From European Social Fund local social capital pilots to mainstreamed global grants: the third sector and policy transfer

In the Europeanisation literature, the example of European Structural funds, and EU-sponsored programmes in general, have often been used to discuss the impact of EU policy on domestic and local governance. Whilst in earlier scholarship the focus was nearly exclusively on the download of European structural policies, recently a more nuanced understanding of Europeanisation has led to the development of approaches that take into account the combination of downloading and uploading components of EU policies. It is within this framework of intertwined processes, ‘whereby European ideas and practices transfer to the core of local decision-making as well as from local policy-making arenas to the supranational level’ (John, 2001: 73), that this paper explores the role of the third sector in the implementation of European Social Fund Local Social Capital Pilots and mainstreamed Global Grants in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom.