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Structural limitations in models of representative democracy have enhanced the space for other mechanisms of legitimacy in the European Union, including participatory models in which organized civil society interests are significant players. To some observers, such actors are likely only to aggravate already problematic input legitimacy. A range of less hostile approaches also prevail, from a neutral standpoint through to those sharing the perspective of EU policy practice where such actors are seen as a complementary mechanism of democratic input. Whilst concerns about the impact of asymmetries of power between different types of organized civil society interests arise as potential issues in any democratic setting, a particularly vigorous neo-pluralist regime, in which EU institutions actively create and develop as well as empower citizen interest groups, effectively mitigates these asymmetries in an EU context, although it can give rise to paradoxical tensions of elitism.

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There has been little research on the social and cultural aspects of tourism entrepreneurship. In this paper the social routes to tourism entrepreneurship are investigated, with emphasis on two major channels—those of the ex-employer and the ex-employee. Data are reported from a case study of Cornwall where 411 firms were interviewed as part of a stratified sample, representing different local economic environments and different sectors of tourism. An analysis of previous occupational experience and of access to capital only provides a partial explanation of entrepreneurship in Cornish tourism. Further analysis of business motivations and of migration patterns reveals an important dimension of noneconomic decisionmaking. This raises questions as to whether tourism entrepreneurship can be seen as a form of consumption rather than production and to its relationship with the entrepreneurial middle class as a whole.

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