Participation of civil society in new modes of governance: the case of the new EU member states. Part 2: Questions of accountability

Abstract

"This working paper is part of a series presenting the results of a research team examining theimpact of the 2004 EU enlargement on governance structures involving the participation of civilsociety organisations. The working paper starts with a contribution by David Lane summarizing the state of civil society organisations in the post-socialist EU member states and their potential for an active role in new modes of governance. He offers a quantitative and qualitative assessment and discusses the implications for questions of accountability. The following two articles by Zdenka Mansfeldová and Micha? Federowicz and Micha? Sitek go on to elaborate on civil society organisations holding state actors accountable. Mansfeldová examines the societal context for political and administrative accountability in the Czech Republic, while Federowicz and Sitek examine the political accountability of the Polish government. The next two contributions focus on state actors holding civil society organisations accountable. As argued above, the focus here is on legal accountability. Marcin Wiszowaty offers an overview of national legal regulations of lobbyism and related involvement in political governance in the new EU member states. As only two of these states have passed a law on lobbyism so far (the others are still in the process of drafting relevant legislation), his focus is on its legal regulation in Lithuania and Poland. Jakub P?a?ynski then analyses the realization of legal accountability in practice, comparing different cases of legally questionable actions by Polish civil society organisations. The final article by Martin Kay develops a highly refined theoretical perspective of legitimacy and accountability. Drawing on the Irish example, he shows the theoretical implications of the issues discussed in the preceding contributions and offers guiding questions for future research." (excerpt). Contents: David Lane: Civil society formation and accountabilityin the new post-socialist EU member states (7-21); Zdenka Mansfeldová: Political and administrative accountability in the Czech Republic (22-34); Michal Federowicz, Michal Sitek: Accountability to the forum: the case of civil society interacting with political institutions (35-45); Marcin Michal Wiszowaty: Legal regulation of lobbying in new member states of the European Union (46-56); Jakub Plazynski: Public protests in Poland. Legal regulation and legal accountability (57-76); Martin Kay: A new approach to legitimacy and accountability. Limitations and possibilities in the context of the enlarged EU (77-100); Aleksandra Lis: Bibliography: Political activities and accountability of civil society organisations in the new EU member states (101-114).