An exploration and analysis of the regulation and practices of citizens' initiatives in eleven European democracies and the EU. The contributors to this volume shed light on how citizens' initiatives influence patterns of political agenda-setting in representative democracies and how they can contribute to participatory democracy.

The European citizens' initiative enables one million EU citizens from at least seven EU countries to call on the European Commission to propose legislation on matters where the EU has competence to legislate. It is a right that is enshrined in the EU treaties. The rules and procedures governing the citizens' initiative are set out in an EU regulation adopted by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union in February 2011.

Drei Jahre nach der Einführung der Europäischen Bürgerinitiative (EBI) bietet der Band einen kritischen, wenngleich vorsichtig optimistischen Ausblick auf die Möglichkeiten und Grenzen dieses neuen Instruments transnationaler partizipativer Demokratie in der Europäischen Union. Der Band verbindet theoretische Diskussionen zum Wesen und Beitrag der EBI mit empirischen Perspektiven zu den Erfahrungen jener ersten Initiativen, die seit April 2012 auf den Weg gebracht wurden. Als partizipativ-demokratisches Instrument ist die EBI nur schwer einzuordnen, da sie lediglich eine indirekte Agenda-Setting-Funktion erfüllt. Ebenso konnte die EBI bisher nur ansatzweise den hohen Erwartungen gerecht werden, die von wissenschaftlicher Seite, aber auch von Aktivisten und EBI-Organisatoren in sie gesetzt wurden. Dementsprechend zwiespältig fällt auch das Fazit des Bandes aus: Während die EBI ohne Zweifel großes Demokratisierungspotential besitzt, deuten die Erfahrungen der ersten drei Jahre sehr stark auch auf großen Reformbedarf hin. Mit Beiträgen von: Jeannette Behringer, Carsten Berg, Katrin Böttger, Maximilian Conrad, Marie Dufrasne, Louis Bouza Garcia, Pawel Glogowski, Justin Greenwood, Annette Knaut, Julian Plottka, Yannick Polchow und Freyja Steingrímsdóttir.

This publication gathers contributions to understand better and further develop the European Citizens’ Initiative. This participatory and agenda-setting tool introduced into the Treaty of Lisbon has not yet reached its full potential of citizen engagement, nor has it driven the significant policy changes initially expected. Bearing this in mind, the project ECI: From A to Z aimed to promote the knowledge and use of the European Citizens’ Initiative within the higher education arena by engaging investigators and students from four different Universities (University of Coimbra; Georg-August University of Göttingen; Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iaşi and the University of Vigo) to work together to share their concerns and common views on the European Union role and policies. This publication describes the methodology followed and results reached under the project, but more than that, it is a practical toolkit for all who wish to know more about the European Citizens’ Initiative and how to put it in motion.

"This book brings together academics as well as practitioners to give a forward-looking, holistic view of the realities of EU citizen participation across the spectrum of participatory opportunities"--

This is an open access title available under the terms of a [CC BY-NC-ND 4.0] License. It is free to read, download and share on Elgaronline.com. Exploring academic and policy thinking on e-participation, this book opens up the organizational and institutional 'black box' and provides new insights into how public administrations in 15 European states have facilitated its implementation.