WP26 Responsible

CR9 - The Bulgarian European Community Studies Association (Sofia)

WP26 Responsible for the Spread of Excellence

CR9 - The Bulgarian European Community Studies Association (Sofia)

WP26 Objectives

The objectives of this Work Package are:

• to outline the role of organised civil society in the build-up of multi-level governance structures and processes in new and future EU member states;
• to place this relationship in the context of the accession process to the EU, and to establish the relevant causal links between Europeanisation and the role of civil society;
• to address aspects of the performance of civil society in a multi-level governance environment;
• to examine the channels of participation of civil society organisations in policy making at national and local level of government.

WP26 Description of work

Thematic scope: Our general focus would be the role of civil society in a multi-level governance environment in the new and future EU member states (here we include the 10 new EU members, which acceded in 2004, plus Bulgaria and Romania about to join in 2007). This focus is justified by certain specific features.
Novelty: While studying civil society and multi-level governance in this geographic area of the EU, we have to study new actors in a new environment. In terms of actorness, civil society in these countries is an emerging player in the domestic and international social processes, politics and policy making. Multi-level governance, too, is an environment, for which both society and traditional institutionalized actors in government are unaccustomed and to which they have to adapt.
Dynamism: These two parallel processes - the build-up of civil society and the development of multi-level governance arenas - take place at an accelerated pace, if compared to other European countries (and "old" EU member states in particular), which, in turn, influences substantively players and procedures.
Modes of governance: From the perspective of the broader processes of Europeanization, multi-level governance is one of several EU governance models (e.g. the traditional community method, regulatory model, trans-national intergovernmentalism, open method of coordination, etc.).
Agendas: From the perspective of the Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs), post-communist transition and accession to the EU are two distinct - and potentially both converging and diverging - agendas.
Timing: With a general focus on EU accession, it is justified to cover the whole pre-accession period in the target countries (CEECs), while taking into account also empirical evidence from the first post-accession years in the case of the 10 new EU members.
Activities under this WP will unfold in conformity with a much more detailed research design, which will be tailored at the initial stage of work by WP members.

WP26 Participants

• CR9 - The Bulgarian European Community Studies Association (Sofia)

• CR7 - New Europe Centre for Regional Studies (Plovdiv)
• CR24 - University of Trento, Department of Sociology and Social Research (Trento)
• CR13 - University of Economics, Department of Political Science (Prague)
• CR32 - University of Ljublana, Faculty of Social Sciences, Centre for Welfare Studies (Ljubljana)

WP26 Documents

For documents of this work package, please go to CINEFOGO Database and type WP26 in the Search field.