The limits and possibilities of third sector Europeanization

Policy-making on the third sector as a subject of policy in the Member States of the European Union is primarily a matter for domestic (national and sub-national) public authorities, working in collaboration with the third sector itself and other policy actors. However, over the past 25 years, the European Union (EU) collectively has increasingly taken an interest in this sphere. Most of this activity has been low visibility and 'soft' in character, with implemented initiatives not involving direct, mandatory or 'hard' intervention in domestic policy communities by the EU. But it has involved significant commitments of EU financial resources and periods of sustained multi-level collective policy effort. It therefore merits attention from scholarly and policy viewpoints. Drawing on the findings of a major multi-country study of horizontal third sector policy (i.e. cross-cutting policy pertaining to the sector as a whole), this article interprets this phenomenon through the lens of the 'Europeanization' literature. This literature is sensitive to the possibility that policy linkages between the EU and other pan-European institutions and country-level policy communities can be significant and consequential even if they do not involve primary law-making or administrative fiat on the part of the originating bodies. The article reviews the extent to which Europeanization, understood in three related but distinctive ways, has proceeded over the past quarter of a century and discusses the causes and consequences of this process. The article shows that overall, relatively modest and very uneven progress towards third sector Europeanization can be said to have proceeded on this account. It reviews why this has tended to be the case and also discusses the conditions under which third sector European policy has managed to proceed relatively effectively and productively. © 2010 Taylor & Francis.