Challengers to the crisis: Civil Society Organizations’ aims, strategies and activities to revitalize the EU ‘social dimension

The European Union’s (EU) ‘social dimension’ has developed far beyond what was perceivable a few decades ago and in the newly launched EU strategy for sustainable growth (EU2020), ambitious objectives have been set, e.g. to increase employment rates for women and men up to 75 per cent and to have at least 20 Million fewer people in or at risk of poverty and social exclusion by 2020. However, these goals are overshadowed by the current crisis and these objectives seem far-fetched. The European Commission appears to pay little attention to put them into practice at the moment and many Member states were reluctant to them in the first place. At the same time, national welfare reforms tend to run in different direction with curtailed social rights and cut-backs in public spending.

This paper analyses how EU-based CSOs working with social policy related issues have responded to these changing circumstances of both expanding as well as curtailed political opportunities: First, how do they define their aims and mission in these turbulent times, e.g. do they express more radical alternatives as the EU seem to fail to deliver? Second, what kind of strategies do they employ in order to change the political agenda and promote the benefits of their members and beneficiaries, e.g. can we detect a greater interest into unconventional strategies as the EU agenda seem to loose salience? Third, have these changing opportunity structures changed how they relate to other CSOs, e.g. are they inclined to seek greater cooperation with their members or even de-Europeanize some of their activities.

The paper draws on a variety of sources, such as the EU’s Transparency Register, interviews with key officials of EU-based CSOs and above all from a recently completed survey with all members of the Platform of European Social CSOs (conducted in summer 2012). This original empirical data give us the opportunity to identify similarities and differences among the ecology of CSOs working with social policy related issues at EU-level and hence explore the links between organizational features (resources, membership basis, funding structure, type of vision) and organizational strategies. Such an analysis will hence contribute to a more nuanced understanding of whether changing structural conditions and/or organizational resources affect CSOs strategic behavior.