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Since January 2020, European countries have implemented a wide range of restrictions to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet governments have also implemented democratic compensators in order to offset the negative impacts of restrictions. This article aims to account for the variation of their use between Belgium, the Netherlands and France. We analyse three drivers: the strength of counterpowers, the ruling parties’ ideological leanings and political support. Building on an original data set, our results distinguish between embedded and ad hoc compensators. We find that ad hoc compensators are championed mainly by counterpowers, but also by ideology of the ruling coalitions in Belgium and the Netherlands and used strategically to maintain political support in France. Evidence on the link between embedded compensators and counterpowers is more ambiguous.

The Constitution of the French Fifth Republic offers very little room for citizens to demand a strong accountability of people voted in power. Recently, the Yellow Vests movement has unexpectedly revived the debates on the introduction of a recall mechanism in France, an option already defended by some candidates to the 2017 presidential election. This chapter analyses the French experience of recall mechanisms in four directions. First, it recalls the origins and historical diffusion of the idea of recall, introduced during the French Revolution as imperative mandate. Second, it analyses current constitutional provisions and discusses their compatibility with some forms of recall processes. Third, it examines the various social demands for recall, especially focusing on the one which has emerged out of the Yellow Vests movement. Lastly, the chapter ends with a discussion of the possible design a recall process could take in France.

As the above mentioned quotations underline, the current development of the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) comprehensive approach is characterized by an open rivalry between both organizations. Both actors strive to be recognized as the favorite regional peacekeeper of the United Nations (UN). The EU points at its "uniqueness" as an actor gathering civilian and military capabilities whereas NATO emphasizes its highly efficient military might. The dynamics of EU/NATO relationship and the current competition between both organizations are closely linked to the evolution of the European security architecture. The end of the Cold War and the development of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) have deeply affected the relations between EU and NATO.

Most of the current studies focusing on network organizations analyze how interorganizational networks are created, how they develop and how they overcome the limitations of rigid and ill-adapted bureaucracies. This paper proposes a different stance and empirically studies how work is concretely carried out in NGOs network in order to assess the specificity of this new organizational space. The paper proposes a fine-grained analysis of the biggest humanitarian NGO network in Europe, VOICE, where the author spent eight months doing field observations and interviewing the network's staff and European policy-makers. The results presented here explore the nexus between work and organizations in terms of innovation, framing and mimicry processes, organizational culture, power asymmetry and organizations' pathologies. First of all, networks face difficulty to innovate. Through isomorphism, network's staff members tend to copy the structure and functioning of organizations they consider successful. Moreover, one of the key tasks of the permanent secretariat of a network is to create a specific organizational culture, which can bring rival organizations together. Finally, the research shows that networks can suffer from the same pathologies affecting other organizations in terms of power asymmetry and path dependence. These findings suggest that in future research about interoganizational networks, they also need to be considered as a workplace in order to fully understand the specificities of these new organizational spaces.

Most of the current studies focusing on network organizations analyze how interorganizational networks are created, how they develop and how they overcome the limitations of rigid and ill-adapted bureaucracies. This paper proposes a different stance and empirically studies how work is concretely carried out in NGOs network in order to assess the specificity of this new organizational space. The paper proposes a fine-grained analysis of the biggest humanitarian NGO network in Europe, VOICE, where the author spent eight months doing field observations and interviewing the network's staff and European policy-makers. The results presented here explore the nexus between work and organizations in terms of innovation, framing and mimicry processes, organizational culture, power asymmetry and organizations' pathologies. First of all, networks face difficulty to innovate. Through isomorphism, network's staff members tend to copy the structure and functioning of organizations they consider successful. Moreover, one of the key tasks of the permanent secretariat of a network is to create a specific organizational culture, which can bring rival organizations together. Finally, the research shows that networks can suffer from the same pathologies affecting other organizations in terms of power asymmetry and path dependence. These findings suggest that in future research about interoganizational networks, they also need to be considered as a workplace in order to fully understand the specificities of these new organizational spaces.