Luz Muñoz Marquez

The goal of this paper is to deepen our understanding of the growing phenomenon of politicization of international organizations (IOs) and to contribute to its conceptualization. This issue is important in a context of increasing social scrutiny and contention about the authority and legitimacy of these organizations,

In this paper we explain interest groups mobilization at the national, subnational and EU level. Our dependent variable is the number of different venues an interest group get access regarding a particular issue. We depart from the idea that increasing delegation of power towards supranational and subnational institutions implies a proliferation of the number of policy venues to which interest groups can come up to air their grievances, attract political allies, and affect the agenda setting process. However, we expect interest groups capacity (and/or willingness) to engage in venue shopping strategies varies across issues depending on their capacity to generate resources and the level of conflict associated with these issues. To answer this question we rely on a comprehensive database about interest groups access in the EU, and in Spain at the national and subnational level.

This paper analyzes multi-level dynamics found in environmental agendas between the European Union and its member states. The issue is to determine whether these agendas interact, and if so, how. Starting from data on the legislative agendas of the EU and four of its member states (Denmark, France, Spain, and the United Kingdom), the paper concludes that the types of problems dealt with at the level of the EU and its member states match significantly. Furthermore, the analysis suggests that issues tend to be placed on the agendas of the EU and the member states largely simultaneously.

Environmental NGOs in Spain are well known policy actors. Since the nineties some of them have been invited to participate in governmental committees and/or to provide expertise to Parliamentary committees. They have also an important role in mobilizing public opinion to defend and protect the environment. We know less though about how do they intervene in the judicial arena. In the framework of a growing role of the Courts in the field of environmental governance, the goal of this paper is to analyze to what extent Spanish NGOs resorted to the judicial arena, specifically the Supreme Court, to enforce international and European higher standards of environmental protection and advocated against wrong or inadequate praxis in the implementation of environmental regulations. Several non-judicial factors seem to have strengthened that trend in Spain: increasing environmental national and European regulation as well as the NGOs organizational capacity to make judicial claims in line with...

This article explains why parliamentary groups invite interest groups to the parliamentary arena. It argues, interest groups access to committees not only reflect policy-makers’ needs for information, and expertise but also party preferences and institutional factors such as the type of government, parliamentary committees structure, and committee’s agenda capacity. Results show interest groups access to the parliamentary arena increases under minority governments, in the case of highly conflictual issues, and when the number of permanent committees increases. Also, results demonstrate parliamentary groups invite interest organizations following different logics –problem-solving or confrontation logic— depending on the type of functions they have to perform –legislative and oversight activities—. The article uses a novel comprehensive database with information on the appearances of all interest groups in the Spanish parliament from 1996 to 2015.

Resumen La mayoría de estudios sobre las ONG sitúa a los Estados y a las organizaciones internacionales como blanco de su actividad, en cambio se le ha prestado menos aten-ción a cómo la intervención del Estado y las leyes bajo las cuales operan condicionan su papel en el sistema político. En este artículo se analiza la evolución en la regulación de las ONG en el contexto español, específicamente en el sector de la cooperación al desarrollo, con el objetivo de explicar las variaciones en las oportunidades y los costos que supone la intervención del Estado para este tipo de organizaciones. Se muestra que la regulación institucionaliza la interacción de las ONG con el Estado, afecta su estructura organizativa y potencia su profesionalización. En suma, la regulación deli-mita su capacidad de supervivencia y consolidación como actores clave en el sistema político. Palabras clave ONG; regulación; profesionalización; intervención del Estado; cooperación al desarrollo.

El objetivo de este artículo es profundizar en la comprensión del creciente fenómeno de politización de
las organizaciones internacionales (OOII) y contribuir a su conceptualización. Este tema es importante en
un contexto de creciente escrutinio social y descontento en torno a la autoridad y legitimidad que tienen
estas organizaciones, particularmente en el diseño de políticas públicas que afectan directamente a la vida
cotidiana de los ciudadanos. El artículo contribuye a entender la politización en la esfera internacional,
específicamente de las OOII, conceptualizando politización como un proceso definido por tres dinámicas
independientes: 1) el funcionamiento del sistema político mundial y las normas internas de las OOIII; 2) la
movilización social; y 3) la expansión del conflicto o el incremento a la atención prestada a un tema relativamente
cerrado que se abre al debate público y entra en diferentes agendas.

