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Rediscovering Civil Society Participation in EU Law (LAW-DS-REDCIVSOC)

LAW-DS-REDCIVSOC

Description

Abstract:
The Treaty of the European Union explicitly counts on civil society participation to complement representative democracy and make the EU’s policy and decision-making processes take place openly, regularly, transparently, and as closely as possible to EU citizens (arts. 10 and 11 TEU). This normative claim has been taken up by EU institutions and secondary law in several different fields, from environmental to equality law, from digital to migration governance. In all these fields, civil society organisations are, in different ways, integrated into the elaboration and implementation of EU policies. Since the late 90s, this recourse to civil society participation in the EU has been the focus of many scholars, with several works trying to capture its broader normative meaning for the EU legal order, while others seek to empirically analyse and assess its practice. From these two broader lines of scholarly work emerge common questions. What are the main spaces, strategies and obstacles of civil society participation in the EU? And what is its purpose: to facilitate institutional decision-making and the production of regulatory output, or to ensure a democratisation of the way in which the Union operates? Does civil society participation succeed in including more actors in EU policymaking processes, or does it reproduce pre-existing institutional exclusionary patterns? And what do we mean when we talk about civil society: interest groups and organised NGOs, or also activists, academic researchers and even ordinary citizens? Is the EU truly committed to promoting a genuine civil dialogue in policymaking and implementation, or is participation just another way to represent organised interests? Crucially, these same questions are still being asked today, in a time where EU law increasingly relies on civil society participation as part of its enforcement approach, as can be seen, for example, in the EU’s regulation of digital platforms and AI.
Against this background, this seminar aims to take stock of prior scholarly work about the practices and meaning of participation in the EU, ask the same abovementioned questions that scholars have long had about this phenomenon, and reflect on them in light of today’s practices of participation in the EU. The first session provides a lens through which one can conceptualise participation in EU law: we will look at late 90s and early 2000s literature on the meaning of civil society participation and reflect on it in light of contemporary critiques of deliberative democracy as the basis for participation. In the second and third sessions, we will apply that theoretical lens to concrete participation practices in different fields of EU law. In the second session, expert guests will discuss with researchers how participation unfolds in EU digital governance (including in migration law), environmental governance, and equality law, three illustrative examples of fields where tension and critique arise about the practice and meaning of participation. In the last session, participants will be asked to reflect, critique and discuss about the meaning of civil society participation in their own projects.
Participation in this seminar is open to anyone analysing or considering participation in mobilisation in their research, in whatever field that may be. Even though in the second session, digital, environmental and equality law will be viewed more in-depth, researchers studying participation in other fields are welcome to join and will present on their project in the final session of the seminar.

Structure
Session 1 – Conceptualising civil society participation in the EU: opening deliberative spaces?
Date: 27^th January 20206, 14:00-17:00, Sala degli Stemmi, Villa Salviati
Description: In this session, we will discuss how to conceptually capture the multifaceted strategies of recourse to civil society in the EU. We propose to consider Deirdre Curtin’s prior work on civil society participation as a starting point for our reflection. Her earlier work draws heavily on deliberative democracy theories of participation. We will discuss to what extent those insights are still relevant today, and how they dialogue with more contemporary critiques of deliberative democracy. In particular, we will look at agonistic conceptions of democracy and reflect on how their emphasis on political and epistemic struggle and contestation could help conceive of civil society participation in a different way. In particular, does it broaden our understanding of what the strategies of participation are in EU law; as well as what participation should normatively achieve? Can political and legal mobilisation be viewed through a participatory lens?
Core Readings:

• Deirdre Curtin, ‘Transparency and Political Participation in EU Governance: A Role for Civil Society?’ (1999) 3 Cultural Values 445.
• Kenneth A Armstrong, ‘Rediscovering Civil Society: The European Union and the White Paper on Governance’ (2002) 8 European Law Journal 102.
• Daniel E Walters, ‘The Administrative Agon: A Democratic Theory for a Conflictual Regulatory State’ (2022) 132 Yale Law Journal 1, pp. 34-84.

Recommended:

• Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox (Verso 2000).
• Deirdre Curtin, ‘Private Interest Representation or Civil Society Deliberation: A Contemporary Dilemma for European Union Governance’ (2003) 12 Social & Legal Studies 55.
• Joana Mendes, 'Participation and the role of law after Lisbon: A legal view on Article 11 TEU', (2011), 48, Common Market Law Review, Issue 6, pp. 1849-1877.

Session 2 – Rediscovering the practice of civil society participation, part. 1: EU digital law, environmental governance, and equality law
Date: 24^th February 2026, 14:00-17:00, Sala degli Stemmi, Villa Salviati
Description: In this session, expert guests on environmental law, digital governance and equality law will be invited to give a more concrete account on how participation unfolds in their respective fields. After initial interventions from the guest speakers, all participants will engage in open discussion aimed at comparing the practices of participation in the different fields, identifying common trends, and reflecting on how matters such as transparency, technical expertise, access to the regulator, and resources can and do affect the promise of civil society participation.
Readings:

• Carolyn Abbot and Maria Lee, ‘NGOs Shaping Public Participation Through Law: The Aarhus Convention and Legal Mobilisation’ (2024) 36 Journal of Environmental Law 85.
• Margot E Kaminski and Gianclaudio Malgieri, ‘Impacted Stakeholder Participation in AI and Data Governance’ (2024) https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=4836460.
• https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4198204

Session 3 – Rediscovering the practice of civil society participation, pt. 2: a reflection on participants’ projects
Date: 26^th March 2026, 14:00-17:00, Sala degli Stemmi, Villa Salviati
Description: Participants will be asked to give short 5-minute presentations, reflecting on the presence and meaning of participation in the fields they study in their doctoral projects. We will then revisit together the earlier readings and discussions and reflect on cross-cutting themes and the relationship with EU law and evolving forms of European governance in various policy fields.


First, Second & Third Term: registration from 22 to 26 September 2025.

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