Civil society organizations (CSOs) are perceived by many as contributing to democracy in diverse ways. In the EU context, the European Commission has made extensive use of the idea of CSOs as a transmission belt, as a remit against the alleged democratic deficit. From a flourishing literature, we are now well informed about the Commission’s consultation regime, we know that the latter privileges certain interests over others, and we also know that there is a significant amount of patronage by the European Commission, which comes in the form of massive funding. However, we have rather little detailed knowledge about how the EU institutional environment influences the support base (active members vs. chequebook supporters), priorities (e.g. servicing vs. advocacy), positions (reformist vs. activist), and strategies (insider vs. outsider) of CSOs and what this in consequence means in terms of their alleged democracy-enhancing potential. Against much of the recent literature which conceptualizes the involvement of CSOs in EU policy-making in terms of participative or deliberative governance, this paper embeds CSOs in a framework of democratic representation. It develops two ideal types of democratic representation by CSOs in the multi-level structure of the EU, one being linked to members, the other one to causes and discusses in how far these two types of representation by CSOs may be affected in regard to the above mentioned issues (support base, priorities, positions, strategies). The paper concludes by discussing normative implications of the EU’s drive towards effective governance.
