources of social capital, a network analysis is applied in a comparative case study on the monitoring networks of national platforms of the European Women's Lobby across eight EU member states. The analysis reveals that CSOs in western member states are rich in human, financial and social capital, while CSOs in CEE member states compensate for this lack of resources by linking up with the Commission.

Velvet triangles and more: alliances of supranational EU gender equality actors

“…Subsequently, the Commission supported both the creation of supranational umbrella CSOs such as the European Disability Forum, the Social Platform and the European Network Against Racism, and their participation in EU policymaking (Johansson and Kalm, 2015;Sanchez Salgado, 2014). The most prominent example in gender equality is the European Women's Lobby (EWL) established in 1990 (Strid, 2014;Schrama, 2019).…”

“…The EWL, its activities, involvement in EU policymaking and internal organisational logic have received ample attention in feminist governance research. While the EWL has been acknowledged as a creation of dedicated femocrats, others have raised concerns about it representing mainly interests of white, middle-aged, professional women, pointing to a lack of intersectionality (Bygnes, 2013;Jacquot and Vitale, 2014), and about its gatekeeper role in policymaking (Ahrens, 2018;Schrama, 2019). This role stands out compared to the more limited roles of, for instance, the European Network of Migrant Women and the European Forum of Muslim Women, both of which directly address gender and ethnicity-related intersectional issues.…”

“…The EWL is a potential bottleneck between domestic and supranational levels: whether domestic women's organisations adapt or influence EWL positions often depends on matching frames, individual leadership connections and simply geographic proximity (Ahrens and Meier, 2019;Lafon, 2018). Furthermore, Schrama (2019) illustrates severe imbalances between Western and Eastern EWL members, with the former rich in human, financial and social capital, while the latter aim to compensate for their lack of resources by linking up directly with the Commission. Recently, as an effect of Brexit, British women's organisations would have been excluded from the EWL; this was prevented by changing the internal rules and emphasising supranational 'sticky networks' (Minto, 2020).…”

Impact of specific macroeconomic indicators on the formation of revenues of non-governmental organizations from personal contributions of the Ukrainian population

“…For example, a group of scientists from Malaysia mentioned that Non-profit organizations (NPOs) significantly influence society as they support socio-economic growth (Roshayani, Mohd Hisham, Nur Ezan, Ruhaini, Ramesh, 2018). Reini Schrama (Schrama, 2019) explores the possibility to control and monitor implementation of EU policies by civil society organizations, taking into account social, human and financial capital. Christopher L. Pallas (Pallas, 2019), attempted to model the decision of an NGO (not) to join an existing advocacy campaign using a cost-benefit analysis of the expenditures and benefits, caused by the presence or absence of competition for the benefits, which NGOs seek.…”