Dr. Luis BOUZA GARCIA, Academic Coordinator of European General Studies courses at the College of Europe, has just published Participatory Democracy and Civil Society in the EU: Agenda-Setting and Institutionalisation in the Palgrave Macmillan European Political Sociology series.
Participatory Democracy and Civil Society in the EU analyzes the institutionalization of EU-level participatory mechanisms by asking what EU institutions and civil society organizations were trying to achieve in the agenda setting process. This book explores the institutionalization and the democratic potential of these mechanisms by analyzing the discourses and activism of the actors involved in the agenda setting, recognition, and implementation of the participatory mechanisms at EU level from 1997 to 2012. BOUZA GARCÍA finds that the aims of civil society organizations – namely recognized access to the EU – were more stable than those of the EU institutions which have evolved from fostering organized civil society participation to enhance transparency and debates in the European public sphere. Participatory Democracy and Civil Society in the EU concludes that the field of civil society participation is not yet fully stabilized and its evolution will continue.