Governance within European Space Policy

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to analyze ESP in the context of different modes of governance. Assuming that ESP is a unique and multidimensional product of dynamic political, technological, and social processes and ideas coordinated by the EU, its member states as well as non-member ones and implemented in an international environment, there are some research questions to be answered. First, is there any particular mode of governance that should be applied to the analysis of ESP implementation? Second, in what way the EU introduced space policy and space assets to the European agenda? Third, how ESP can be framed within the overall process of European integration? A qualitative research approach has been applied as well as theoretic apparatus embedded in European integration studies and political science. The main finding of the article is that the most promising way of governance within ESP is experimentalist governance. The originality of the article results from the application of the newly established experimentalist governance theory to an analysis of the increasingly important segment of EU activity.