Explaining citizens mobilisation on a EU issue: Environmental interest groups and the Nature Alert campaign
(2018) UACES 48th Annual Conference — Location: University of Bath, UK (2.September.2018)
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- On the 12th of December 2016, the European Commission declared the Birds and Habitats directives ‘fit for purpose’. This decision followed a public consultation conducted by the Commission. “The purpose of the consultation was to gather opinions on current EU nature conservation legislation (the Birds Directive and the Habitats Directive) and its implementation to date, as part of the 'fitness check' that the European Commission is carrying out under its Regulatory Fitness and Performance Programme (REFIT)”. These directives are part of European Union’s nature protection laws and support the implementation of the Natura 2000 network of conservation sites. The Commission’s declaration was welcomed by Environmental interest groups, which considered it as a political victory ensued by the Nature Alert campaign they conducted in 2015 during the public consultation. This environmental groups’ lobbying success resulted from an unprecedented citizens mobilisation on an EU policy issue. This paper aims to explain this citizens mobilisation conducted by environmental interest groups during the fitness check for the Birds directive and the Habitats directive by relying to this research question: why environmental interest groups have succeed to mobilise citizens during the fitness check for EU nature legislation? The Fitness Check for EU nature legislation is an interesting case to analyse and explain citizens mobilisation and lobbying success (of environmental interest groups). How environmental groups get so many citizens involved? Which element was determinant to explain the success of the Nature Alert campaign? This case study uses the method of process tracing to identify the elements explaining environmental interest groups’ success and consequently allows a better understanding of interest representation at the EU-level and the effects of the ‘participatory turn’ observed at the EU-level
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Defacqz, S. (2018). Explaining citizens mobilisation on a EU issue: Environmental interest groups and the Nature Alert campaign. UACES 48th Annual Conference, University of Bath, UK. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/125415