ABSTRACT
The way in which the political opportunity structure of the EU shapes the wider system of interest representation implies a debate about the extent to which it is unique, or whether it is just a highly distinctive set of general characteristics which are recognizable from other political systems. The landscape and nature of EU interest representation share a number of factors in common with most political systems in reflecting systemic political opportunity structures. There are also debates familiar to all systems about whether civil society organizations may be systemic agents of input legitimacy (derived from opportunities for participation) or output legitimacy (“winning by results”). Each of these has its EU specific elements, and the rather sui generis nature of the EU, with its blend of intergovernmental and supranational authority tiers, makes such elements unique. What is distinct about the EU is the degree of intensity of institutionalization of organized civil society, with systemic reliance upon and hence empowerment of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to perform core functions of input and output legitimacy. The essence can be captured by established terminology such as “empowered pluralism” or “neo-pluralism,” where potential asymmetries of power between producer and non-producer interests are addressed by state action in favor of the latter. But its origin lies in deficits in structures of representative democracy arising from the EU’s transnational nature, the need for the scope of the EU to be accompanied by democratic underpinnings, and the ways in which the EU’s extreme manifestation of multilevel power structures exacerbate established tendencies for consensual politics.
