Keeping up with the Neighbours: Diffusion of Norms and Practices Through Networks of Employer and Employee Organizations in the Eastern Partnership and the Mediterranean

Using social network analysis and logistic regression, we analyse how inter-organizational networks facilitate co-operation and the transfer of best practice from EU-based organizations to organizations in the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) countries. More specifically, we examine networks of employer and employee organizations that participate in the Civil Society Forum of the Eastern Partnership and in TRESMED, a Mediterranean project. We find that networks are successful at disseminating principles and good practices of economic and social partnership, but also that dissemination proceeds slowly. In addition, we detect more co-operation among employer than among employee organizations, which reflects collective action difficulties facing organized labour more generally. Last, we find that inter-organizational co-operation is more intense in the Southern than in the Eastern neighbourhood, which is explained by contextual differences as well as by the EU's longer-term engagement with the Mediterranean than with the countries on its Eastern frontier.