This
course deals with issues of collective action, mobilisation and civil society
at the transnational (and especially European) level. Moving away from
elections and party politics, it focuses on political action 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, lobbyists, intellectuals, ...) seeking to influence decision-making. At
the European level, these mobilisations face serious challenges and raise the
question of the possibility of the existence of a European civil society and a
European public sphere, which are generally considered to be key elements of a
democratic polity. The course provides a general overview of scholarship on
these issues and presents numerous case studies of (trans)national
mobilisations in Europe and beyond.
