Rediscovering Europe in the Netherlands - St Antony's College ...

notes
notes
1 For argumentation, see Schmidt 1997; 2003; 2004.
2 Van den Berg and Brandsen 2007 observe that the definition issue is ‘notoriously
difficult’. It involves: ‘a rich diversity of organisations and groups
that includes co-operatives, associations, foundations and various informal
social groups’ (Dekker and Burger, 2001). Kendall and Knapp, meanwhile,
quote Henry James, to characterise the sector as a ‘loose and baggy
monster’ (Kendall and Knapp, 1995). There have been many attempts to
capture the monster in definitions and taxonomies, with varying levels of
success.
3 For the latter, see Van de Donk (2001), who explicitly distinguishes this
sector from (1) the government, (2) the market and (3) informal relationships.
4 In the scientific literature, a distinction is generally drawn between pluralistic,
corporatist and etatistic political systems of interest representation
(cf. Lijphart 1999; Falkner 1999). In pluralistic systems, many different civil
society organisations operate alongside each other, all having equal access
to the formal decision making process. In corporatist systems, by contrast,
a small number of unelected and privileged organisations are included in
the formal decision making process, and, moreover, function as key advisory
bodies to the government. In etatistic systems, finally, civil society
organisations play virtually no role in the political decision making
process.
5 Report on the public consultation on the Green Paper on services of
general interests, Commission Staff Working Paper, sec (2004) 326,
15.03.2004: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/site/en/com/2004
/com2004_0374en01.pdf.
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