NGOs are recognized as active participants in the policy process. There is general agreement that they are agenda setters and important actors in the framing of public issues. They are well-recognized providers of social services on behalf of, or in partnership with, private and public actors. Previous research demonstrates that the institutional context accounts for the extent of NGOs’ access to and influence over public policy making. Nonetheless, we know less about why there are important differences in the way they approach the policy process. Comparing the organizational evolution of two Spanish NGOs, both active in the field of humanitarian aid and poverty alleviation over a period of more than 50 years, this article contributes to our understanding of the relevance of organizational structur in NGOs as a determining factor in their role in public policy. Drawing on institutional organizational analysis, a theoretical framework is developed to assess the importance of organizational structure in explaining why NGOs take on different roles in the policy process, even when sharing the same institutional context. NGO are driven by pre-existing institutions and legacy that affect the way they resolve conflict and engage in internal bargaining.

El escaso diálogo entre perspectivas teóricas complica un análisis sistemático sobre el papel de las ONG en las políticas públicas. El objetivo de este artículo es hacer una revisión de los diferentes enfoques sobre el fenómeno de las ONG utilizadas en la ciencia política y señalar algunas de las consecuencias de la fragmentación teórica. Se constata que las perspectivas de la sociedad civil, tercer sector, movimientos sociales y grupos de interés analizan esencialmente el mismo fenómeno: la acción colectiva a través de organizaciones de ciudadanos que defienden una causa concreta pero centrándose en diferentes aspectos de su función en el proceso político y en la definición de las políticas. Finalmente, se propone una definición operativa de las ONG a partir de los enfoques analizados.

Government–opposition relations in Spain have been long characterised by a high level of consensus and cooperation. The question analysed here is whether the economic crisis initiated in 2008 has created unprecedented levels of conflict in the political system or whether opposition parties have maintained a cooperative strategy oriented to influence far-reaching policy decisions. Results illustrate that patterns of consensus have decreased significantly since the outbreak of the crisis, and this is partly explained by the rising amount of legislation with socio-economic content, variations in the government's popularity, and the type of government. The analysis also shows that the crisis has increased the incentives of opposition parliamentary groups to oppose European Union legislation, especially among left parties.

A partir del análisis de la red de actores (policy network) y de la teoría del equilibrio interrumpido desarrollada por Baumgartner y Jones (1993), en este trabajo se analiza el caso de la política de cooperación al desarrollo de España desde la transición democrática hasta el presente. El objetivo es analizar la continuidad y cambio de esta política desde la perspectiva del análisis de las políticas públicas. Se demuestra que la estabilidad más que el cambio caracteriza su evolución. Al mismo tiempo, se señala que las características propias del subsistema político de la cooperación al desarrollo afectan la magnitud y la frecuencia de los cambios en la política.

Este artículo analiza la agenda legislativa de cuatro Comunidades Autónomas –Andalucía, Cataluña, Galicia y el País Vasco– desde 1982 hasta 2007. El objetivo es explicar hasta qué punto los cambios en la priorización de problemas están relacionados con factores institucionales, como los cambios en el marco competencial o el proceso de europeización, o con factores políticos, como las preferencias de los partidos políticos. El análisis demuestra que a partir de los años noventa se inicia un proceso creciente de heterogeneidad entre las agendas autonómicas, y que este proceso no puede explicarse únicamente a partir de la distribución formal de competencias entre Estado y CCAA. La delegación de poder en favor de la Unión Europea no se ha traducido tampoco en una mayor homogeneidad de las agendas legislativas, ni siquiera en aquellos sectores más europeizados. El contexto institucional limita la capacidad de los gobiernos para regular sobre cuestiones concretas, pero las preferencias de los partidos son un factor importante para entender por qué existen similitudes o diferencias entre las agendas autonómicas.

This article analyses the multi-level dynamics of the environmental agendas between the European Union and its Member States. The issue is to determine whether these agendas interact, and how. Starting from data on the legislative agendas of the EU and four of its Member States (Denmark, France, Spain and the United Kingdom), the article concludes that the types of problems dealt with at the level of the EU and its Member States match up significantly. Furthermore, the analysis suggests that the issues tend to be put on the agendas of the EU and the Member States more or less simultaneously.

This paper is the first step in a long term project investigating policy stability and
change in Spain from an agenda setting perspective and comparing the Spanish policy agenda
to that of other advanced democracies. Here we begin to compare the allocation of issue attention in Spain and the USA by comparing the substance of annual President and Prime Minister
speeches from 1982 to 2005. Existing research argues that the public agenda has become more
crowded, competitive and volatile in recent years. We find that in both countries there has
been a transformation of the political agenda towards an increasing diversity of issues. However, most of the volatility in executive attention seems to be explained by salient events rather
than by issue crowding. We conclude by discussing some limitations of executive speeches as
a measure of governmental issue attention and directions for future research.