Europeanisation of interest intermediation in the Central and Eastern European member states: contours of a mixed model

Abstract

The article analyses the effects of the EU on practices of interest intermediation in four Central and Eastern European (CEE) member states. It zooms in on the practical implementation of the EU partnership principle for the European Structural and Investment Funds as a requirement that prescribes a certain mode of interest intermediation. The article captures the state and evolution of practices of partnership and argues that a specific variety of partnership between the state and societal actors has emerged in the countries under scrutiny. Actors on the ground have actively engaged with the EU model of partnership, reinterpreted and adjusted it to the local conditions, thus producing a mixed model. The model is characterised by less institutionalised and formalised interactions between state and societal actors and actors' normative orientation to transparency as the main benefit and purpose of partnership. ARTICLE HISTORY

Partnership with Civil Society and the Legitimacy of EU Policymaking: Exploring Actors’ Normative Arguments in Four Member States

“…Many scholars convincingly demonstrate that engagement with civil society and, generally, non-state actors significantly enhances the quality of policymaking, the inclusion of a variety of citizens' views, the deliberative character of decisionmaking, the accountability of EU institutions, oversight and the quality of implementation of the EU policies. The same can be found in the studies of partnership in cohesion policy (Demidov 2017).…”

Have They Already Emerged? Mapping the Population of National Interest Organisations in Post-Communist Poland

“…In addition, the way interest organisations are categorised leaves the position of business associations unclear. While business associations are included with trade unions in the category of 'business organisations', it is highly unlikely that their number would remain stagnant on the eve of Poland becoming an EU member state and in the years after, especially given large-scale economic reforms and the increase in the number of interest organisations in other CEE countries (Fink-Hafner 1998;Demidov 2017). Yet, we lack better sources of information on interest groups in Poland and thus a comprehensive analysis is even more urgent.…”

“…As shown above, the process of democratic transition does not fully explain the density of the population of interest organisations at the national level. Demidov (2017) suggests that an explanation can be found in the country's administrative organisation. Following the democratic transition, under a series of acts passed by the Polish parliament in 1998, the country's administrative decision-making apparatus was decentralised, overturning the communist-era legacy.…”

“…The council is empowered to adopt resolutions on matters of property rights, but also, in the spirit of subsidiarity, supports self-government and the right to establish various form of associations. Regionalisation means that the gmina councils have quite wide powers to implement economic and development policies (Demidov 2017). Given the independence and power of local councils, most lobbying in Poland takes place at the gmina level, with little need for national-level representation (Demidov 2017).…”

Europeanization from the periphery: the case of ‘second-class’ food in Central and Eastern Europe

“…In the same vein, scholars have also sought to measure the extent of Europeanization in specific state dimensions. For instance, attention has gone to the way central administrations have evolved (Bachtler et al, 2014), the degree to which administrative and territorial reorganizations have resulted from participation in the EU (Glenn, 2004), convergence in the attitudes and orientations of civil servants , and state-society relations (Demidov, 2017). In addition, analyses have concerned actors outside of the state.…”