Routledge Governance and European Civil Society: Governmentality, Discourse and NGOs (Routledge Advances in European Politics)

Product Description This book provides a critical analysis of the European Union’s approach to ‘governance’, focusing on the way in which civil society is incorporated within the EU decision-making process and arguing that it is not conducive to the democratisation of EU governance. Using a governmentality approach, Kutay demonstrates that civic actors are not incorporated into EU decision-making processes as they are; rather, they are formed, manipulated and guided by political programming. The author explains how this acts to prescribe and construct particular types of subjectivities, thereby limiting and constraining the types of participation that might emerge as part of European civil society and the process of political participation. Governance and European Civil Society will be of interest to students and scholars of European Union politics, global governance, civil society and democracy, Central and East European studies and political and international theory. Review "The book's strength lies in challenging the dominant optimistic narrative concerning civil society's involvement in governance through an in-depth case study of this key association, but the analysis is also limited to this case and subject to the author's interpretation. Summing Up: Optional. Graduate, research, and professional collections." --A. A. Caviedes, State University of New York at Fredonia, CHOICE February 2015  About the Author Acar Kutay is an Affiliated Researcher Fellow at the Christian Michelsen Institute in Bergen, Norway.