European Civil Society on the Road to Success?

The new challenges of globalization of economy, society, and politics appear in the Europeanization of social and political networks in different policy areas. New forms of citizens' involvement in policy processes as well as planning, implementation, and evaluation require new forms of governance on local, regional, and European levels, as well as global participation of European actors. In this process, civil society emerged as a political program, and as a scientific and theoretical challenge for the social sciences. The issue of civil society in the axis of the different fields and directions of political and social research in a European context is the focus of this anthology. The book breaks the barriers between the traditional division of labor of European governance and national-regional-local oriented social and political research. Two leading questions are addressed: What do civil society organizations contribute to social, cultural, and leisure time services in the c