The Open Method of Coordination and integration theory: are there lessons to be learned?

This paper seeks to contextualize the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) and enrich our understanding of it by submitting constructivist insights to its policy assessment with a focus on the Employment Strategy (EES). The most developed and longest-standing OMC policy area, employment provides fertile ground for the assessment of a rapidly expanding theoretical perspective in IR and European integration applied to a growing policy process. Normative considerations as to the essence of the EU and its future trajectory were highly influential in the process of launching the OMC. The paper provides a framework of integration theory and highlights the particular contribution that the ‘thin’ variant of constructivism has made in understanding different aspects of EU policy and politics. In the next section, the OMC is discussed and its core characteristics identified. I claim that most of the OMC’s core elements are directly linked to constructivist assumptions about policy change. The paper identifies three of those, namely policy discourse, learning and participation in policy-making. I subject those to an empirical and theoretical assessment by use of the relevant literature. Concluding that the record shows such mechanisms to be hardly present in the Employment Policy OMC, I argue that an institutionalist reading of OMC provides a credible alternative by focusing on power resources, preferences and strategies available to core OMC actors, namely member states and the Commission. The paper concludes with a twofold argument: firstly, constructivist hopes on OMC are, at least in the current context, ill-founded. Secondly, while the OMC retains a number of advantages, practical policy suggestions that will enhance its appeal to policy-makers and the public alike are due before it becomes a credible policy option

The EU in the World: Public Procurement Policy and the EU-WTO relationship

To what extent and in what ways does the European Union (EU) seek to adjust the global public policy debate to its own goals and priorities? Our paper sheds light to these crucial questions regarding the EU’s global role by examining the Union’s relationship to the World Trade Organization (WTO), adopting and revising public procurement regulations as the case study under investigation. Using a qualitative research methodology and relying on more than 15 interviews with EU, WTO and interest groups, the paper sheds new light to an underdeveloped research area. Theoretically, we point to the limitations of the Principal Agent (PA) approach in EU governance and adopt a transnational regulatory networks approach instead. Empirically, the paper demonstrates the cyclical nature of the relationship between the EU and the WTO in adopting and revising the Union’s public procurement Directives as well as the WTO’s Global Procurement Agreement (GPA). This cyclical relationship demonstrates the existence of an informal transnational regulatory network negotiating the modernization of the EU procurement directives. On the other hand, much fewer actors are active in the revision of the GPA. With the Commission playing a central role in framing the contours of the EU policy debate and representing the EU member-states in the revision of the GPA, the paper also highlights the enhanced role of the European Parliament (EP) in reforming the EU policy agenda on procurement policy

The EU in the World: Public Procurement Policy and the EU-WTO relationship

To what extent and in what ways does the European Union (EU) seek to adjust the global public policy debate to its own goals and priorities? Our paper sheds light to these crucial questions regarding the EU’s global role by examining the Union’s relationship to the World Trade Organization (WTO), adopting and revising public procurement regulations as the case study under investigation. Using a qualitative research methodology and relying on more than 15 interviews with EU, WTO and interest groups, the paper sheds new light to an underdeveloped research area. Theoretically, we point to the limitations of the Principal Agent (PA) approach in EU governance and adopt a transnational regulatory networks approach instead. Empirically, the paper demonstrates the cyclical nature of the relationship between the EU and the WTO in adopting and revising the Union’s public procurement Directives as well as the WTO’s Global Procurement Agreement (GPA). This cyclical relationship demonstrates the existence of an informal transnational regulatory network negotiating the modernization of the EU procurement directives. On the other hand, much fewer actors are active in the revision of the GPA. With the Commission playing a central role in framing the contours of the EU policy debate and representing the EU member-states in the revision of the GPA, the paper also highlights the enhanced role of the European Parliament (EP) in reforming the EU policy agenda on procurement policy

‘Don’t look at what they do, look at why they do it’: Employers, Trade Unions and Power Resources in Sweden

Over the last decade, Swedish labour relations have attracted relatively little scholarly attention, not least due to their ‘normalization’ along the lines of continental European practices. This article argues that the Swedish Model of labour concertation and social partnership has survived the turbulence of the 1990s, and the main reason for that is the salient power resources that uniosn and social democrats have retianed. The Model’s recent resurgence is intimately linked to the ability of the trade unions to co-regulate the labour market, which is a result of the organisational and institutional resources they possess. These are, however, under attack since the election of the Reinfeldt government in 2006. A complete explanation of their contemporary role in Swedish industrial relations necessitates a nuanced theoretical approach that rejects purely materialist and interest-oriented perspectives. Instead, the article suggests a historical institutionalist framework combining interests with ideas embedded in institutional configurations.Publisher's Versio

Europeanization without substance? EU-Turkey relations and gender equality in employment

