A Tool for European Citizens: Who Organises European Citizens Initiatives?

The European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) was launched in April 2012 as the world’s first transnational citizens’ legislative agenda initiative. It is usually promoted as a tool that has the potential to enhance the democratic quality of EU decision making by offering new opportunities for citizen participation. In order to live up to such high expectations, the ECI will however not only have to be used frequently enough to be visible, but it also has to become a tool that is actually used by “average” EU citizens instead of becoming an additional channel of influence available to already well-established and transnationally networked institutional and/or civil society actors. This paper analyzes who the organizers of the initiatives are that were registered in the first year of the ECI’s existence (April 2012 to April 2013). Drawing on survey and interview data, the paper analyzes the different initiatives from a perspective focusing on the relevance of networks in the launching of the respective initiatives: is the ECI a tool that is (so far) used predominantly by “average” citizens? If so, to what extent do the organizers create new networks in support of their respective initiatives and/or draw on already existing networks in civil society? Finally, the paper also explores the role that institutional actors such as political parties or individual members of parliament play in the different initiatives, both at the European and at the domestic level.