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Europeanization, Public Sphere, and Active Citizenship

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Active Citizenship in Europe

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology ((PSEPS))

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Abstract

Two central concepts, Europeanization and multilevel governance, are central in order to address the methodological framework of the book. Europeanization is employed in order to study the process of change happening as part of the European integration process. The book acknowledges that Europeanization has two basic distinct dimensions, top-down and bottom-up, to be taken into account. In both cases, Europeanization is to be conceived as a process (Radaelli 2003; Exadaktylos and Radaelli 2009, 2012) and not an outcome. A process that, because of its nature, has a varied impact and it is to be framed in respect to the complex nature of the EU governance system. Because of this, it implies on the one side compliance – whenever there is mutual agreement between policy actors – and on the other side conflict – whenever instead there is dissent or in some cases rejection of European values, norms, procedures and, important for this book, systems of meaning promoted by the EU on specific political concepts, such as the one of active citizenship and its associated components. The framework of the book combines Europeanization with an account of the concept of multilevel governance by putting into particular emphasis the emergence of a networked territorial space made up of political and social struggles where different articulations of discourse are taking place. The discursive turn in public policy analysis is delineated by scholars such as Fischer (2003), that put emphasis on the importance of language in policy-making by focusing on values, discourses, and meanings that are emerging in deliberative processes (see, e.g., Dryzek 2000). This is the core methodological framework adopted in order to study the emergence of discourses and counterdiscourses developed through interaction by institutional and noninstitutional policy actors. On this basis, the chapter introduces the levels of analysis and the research questions that drive the empirical research.

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  1. Kadir Has University, Istanbul, Turkey

    Cristiano Bee

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Bee, C. (2017). Europeanization, Public Sphere, and Active Citizenship. In: Active Citizenship in Europe. Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-45317-4_3

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