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Introduction: Networks in European Union Governance

Profile image of Wolfram KaiserWolfram Kaiser

2009, Journal of Public Policy

Abstract

Given its complex multilevel governance structures, the European Union (EU) is an obvious focus for studying policy networks as informal coordination mechanisms between state and non-state or public and private actors. The importance of this research field has increased exponentially with the EU's spatial expansion, its institutional deepening, its forays into new policy areas and its growing role as an international actor. Research on policy networks at first focussed on analysing changes in national political systems and policy-making in particular policy fields. This approach is now being applied more systematically and comprehensively to understanding the transformation of EU governance during the last decade. Concurrently, the widespread belief until well into the s that European integration was a system of policy-making 'sui generis' that could not be fruitfully compared to anything else no longer has much support. The EU is increasingly contrasted and compared vertically, to national political systems and forms of governance in its member-states, especially federal states such as Germany. At the same time, new research is developing that compares the EU and its policy-making to the United States. However, as the articles in this special issue demonstrate, crucial dimensions of the role of policy networks in EU governance are distinctive. Thus, as Tanja Börzel and Karen Heard-Lauréote show, EU actors have become increasingly preoccupied with the EU's alleged 'democratic deficit'. In the wake of the Commission crisis of  and the failed referendums in France and the Netherlands in  and Ireland in , this has induced the Commission to invest great hopes in policy networks as means of enhanced input legitimacy through increased participation of civil society organisations in policy-making. Originally, policy networks were thought to contribute to output legitimacy by improving the quality of policies through expert input and the involvement of economic actors. They had never been expected to enhance the democratic input quality of governance at the national level. Indeed, as Börzel and Heard-Lauréote argue, they might not be able to do so at EU level, or only to a limited extent and possibly, at the expense of efficiency and output legitimacy.

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