The Network on Civil Society and New Forms of Governance in Europe – the Making of European Citizenship aims at enhancing the understanding of social and democratic processes, citizenship and democratic participation in Europe.

It seeks to:

• Provide knowledge about civil society, citizenship and social protection.
• Nourish a public debate on governance.
• Strengthen intellectual co-operation.

Through research, learning and dialogue, focus is placed on:

• Active citizenship: to promote citizens' involvement and social participation in policy-making.
• Organised civil society: to understand the impact of different forms of citizenship and civic participation.
• Multiple identities: to identify factors that help co-existence among (dwellers of) multiple identities in Europe.

The CINEFOGO Network of Excellence is supported by the Sixth Framework Programme, Priority 7: New Forms of Citizenship and Cultural Identities of the European Union.

ASP as one of the more than 35 institutions and 150 researchers in Europe is part of the Network that is co-ordinated by the University of Roskilde (Denmark). Victor Pérez-Díaz has been appointed a National Co-ordinator for Spain and Portugal. He is responsible for (i) identifying work performed by researchers in that particular country relevant to the thematic areas of the Network, (ii) establishing a national state of the art survey of this work, (iii) organizing a database of this material, and (iv) evaluating the scientific programme to be carried for each 18 months period.

The ASP Research Centre is involved in the Thematic Area 3 "Multi-level Governance and Organised Civil Society". Multi-level governance is a new learning agenda for state, market and civil society actors to influence the democratic process in Europe. The Network will seek to bridge the gap between the study of citizens' attitudes and the analysis of outcomes of political institutions. Among others, it addresses

• The challenging of old forms of representation by emerging supra-national governance,
• The role of civil society in responding to the disenchantment with politics,
• Media discourse and participation,
• Civil society organisations as vehicles for advancing democracy.

The Thematic Area 3 consist of several Work Packages, and the ASP together with Lars Hulgård, Roskilde University, coordinates a Work Package 18 on "Social Capital and Governance – a comparison Between Europe and USA." The aim is to examine the interaction between social capital and democracy in the United States and in Europe, with emphasis on the diversity of forms of social capital (strong ties, weak ties, networks, informal connections etc.) and the role of institutions. The work package consists of three parts all sensitive to the connection between social capital, public space and citizenship. Some measures of inter-disciplinarity will be taken into account in the preparation in order of benefiting from the dialogue between politics, sociology and economy. The purpose is three-fold, to arrange:

1. A workshop aimed at gathering a group of senior scholars within the area of social capital both to discuss in depth differences between EU and US models of understanding the relationship between social capital and democracy;
2. A PhD summer school (May 2007, Roskilde, Denmark);
3. a volume on "Social Capital, Institutions and Democracy".

ASP is organising CINEFOGO workshop in Madrid on Social Capital and Democracy in Europe and the USA. It will be held at the Institute Ortega y Gasset in Madrid, on October 27-28, 2006 (inclusive). Aimed at gathering a group of senior scholars within the area of social capital both to discuss in depth differences between EU and US models of understanding the relationship between social capital and democracy, it counts with papers by the following scholars (provisional):

Tentative Programme