This course addresses
issues of collective action, mobilisations, and civil society, at the
transnational (and, especially, European) level. Moving away from elections and
party politics, it focuses on political actions undertaken by a variety of
actors outside the political field. These can be ordinary citizens organising
grassroots mobilisations, but also non-political elites (business elites,
corporations, intellectuals, ...) seeking to influence decision-making. At the
European level, these mobilisations face serious challenges and raise the
question of the possibilities of the existence of a European civil society and
a European public sphere, generally considered as key elements of a democratic
polity. The course provides a general overview of scholarship on these topics
and presents numerous case studies of (trans)national mobilisations in Europe
and beyond.
