Abstract
Online consultations and the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) are tools that have been put into place by the European Union (EU) in order to increase the participation of citizens and Civil Society Organizations (CSO) in its politics and policy making. The current CSO representation at the system level of the EU is claimed to be biased in favor of the interests of economic producers and CSOs coming from old member states. The central question of this article is whether these tools help make participation more representative of the diversity of societal groups within the EU. The concept of ‘actor representativeness’ as well as ‘discourse representativeness’ will be applied in order to answer this question.
Highlights
This article is concerned with Civil Society Organizations (CSO) and the role accorded to these organizations in contributing to citizens’ representation within the European Union (EU).1 At the turn of the century, much attention has been given to CSOs in the context of the EU’s democratic deficit
The application of actor representativeness makes sense in the latter case of ‘overrepresentation’ of CSOs coming from old member states, as here we can decide whether their part is proportional to the part of old member states in the EU
With regard to online consultations, the former concept has been applied in research concluding the continued existence of a twofold bias, favoring CSOs coming from old member states and defending economic production interests, respectively
Summary
This article is concerned with Civil Society Organizations (CSO) and the role accorded to these organizations in contributing to citizens’ representation within the European Union (EU). At the turn of the century, much attention has been given to CSOs in the context of the EU’s democratic deficit. The article describes mechanisms meant to involve citizens in transnational exchanges regarding the EU’s course, especially by stimulating horizontal exchange between citizens and organizations; in other words the EU wants to create a European public and political sphere. The central question of this article is whether online consultations and the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) have been helpful in making CSO participation more balanced and representative.. In the conclusion (section 7) the central question of this article will be answered
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