TY - CHAP

T1 - Democratic Aspiration Meets Political Reality

T2 - Participation of Organized Civil Society in Selected European Policy Processes

AU - Friedrich, Dawid

PY - 2008

Y1 - 2008

N2 - From the very beginning of European integration, the European Commission has been the one institution eager to consult external interests and experts. Besides its constant need for expertise, the Commission’s chronic understaffing attracted it to the idea of gaining diverse stakeholders as allies for its legislative proposals. This inclusion of interest organizations was meant to serve at least three purposes: first, a functional purpose, to increase the effectiveness of policy-making; and, second, an instrumental purpose, to gain public support — that is, social legitimacy for its own work, as well as for the integration process as such. Third, in the aftermath of the Maastricht Treaty (1993) and its defeat in the first Danish referendum, an additional normative purpose became prominent and important for the whole European Union (EU), not only for the European Commission. Many EU policy-makers felt that the permissive consensus among the European citizenry about the integration process was faltering: a heated political and scientific debate about the EU’s deficit in democratic legitimacy has since been taking place.

AB - From the very beginning of European integration, the European Commission has been the one institution eager to consult external interests and experts. Besides its constant need for expertise, the Commission’s chronic understaffing attracted it to the idea of gaining diverse stakeholders as allies for its legislative proposals. This inclusion of interest organizations was meant to serve at least three purposes: first, a functional purpose, to increase the effectiveness of policy-making; and, second, an instrumental purpose, to gain public support — that is, social legitimacy for its own work, as well as for the integration process as such. Third, in the aftermath of the Maastricht Treaty (1993) and its defeat in the first Danish referendum, an additional normative purpose became prominent and important for the whole European Union (EU), not only for the European Commission. Many EU policy-makers felt that the permissive consensus among the European citizenry about the integration process was faltering: a heated political and scientific debate about the EU’s deficit in democratic legitimacy has since been taking place.

KW - Politics

UR - https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9780230006393

UR - https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230592506_6

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/94aef754-c4af-3b8e-b62c-41dc57be7661/

U2 - 10.1057/9780230592506_7

DO - 10.1057/9780230592506_7

M3 - Contributions to collected editions/anthologies

SN - 978-0-230-00639-3

SN - 978-1-349-28220-3

SP - 140

EP - 165

BT - Civil society participation in European and global governance

A2 - Steffek, Jens

A2 - Kissling, Claudia

A2 - Nanz, Patrizia

PB - Palgrave Macmillan

CY - Basingstoke, Hampshire [u.a.]

ER -