Civil Society and Narratives of Contestation of EU Legitimacy

Civil society is among the main claim makers and promoters of demands towards EU institutions and contributes to create and circulate narratives of contestation of and engagement with the EU. However most of these are not addressed to European institutions, as these groups have a choice to mobilise directly in Brussels, towards national or subnational institutions or both. Their choice thus does not only consider the political opportunity structures, resources and institutions at EU level but compare them to those existing in national venues. Is the expression of contentious claims hindered by opportunity structures relating to the design of EU mechanisms for engagement with civil society or to the type of national debates on the European Union? This Section addresses the following interconnected questions. 1. Civil Society and Narratives of EU Contestation and Engagement Chair: Rosa Sánchez-Salgado is Assistant Professor of European Public Policy at Amsterdam University. She focuses on EU institutions' efforts to shape civil society organizations, and on the role of transnational networks in European governance. How does civil society contribute to elaborate narratives of contestation and engagement with EU institutions and policy making? The panel will also explore how these narratives are turned into claims and demands towards policy-makers by combining qualitative and quantitative analyses to identify whether and how narratives are turned into concrete claims, to whom they are addressed and whether they are expressed by civil society organisations. 2. Civil Society and Narratives of Contestation beyond Brussels in Multi-level Networks Chair: Hakan Johansson, Professor at Lund University. He runs a research project on the Swedish welfare state, citizenship and social rights and the status of NGOs in a changing welfare state. The lion’s share of research on the role of European civil society in the EU has focused on participation and actions in Brussels but literature on narratives of contestation beyond Brussels is less frequent. This Panels seeks to investigate involvement of different types of CSOs in both EU participation opportunities and bottom-up contestation processes. The Panel considers the role of the EU requirements in promoting civil society participation EU-related policy-making at national, regional and local levels; the use of EU opportunities and participatory channels, advocacy or lobbying activities around EU policies at the national, regional and local levels; and domestic protests and contention over the EU policies across levels of governance. 3. The Circulation of Narratives of Contestation in National Campaigns in Central and Eastern Europe Chair: Justin Greenwood Professor of European Public Policy at the Robert Gordon University and visiting Professor at the College of Europe. He has led twelve book projects on EU interest representation. The Panel seeks to examine the features of national ECI campaigns in which pro-rata country quotas were achieved. Many of these ‘success stories’ involved Central and East European countries (CEECs), and initiatives in which the threshold of signatures obtained was driven by a strong degree of contention with the policy drift of the European Commission. Analysis of national campaigns carry potential to learn about the role of organisations and mechanisms ‘bridging’ territorial levels of contention and the circulation of narratives, particularly in countries with shorter traditions of civil rights in which trade unions have dominated the landscape of civil society organisations. 4. Grassroots and National Civil Society Organisations in the EU Chair: Luis Bouza coordinates European General Studies at the College of Europe. He is the author of Participatory Democracy and Civil Society in the EU (Palgrave). Whereas the EU has attempted to develop avenues of engagement with civil society that are more prone for “Brussels outsiders” at least in theory - such as the ECI or increased usage of online open consultations - most figures indicate that these tools have attracted mainly organisations from countries where civil society is considered strong organisations coming from countries where contentious claims have been strong in recent years are under-represented in these fora. This Panel will analyse the degree of involvement of national organisations in opportunities to express demands towards the EU and whether biases relate to the tools of engagement or to the narratives of contention themselves. 5. NGOisation of Social Movements Chair: Carlo Ruzza European ssocial movements undergo a tension between retaining distinctive ‘out of the system’ political identities and contentious repertoires and developing ideologies and action repertoires compatible with their institutionalised political environment. At the EU level, umbrella groups of NGOs have often strong roots in the social movement sector. Yet they mainly manifest the distinctive traits of advocacy groups and more broadly NGOs. This Panel will explore the conflict-cooperation conundrum that these organisations face, and the factors that promote one approach or the other. It will examine how the 2008 crisis and its aftermath have impacted their strategies and repertoires. 6. Human Rights and Judicial Activism in the EU Chair: Carlo Ruzza This Panel will focus on strategies of judicial activism of social movements at the EU level. In particular, it will examine how the concept of human rights has been reinterpreted and negotiated in a set of legal and political arenas in order to constitute a political resource for civil society groups. It will examine how EU-level civil society organizations have utilized the Courts, their strategies and outcomes. In particular, the Panel will focus on anti-discrimination groups and their roles in matters of race, sexuality and disability. 7. Narratives of Contention and International Crises: Civil Society and the Refugee Crisis. Chair: Tatjana Sekulic is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Milan-Bicocca, where she teaches Political Sociology of Europe and Sociology of Education. More than ever before, the ‘migrant question’ has become an ‘internal affair’ of the European Union. The EU has been criticised by civil society organisations for being unable to welcome a limited number of refugees, but at the same time contentious social movements rejecting the EU role have emerged. The Panel will investigate trans-national and cross-national forms of solidarity that have been emerging in support of refugees and forms of collaboration resulting in cross-borders initiatives opposing xenophobic movements against asylum seekers throughout Europe.