This paper focuses on EU-Turkey relations through gender-related employment policy practices. We argue that Turkey is undergoing a process of ‘Europeanization without substance’, in which vague commitments and policy initiatives to enhance female labour force participation coexist uneasily with a contravening political discourse. This is not merely the result of a stalemate in accession negotiations, nor does it stem from the diversity of employment practices across the Union. It rather results from the deliberative discourses used by Turkey’s political leadership to selectively appropriate certain aspects of Europeanization to further a politically motivated agenda that, in essence, negates gender equality altogether. This, we argue in turn, is reflected in a set of practices, policy initiatives, and public statements that make substantive progress in EU-Turkey relations harder. This process is facilitated by the diminishing emphasis placed by the EU on gender equality in employment as manifested by the evolution of gender equality practices at EU level and reinforced by austerity-led policies during the economic crisis

"Testing the Europeanization Hypothesis: Macroeconomic Adjustment Pressures and the Southern European Welfare Model"

The literature on Europeanization investigates the ways in which processes of European integration and EU-level policy-making affect domestic institutional structures. The extent to, and the ways through which member states respond to adaptational pressures stemming from the EU will depend on the ‘goodness of fit’ between the EU policy regime and member states’ policies. This paper seeks to test the empirical validity of the Europeanization hypothesis regarding the impact of macroeconomic adjustment policies followed in Greece and Spain since the mid-1980s on domestic social policy arrangements. According to the Europeanization hypothesis, Southern European economies would constitute the largest ‘misfits’, thereby inviting massive adaptational pressures for macroeconomic adjustment. Such pressures would lead to a substantial weakening of their welfare model and a radical restructuring of their labor regulation systems. We examine welfare programs and labor relations, and identify political and institutional structures acting as intervening variables between adaptational pressures and reform outcomes. Contrary to the Europeanization hypothesis, very low levels of adaptational pressure in Spain have led to a disproportionately high level of change in social policy. What is more, higher levels of adaptational pressure in Greece have failed to translate into sweeping social policy change. In both cases, the restructuring of their labor regulatory systems has been less dramatic than originally predicted

Globalisation, Europeanization and ideational change : the transformation of the Swedish model

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European Integration and Path Dependence: Explaining the Evolution of EU Social Policy. European Political Economy Review. Vol. 3, No. 2 (Winter 2005-2006), pp. 87-111

This paper argues that explaining the development of EU social policy requires an understanding of the role of European business. It asserts that EU social policy remains dependent on the willingness of economic actors, centred on the European Roundtable of Industrialists and UNICE, to facilitate steps towards a more cohesive social policy framework. The paper shows the path dependent nature of the EU integration process and the limited ability of European trade unions to reach far-reaching agreements with employers on the basis of the latter’s powerful position as the instigator of the EU’s revival in the 1980s

Straddling Two Continents: Social Policy and Welfare Politics in Turkey

There has been an increasing academic interest in understanding the dynamics of social policy in the Middle East and developing a conceptual 'model' to account for the particular characteristics of welfare arrangements in the countries of the region. While part of this framework, Turkey represents an exceptional case due to the Europeanization processes the country is undergoing in various policy areas, including social policy. The influence of the European Union on the shape of Turkish social policy, as illustrated by the government's recent reforms in the labour market and social security domains, is hereby used to outline the position of Turkey vis-a-vis both the Southern European welfare regime and the Middle Eastern pattern. This article seeks to assess the dynamics of Turkish social policy in light of the country's political, and socio-economic dynamics, as well as the external influence exerted by the EU and international financial institutions. The aim is to examine Turkish welfare arrangements in a comparative manner and consider its suitability with reference to either of the two models. Looking at major trends in social security and the labour market, the article argues for a Turkish 'hybrid' model embodying the characteristics of both. Subject to EU explicit pressures for reform absent elsewhere in the Middle East, the data nevertheless show that Turkey has yet to make the qualitative leap forward that could place it firmly within the Southern European welfare group

Exogenous Pressures and Social Policy: Greece and Turkey in Comparative Perspective

This paper looks at contemporary social policy developments in Greece and Turkey in light of exogenous economic pressures in the period 1980s-2000s. Three sources of exogenous pressures, which allegedly lead to a reduction in social expenditure budgets, are identified: globalization, the process of European integration in its EMU phase and IMF conditionality. Our case studies show that both countries were exposed to impending pressures of economic liberalization, but these exogenous pressures have not resulted in anticipated social policy outcomes. First, social expenditure levels in both countries have not declined; instead, we report rising trends in expenditure. Secondly, and especially in the case of Greece, the 20-year period analyzed shows an expansion in social welfare programmes. Thirdly, those outcomes are mediated by salient domestic political factors, such as democratization and liberalization of the political space. Finally, the positive association between an expanding welfare state and the presence of social democratic/socialist governments, reported in the literature, seems vindicated in our research