Suchergebnisse

This article answers the question of which EU-level characteristics of the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) are most likely to result in pressure on national governments to reconsider their policies as a result of OMC-related parliamentary activities and media coverage. On the basis of interviews with European Commission officials and an analysis of parliamentary debates in committee meetings and newspaper coverage on six OMCs in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands in the period 1996-2009, three characteristics are selected and their empirical relevance assessed. The findings indicate that, when an OMC is adopted in a policy field without any other type of EU-level activity already present, or does not include indicators/benchmarks or peer learning activities, the OMC will not increase the pressure on a national government. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright holder.]

This article answers the question of which EU-level characteristics of the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) are most likely to result in pressure on national governments to reconsider their policies as a result of OMC-related parliamentary activities and media coverage. On the basis of interviews with European Commission officials and an analysis of parliamentary debates in committee meetings and newspaper coverage on six OMCs in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands in the period 1996–2009, three characteristics are selected and their empirical relevance assessed. The findings indicate that, when an OMC is adopted in a policy field without any other type of EU-level activity already present, or does not include indicators/benchmarks or peer learning activities, the OMC will not increase the pressure on a national government.

This article tests the importance of different factors for the frequency with which information from open methods of coordination (OMCs) is used in parliamentary debates. Previous research has shown that OMCs provide the executive and the legislature with information on best and worst national policy practices, enabling them to adopt different strategies. First, a national government can fame its own policies with the use of information from OMCs. Second, information from OMCs can be used by parliamentarians of opposition parties to shame the policies of the incumbent government. A study of Dutch parliamentary debates indicates that the Dutch government uses more information from OMCs to fame its own policies when OMCs have a developed infrastructure and/or a treaty base. Parliamentarians from opposition parties use more information from OMCs adopted for policy areas in which there was already EU-level activity prior to the OMC, and the government provided information on the substance of OMCs to members of national parliaments.