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Governance and Civil Society in the European Union; vol. 1: Normative Perspectives Governance and Civil Society in the European Union; vol. 2: Exploring Policy Issues
C. Ruzza and V. Della Sala (eds), Manchester University Press, Manchester and New York, 2007, 176 pp, ISBN 9780719075063, 55.00.C. Ruzza and V. Della Sala (eds), Manchester University Press, Manchester and New York, 2007, 192 pp, ISBN 9780719074950, 55.00.

This comprehensive and scholarly exploration of the major indicators of an emergent European civil society and the concomitant issues of governance in Europe is a timely contribution to the debate on the European Reform Treaty (ERT). In the wake of the failed EU Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe (TCE), the Italian Editors, whose University of Trento has distinguished itself internationally in research on civil society, have managed to bring together key contributors from Germany, Greece, Italy, Norway and the UK the lack of French and particularly of Eastern European perspectives is regrettable many of whom have pioneered the discourse on civil society in Europe. They analyse here the implications of profound changes in governance in the case of Europe as paradigmatic for global transformations. After enlargement and under the impact of globalization questions which accompanied the birth of the European nation states need to be addressed all over again and Europe is, once more, the live laboratory for a range of tentative answers and models of governance, full of promises and pitfalls. Is Europeanization a chance to overcome the decits of the nation state model or a threat to its achievements in terms of civil and social rights? Will the EU, as a political entity without a people, be able to create a polity that builds on rather than threatens the national polity? The rst of these two volumes deals with the broader theoretical issues within the triangle of democratic legitimation, new forms of governance and the creation of a European civil society, aspects which constitute each other and, on this the authors agree, together must form not just a functional, but also a normative framework. This normative framework, however, fails to tangibly materialize in these contributions. The EU has pioneered a model of deliberative democracy where arguments rather than procedures are meant to count. In the opening chapter of the rst volume, Albert Weale offers a basic theory of democratic values from which European democratic achievements can be evaluated. While the

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form of democracy practised by the European Parliament appears to be lacking some of the essential elements of national democracy, the governance it practices nevertheless unfreezes the interests vested in party politics to give rise to broader forms of engagement with cross-sectional and cross-national issues like the environment. But as lobbying therefore assumes greater importance at European level, the values of political equality, common interest and transparency are to be upheld all the more vigorously to counter the apparent democratic decit of the EU. Myrto Tsakatika examines the open method of coordination that was promoted at Lisbon as a key mode of EU governance. Here, the unfreezing particularly of national interests appears an attractive objective linked to efciency and consensus, but at the price of an expertocracy, which deprives citizens of their equal rights to democratic participation. This is likely to worsen the democratic decit and Tsakatika suggests instead an injection of constitutionalization and agonistic politicization into EU forms of government, being convinced that civil society is an insufcient substitute for political participation (vol. 1, p. 53). Alex Warleigh-Lack is equally sceptical of the TCEs nods in the direction of direct democracy (which are carried over into the ERT). He advocates instead critical deliberativism geared at creating a European civil society in the rst place which, owing mainly to the widespread failure to recognize the importance of language differences, is a highly complex undertaking. The TCEs proposals for Citizens Initiatives where at least 1 million EU citizens can bring a legal change on the Union agenda seem largely tokenistic without their being anchored in other measures of citizen participation. Building on this approach, Stijn Smismans species reexive deliberative polyarchy (RDP) as a way to bring civil society processes and governance mechanisms directly together at European level. At a rather high level of abstraction, this theory seeks to combine elements of deliberative democracy in the Habermasian tradition with those of self-regulatory processes proposed by reexive law theory. The old sociological quest for combining action (deliberation by concrete persons) and structure (by looking at regularities in systems) recurs here as a weak hope of making the promise of democracy real in the face of enormous practical difculties in constituting collective European actors while acknowledging a runaway regulatory process. At national level all appears still much more concrete, though equally ambiguous, as Hans-Jorg Trenz illustrates with research ndings on the Europeanization of German civil society, i.e. its greater engagement with European issues and institutions. While bigger, well-organized civil society actors seem to benet from tapping into European structures and resources, smaller ones become increasingly excluded or their inclusion

