Demobilization or Venue-Shop Till You Drop? The European Citizens’ Initiative and the Action Repertoire of Interest Groups

The record of the European Citizen’s Initiative (ECI) has been mixed at best. So far, no immediate substantial policy change can be attributed to an ECI campaign. At the same time, mobilizing the necessary support of one million signatures for an ECI has proven to be difficult and required the active involvement by intermediary institutions, in particular non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and trade unions. How does a lack of success impact on the strategic calculus of ECI initiators and the interest groups behind them? Does it lead to demobilization, the end of their activism? Or does it incite them to turn to other venues and continue their activism by other means? And what factors can explain variation in the action repertoire of interest groups involved in an ECI? We draw on a comparative case study of four initiatives (“Stop Vivisection”, “Stop Glyphosate”, “Stop TTIP” and “Stop Plastic in the Sea”) to answer these questions. The initiatives differ with regard to the ‘success’ of an ECI, the geographical focus of the campaign, the substantive policy issue(s) and the degree of involvement of established interest groups. Theoretically, we draw on the concept of venue shopping, assuming that strategically motivated political actors, when faced with resistance in certain preferred venues, will try to shift issues salient to them into arenas where policy goals can be realized in a more effective way. Substantively, we seek to contribute both to a more specific assessment of the ECI as a political opportunity structure, and more broadly to a better understanding of political mobilization and the determinants of the action repertoire of interest groups. Methodologically, we rely on interviews with ECI campaigners to assess the chances and risks that interest groups attribute both to the ECI and alternative venues for political advocacy.