Why European civil society matters: the view from a complexity perspective

Abstract

Civil society has played a central role in the development of European nation-states. However, only recently has civil society been recognised by the European Union. What is European civil society? Can and should the EU promote it? Is the EU institutionally compatible with it? The article addresses these questions through the lens of complexity theory, a new intellectual paradigm that emerged out of the natural sciences and is increasingly spilling over into the social sciences. Using complexity, European civil society can be seen as a necessary counterbalance to the emerging European market and state