The Network addresses citizenship and civic participation in relation to social protection in order to support a European dialogue on this issue. This theme and questions, such as the blurring of boundaries between state and civil society provision of social protection, will be looked into.

Civic participation is recognised by the Network as:

• Voicing opinions and concerns of civil society
• Active social service and welfare provision through a variety of civil society associations
• Promoting and facilitating other types of participation.

Citizenship and Civic Participation in Relation to Social Protection

Whenever a "European Social Model" gets mentioned, it is underlined that social protection has played an outstanding role in the formation of European nation-states as democratic welfare states. Even though there are different ideological roots and welfare regimes to be found across Europe, this holds true as well for Southern Europe and those Middle and Eastern European countries which now increasingly become a part of Europe as it is institutionalised in the EU. Therefore, throughout Europe, social citizenship is an important dimension of citizenship, mostly debated as a triad of civic, political and social citizenship rights (Marshall 1949).

In discourses about welfare and citizenship, the role of active citizenship has often been omitted (Kymlicka / Norman 1994). Moreover, when it gets mentioned - e.g. as civic participation - there is a special way to separate it from and link it with citizenship rights and social protection. Civic participation has been thought mainly in terms of raising ones' voice and taking part in public affairs and interest negotiation. In such forms, it is understood as being a presupposition in order to build and safeguard measures for social protection and citizenship rights that are run by the state and its administration.

This way of conceiving civic participation and of linking it with the organisation of social protection and the maintenance of (social) citizenship rights is incomplete. Active citizenship and civic participation have also occurred in forms of social protection outside the state within civil society itself: Throughout Europe social protection e.g. through social insurance has been built up by mutuals, in the context of trade unions, through local saving banks amongst others. Such initiatives have not only been the starting point for creating state-based forms of social protection, but they have also endured as complementary forms of social protection. When one deals with a broad conception of social protection, which includes social services, the same fact becomes even more visible. Degrees might vary, but throughout Europe a considerable part of social services has been and still is organized and provided by civil-society based third sector organisations that include various forms of civic participation and forms of active citizenship. Furthermore, in many public social service organisations, as for example social security and health care systems, schools, etc., manifold forms of active participation of users and citizens are part of the picture.

Altogether this shows that civic participation is not confined to interest organisations and social protection is not always a state-based issue. First of all, civic participation can express itself by building and producing forms of self- and co-organized social welfare including voluntary work, that is neither exclusively state-based nor entirely a matter of the political administration and professionals. Secondly, organizations in the field of social welfare and protection are not only an outcome of participation by interest formulation but, possibly, they themselves can work as bodies that activate civic participation in various forms as schools of democracy (Cohen / Rogers 1994).

Public and academic debates in the last two decades have been marked by the re-detection and an increasing acknowledgement of this rich set of forms of civic participation and civil-society-based aspects of social protection. They picture a European Social Model that is different but not totally contrasting to the US-model, which has always been seen as interrelated with voluntary contributions of citizens, non-profit organisations amongst others. Changing notions of the links between citizenship, civic participation and social protection, as sketched above, have been a topic in a number of research projects with members of the CINEFOGO Network. It is our firm ambition to bring these strands of thought into a more targeted dialogue.

From the background of a changing, new, and open interrelation between citizenship, civic participation and social protection, a number of questions and challenges derive, to be taken up by the CINEFOGO Network:

• What are the commonalities and differences in the various European regions with respect to the forms civic participation takes in matters of social protection?
• How to balance the two aspects of civic participation: (a) making ones interest heard by participating in the public dialogue, e.g. by lobbying for consumers and (b) contributing through forms such as volunteering, associations, foundations, corporate citizenship and a participative service-culture?
• What are the results, potentials and risks of ongoing reforms in social protection that entail an upgrading of the role of active citizenship in various forms for example in key areas such as reforming the school system, urban regeneration, striving for social and occupational integration? What is their meaning with respect to issues of equality and pluralism?
• What can be said so far about the forms of civic participation and dialogue, social citizenship, proposals for the status of the third sector that have taken shape on EU-level?
• To what degree do the various contemporary forms of active citizenship and civic participation challenge the global notions of a European social model, as we know them?