Co-creating Europe-related activities: The role of German local governments in bottom-up mobilization

In the process of Europeanisation, the local level takes an intermediary position between citizens and the European level. A special feature of local authorities’ European involvement is that many local Europe-related activities are developed and implemented not only for citizens, but to a considerable extent by them or in cooperation between civil society organisations and municipal actors. The paper presents fresh data from a research project focusing on the German case to examine the local level’s role in the European multi-level-governance system. 

We ask in this paper: How do civil society actors and municipalities interact in organising Europe-related bottom-up activities and what are the driving motives and ideas for these activities? In a first step, we investigate the variety of bottom-up mobilisation found at the local level and the role of local actors – city administrations, civil society associations and others – in creating opportunities for citizen engagement. In a second step, we trace forms of co-creation, i.e. local civil society involvement in municipal European policy-making, across the four dimensions of Europeanization. Third, we typologize the different local networks based on the type of underlying relation. In summary, Europe-related bottom-up mobilisation takes place through different citizen-oriented activities, often organised and implemented in local networks. The motives for this engagement are mainly based on a normative understanding of Europe as an idea, encompassing notions of European identity and society.