EU Civil Society and Social Mobilization

This section looks at recent developments in the political process within the European Union from a bottom up perspective, focusing on contestation and mobilization from below around Europe and the EU of civil society actors, exploring their issue agendas, targets, repertoires, networks, and organizational forms. Both advocacy-oriented and service delivery-oriented forms of action are relevant to the section theme. The section may accommodate up to seven panels. We encourage both individual paper submissions and proposals for already formed panels including at least 3-4 papers. The list of themes proposed below includes at least one panel with a methodological rather than a thematic focus. It is purely indicative, as we are open to consider any proposal addressing the role of civil society in shaping the institutional transformation of the EU, whether in the direction of its consolidation or of a challenge to its current premises, or even of its demise as an hegemonic project. Possible panels: 1. Civic organizations’ responses to EU policies (e.g. on controversial issues such as high speed railways, agricultural and food policies, climate change, trade liberalization, VAT differential across the EU, etc) 2. Protest movements challenging EU’s handling of the crisis and austerity policies 3. The making of a new cleavage? Anti-EU stances and the potential for realignment of left and right ‘populist’ movements (but also, fundamentalism in Europe) 4. Civil society’s role in conflicts in migration (e.g. refugees) and citizenship policies across the EU 5. The role of civil society and lobbying organizations in the EU policy making 6. Institutionalization of movements: new political class and political elites in Europe and the EU 7. Networks of civil society mobilization in Europe: the contribution of social network analysis to the study of EU