Abstract
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The transfer of the decision – making from the national to European level created a new space for interest representation. The role of non-governmental actors at the supranational level is based on supply/demand relations with, particularly, the European Commission; it requires information and legitimacy of its decisions that the non-governmental actors, such as interest groups, are able to supply (Coen, Richardson 2009). Policy network approach (Eikeland 2011; Peterson 2004; Bache 2008) refers the role of multiple actors aforementioned collaborating in order to achieve certain policy outcomes at both national and European levels. Rational choice institutionalism and resource mobilization approaches emphasize factors that determine the transfer from the national to the supranational level of interest representation (Kluever 2010; Beyers, Kerremans 2007, Eising 2007). While the former emphasizes the role of the group’s embeddedness into the domestic institutional context, the latter one presents the importance of owned material and organizational resources. Thus the effects of Europeanization in terms of interest representation are multidimensional. On the one hand, new opportunities at the EU level, such as direct lobbying within the European institutions, enable nongovernmental actors to switch to the supranational level (“bottom-up” approach). On the other hand, it shapes and effects national policy networks differing by the degree of influence from „epistemic policy communities“ to „issue networks“ (Eikeland 2011) - such as domestic lobbying activities, strategies and collaboration between interest groups, sub-national actors and national government (“top-down” approach). The policy domain also may determine to what extent the Europeanization effects the domestic patterns of interest representation.
Choosing Lithuania as a case, our main purpose is to analyse the emerging patterns of multi-level interest representation in the environmental policies’ area. The topic of Europeanization of interest representation in Lithuania was taken into consideration in previous studies of sub-national actors at the EU level (Tirviene, Mazylis, Povilaitis, 2008; Mazylis, Lescauskaite, 2011) or Lithuanian agricultural interests‘ evaluation (Sukyte, 2011). However, there is a lack of systemic studies that involve multiple levels.
In our study, combining semi-structured interviews with the interest groups’ stakeholders, municipalities’ officials and central government representatives with the content analysis of the reports, appeals and official documents of EU directives’ implementation, we aim to examine the evolving patterns of multi-level interest representation in the field of environmental policies. Analytical model was used taking into account explanatory variables such as opportunity structures and resource capacities. Many activities of the Lithuanian environmental interest groups are found as rather reactive, however, a step towards more institutionalized with the Lithuanian governmental institutions relations through NGOs’ coalition formation were taken. Lithuania is characterized by high level of centralization when dialogue between national government and interest groups (municipalities included) is rather emerging, embeddedness is relatively weak; there are limited examples of stable cross-level networking, when „downstream“ implementation of legal acts is prevailing.
Explanatory power of theoretical approaches chosen is further to be discussed.
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