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has merely a symbolic character, thus refuting the claim that the European multi-level system of governance stimulates automatically the growth of European multi-level civil societies. The only notable exception seems to be that of the antiracism sector, where EU policy requirements had a certain empowering effect on the status of minorities in national contexts. Similarly, research on the relationship between the Commission and organizations of civil society in Europe, analysed by Dawid Friedrich and Patrizia Nanz in relation to migration policies, demonstrates the absence of tangible improvements, let alone the establishment of a right to be heard as envisaged in the TCE. Relatively easy access to documentation appears to be the main indicator of a democratic opening in the direction of greater participation, on all other indicators inclusion remains largely symbolic. At the conclusion of the rst volume, the verdict is open as to whether European modes of governance actually promote the development of what could be called a European civil society or whether civil society processes are more than ever dependent on national political points of reference. Nevertheless, these civil society processes at national and regional level cannot be but affected by European level policy changes and the accompanying new forms of governance. These are the focus of the second volume in this series. Klaus Eders opening chapter rightly posits the emergence of a transnational community if Europe is to realize its chance of transforming rather than enforcing the nation-state concept with all its historical limitations. For him, and in the Habermasian tradition, everything hinges on the creation of a public sphere where civil society gains a real voice and on that basis can act effectively. The difculties are considerable if this is to happen from below as past experiences of community building tend to rely on the identication with a shared culture, which Europe evidently lacks. Multi-layered public spheres are the inevitable results, occupied more with protest than with positive legitimation, although Eder is hopeful that constructive bonds will emerge. Input legitimacy as an increasingly important aspect of EU governance is the issue Justin Greenwood examines. His ndings from examining recent EU papers and initiatives conrm other impressions that only elite groups benet from participation and consultation provisions. This calls for a closer examination of the EUs own concept of civil society which Carlo Ruzza himself provides by means of a frame analysis of pronouncements on environmental, antiracist and regional policies from both sides, i.e. EU and civil society organizations. There is a convergence on understanding civil society as a means of disseminating EU policies. But where involvement is offered, it is at the level of deliberation, not decisionmaking which once more conrms the policy of predominantly tokenistic legitimation rather than any serious, radical attempt at building an independent, vociferous and critical European demos. The picture is particu-

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larly complex with regard to environmental issues, which Anthony Zitos analysis portrays as a mixture of opportunities and barriers. Environmental NGOs are actively involved in policy issues but ultimately possess very limited organizational resources to make a real impact. Participation in the form of written submissions by civil society organizations on the proposed change of the EUs European Monitoring Centre on Racism into the Fundamental Human Rights Agency in 2005 represented a clear attempt at involving NGOs in a vital and controversial instance of governance. But as Emanuela Bozzinis research on these submissions reveals, they were used mainly for the purposes of the legitimation of already narrowly dened options rather than as sources of innovative ideas that could widen the scope of the transformed agency another missed opportunity. The nal contribution in this volume by Fortunata Piselli makes an important link between civil society and issues of social capital. Territorial pacts and urban strategic plans are case examples of decentralized policies, which assume increasing signicance in view of the weakening governmental capacities of the nation state. Here, civil society assumes an ever more important role in the creation of social capital and hence in the establishment of new forms of governance. An orientation towards social capital can hypothetically commit private and public actors to seek a common good in concrete local contexts. Although the results of various studies on such initiatives in Europe examined in this chapter are uneven, there is an encouraging trend of trust-building and particularly in the Italian South of a commitment to legality, thereby countervailing the aspects of negative social capital always lurking there on account of entrenched Maa activities. Overall, these two volumes show the pervasive uncertainty, which changes in governance have triggered all over Europe. They bring civil society more prominently into play, but the changes themselves by no means guarantee a more active, nor indeed a more equal involvement of civil society bodies in decision-making processes. The rhetoric plays down the many barriers that remain to the full and equal development of this much-heralded source of social capital, barriers such as the unequal distribution of resources, the absence of effective rights and above all the insufcient recognition that language differences have received in Europe. These barriers feature in the various analyses presented here but could have been addressed from a clearer normative perspective. Community workers will benet greatly from the insights provided here, but may miss an echo of the grittiness of the lifeworld issues with which they struggle in the neatness of academic considerations. Europeanizing civil society remains a contentious issue and the EU member states seem to do their utmost to avoid the controversies that the European Reform Treaty is

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bound to trigger rather than taking them as an opportunity of building more trust by giving civil society a voice.

Walter Lorenz Free University of Bozen/Bolzano; e-mail: wlorenz@unibz.it

doi:10.1093/cdj/bsn031 Advance Access publication 23 August 2008

Youth Work: Voices of Practice A Research Report by Durham University and Weston Spirit
Jean Spence and Carol Devanney, Durham University with Kylie Noonan as research project manager from Weston Spirit, The National Youth Agency, Leicester, March 2006, 159 pp, ISBN 978 0 86155 338 9, 8.50.

This text will appeal to youth work students, to readers of the Community Development Journal with a particular interest in youth work and to those who are simply curious about what doing youth work in the UK means. The report does not aim to engage in theoretical debate but is a nal report from a two-year research project funded by the Big Lottery Fund that argues for the importance of articulating what is distinctive about youth work while providing practice examples of youth work processes. As such it adds to our understanding of youth work practice at a time when the government is rolling out its new 10-year strategy for youth provision. Increasingly, a wide range of professions is being urged to work in partnerships to engage young people in shaping and delivering services. At the same time, working with young people has come to centre on targeted work with young NEETS (young people Not in Employment, Education or Training). The objective of the governments dual strategy is to turn disengaged young people into respectable, active citizens. The mainstreaming of targeted work with young people, the community cohesion agenda and the unrelenting drive towards bureaucratic forms of accountability have together threatened social democratic and radical traditions of British youth work that are consistent with principles of community development. Although there is not an attempt to specically address what a community development approach to youth work might look like, the authors do shed light on a series of tensions and contradictions that are familiar to the community development practitioner: how youth workers negotiate the