CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2010
| Author | Demidov, Andrey Anatolievich |
|---|---|
| Title | Civil Society Organisations in the UK: Scope and Scale of Europeanisation |
| Summary | The question “how and what impact does the EU have on domestic political actors?” is one of the puzzles being investigated by students of Europeanisation. In this thesis the question has been reformulated with a view to analyse the impact of the EU on civil society organisations. It consisted in analysing the effects of the EU discursive appeals and institutional civil society initiatives on operation and performance of social and environmental voluntary organisations in the UK and tried to answer the question whether and why they resulted in reorientation of civil society agendas and activities to the EU as well as what routes of Europeanisation and motivations behind it are present in case of the UK organisations. It draws on the concept of Europeanisation as adaptation to challenges and pressures arising from the EU as a “rules setter” and further develops it with regards to civil society organisations by tracing Europeanisation as responses to the civil society initiatives emanating from the EU. To explain the motivations behind Europeanisation two main approaches used by scholars of Europeanisation have been applied: rational choice approach and constructivist one. The key findings suggest that the EU turned out to be the venue of a limited use for civil society organisations due to underdeveloped opportunities allowing involvement into the EU policy making process, narrow EU discourse on civil society focusing on EU-wide umbrella associations only and simultaneous changes in the UK government civil society policy at the national level. Differences between social and environmental organisations in use of emerging EU opportunities have also been discovered. They can be explained by misfits between the UK and EU social and environmental policies. Moreover, the thesis that the EU becomes a meaningful object for identification for interest groups, which Europeanise their activities, has not been fully corroborated: UK civil society organisations, though “going to Europe”, express little support of the ideas of “European civil society” and do not adhere to the idea of civil society contributing to reduction of the democratic deficit in the EU, discourses actively promoted by the EU. |
| Supervisor | Enyedi, Zsolt |
| Department | Political Science MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2010/demidov_andrey-anatolievich.pdf |
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