ABSTRACT
Historically, international disability rights movements have been crucial collective actors in promoting disabled person’ interests. These movements gained new momentum in the 1970s, when the first cross-disability coalitions were formed. This chapter sheds light on the current prospects of disability rights advocacy to enhance Active Citizenship through political influence at the European level in the age of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). It describes existing opportunity structures for interest representation and drawing on original data we explore how European organisations of and for persons with disabilities make use of political opportunities provided by the European Union and the Council of Europe. Based upon earlier research, it investigates the relations between European institutions and civil society organisations. The chapter refrains from specifically conceptualising the CRPD as a legal opportunity structure in itself, but understands it as potentially offering specific legal opportunities within given political systems.
