The Dynamics of Transnational Mobilisation through the ECI: A Comparative Analysis of the Factors Affecting Campaign Outcomes

The European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) is an EU instrument which allows European citizens to call on the European Commission to propose legislation on an issue, provided that the proposal is supported by at least one million signatures. For the most part, scholarly debate about the ECI revolves around its implications for participation and democracy in the EU, focusing in particular on the actors that could use it to bring a matter for consideration at the European level. For some the ECI is a tool for social movements and grassroots groups and is, therefore, welcomed as an opportunity structure likely to trigger citizen and civil society mobilization and increase issue contestation. The ECI does not have a binding effect and so far no legislation has been proposed by the Commission as a direct consequence of ECI campaigns that were successful in collecting the required signatures. Yet, the support of a critical mass of citizens and the ensuing publicity can, and have been used, to gain political leverage and affect the agenda at the European, national and local levels. Others, however, point at the financial cost of transnational campaigns, contending that the ECI is more likely to serve resource-loaded organized interests. While scholars find proof for these assumptions in single case studies, there is no comparative research on the factors that are conducive to a successful ECI campaign. The proposed paper addresses precisely this gap. It draws on interviews with representatives of all four so far successful ECI campaigns and 15 unsuccessful ones and applies Qualitative Comparative Analysis to identify the constellations of factors that affect campaign outcomes. The analysis advances knowledge on the dynamics of transnational mobilization in the EU in the context of the crisis and contributes to the debate on the potential of the ECI as a democratic instrument.