The third sector and the development of European public policy: a framework for analysis

An urgent priority for European third sector research in the context of the dynamics of European integration should be to examine the emergence of "horizontal" European policy towards the third, voluntary, nonprofit sector understood as a multi-level process involving nations and supranational institutions. This should involve identifying and conceptualising the parameters, concepts and processes needed to build a relevant policy analytic framework or frameworks; the application of those frameworks to organise a description of the European dimension of salient country- level policies, and the form of European institutional level policies; and exploration of linkages between these levels. The advocacy coalition framework and multiple stream approaches of Paul Sabatier and John W. Kingdon are good candidates for such a research endeavour. This process should be seen as a stepping stone towards the development of testable research hypotheses in the long term.