Suchergebnisse

Defence date: 7 June 2008 ; Examining Board: Tanja Boerzel (Free Univ. Berlin), Maurizio Ferrera (Univ. Milano), Adrienne Héritier (EUI/RSCAS), Martin Rhodes (Denver Univ./former EUI) ; This thesis aims to understand how the Open Method of Co-ordination (OMC) has developed at the European level and to explore how, and with what effect, it has influenced the EU Member States. My cases are policy areas, which have been selected on the basis of their salience in Member States. The case of high salience is employment policy and the case of low salience is anti-poverty policy. Regarding the European level, the thesis seeks to identify the main causal factors that determine the development of the OMC. I use an adapted version of the Principal-Agent framework, where the Member States represent the Principal(s) and the European Commission represents the Agent. While most existing literature analyses the OMC at one moment in time, I analyse how the OMC develops through time, where I distinguish between emergence, when it has not been fully established, and evolution, when it has been fully established as a policy coordination instrument. I develop two hypotheses to test Commission-Member State interaction during OMC development during emergence and evolution and two to test if their interaction differs in cases of high and low saliency. My findings show that the Commission has a greater influence during the emergence of the OMC and that the Member States have more influence during the evolution of the OMC. The saliency of a policy issue only minimally influences Member State and Commission interaction in the two cases. For the national level, the thesis seeks to shed some light on how and the extent to which the OMC has been integrated into the domestic contexts of (14) EU Member States. The endeavour is first to draw some general conclusions about how governmental and non-governmental actors in Member States use the OMC. My findings show that it has mainly been used as a policy reporting instrument, but has in some cases also been used for policy development. The aim is secondly to assess the extent to which the general objectives of the OMC have been achieved. My findings show that it does not define core reform programmes in Member States, which is hardly surprising, since the OMC is a soft policy instrument.

This article focuses on how the EU, via the Open Method of Coordination (OMC), governs the employment and social inclusion policies of the EU Member States. It derives three operational governance principles – Participation, Coherence and Effectiveness - from the EU White Paper on Governance and the definition of the OMC itself. Participation is conceptualised as two broad categories of actors involved in the OMCs: first, a core policy community that is a closed group of insiders which prepares work in a delegated policy area, and second, a broader policy network, that is more open and that has a stake in the policy area concerned, without having any central decision-making power. Empirically, the analysis reveals that an institutionally similar policy community has been developed in employment and social inclusion within the main national-level ministries, respectively the Labour and Social Ministries. These are responsible for upstream reporting to the European level, horizontal integration across relevant ministries, and downstream integration of other levels of government, which is increasingly important in the context of devolution of employment and inclusion policies. However, the broader policy network of organised interest organisations is dissimilar in the two areas: the social partners are more superficially involved in the EES than the civil society actors in the OMCincl., that use it as a means to strengthen their own position vis-a-vis governmental actors. Policy coherence is conceptualised as political and ideological consistency of key policy objectives throughout time. In terms of policy coherence, the EES has identified a core supply-side policy means, "employability", that has been consistent throughout time, to achieve a clear policy outcome: the full employment model. The overall policy coherence of the OMCincl. temporally has been consistent in seeking to include people in society through work, to develop a rights-based approach and to target actions towards vulnerable groups. Together, the OMC in Employment and in Social Inclusion support the economic growth and full employment model, by increasing the employment rate of the Union. Both, particularly from the perspective of the socially-oriented protagonists, also embrace social objectives of equity and decent standards of living. In a sense, the policy objectives of the Employment and Social Inclusion processes embody the hybridisation that increasingly characterises the outcome of the social policy reform processes in the different EU Member States. At the same time, the objectives of both processes can be interpreted in different ways across the political spectrum, rendering their consistency relatively fragile. Effectiveness, defined as the integration of core policies (under each OMC) into the context of Member States, is assessed via key quantitative indicators that have been created by Eurostat to reflect the objectives of each of the OMCs. In the EES, the indicators around "employability" or "activation" show that expenditure on Active Labour Market Policies (ALMP) has been decreasing throughout time. However, if we turn our attention to the core outcome indicator – employment rates - which has been increasing over time, then the EES objectives are in conjunction with an increase in employment rates observed in the EU-15 over last decade. This suggests, first, that employability measures are not the main cause of employment growth and second, that while activation has become a mainstream concept in labour market reform, the EES does not have the capacity to promote the development of a particular line of employability schemes. It suggests, second, that the EES does have a capacity to promote a societal model of full employment, re-enforced by the Lisbon Strategy in 2000 and its revision in 2005. The EES as an agenda setting instrument influences or supports the core economic and employment reform agendas of the EU-15. The analysis of effectiveness of the OMCincl. takes account of the fact that the model it upholds is not as strong as that of the EES, as there are no quantitative benchmarks. Nevertheless, from the perspective of an anti-poverty policy, it does provide comparative information on poverty in the EU-15; this data is novel for more countries than the statistics of ALMP. In the countries of the EU-15, there has been a trend towards convergence of poverty rates in 2004, compared to 1997. The OMCincl., through statistics depicts poverty comparatively and for the EU as a whole, but more importantly, it proposes solutions for problems of exclusion that are increasingly similar. The OMCincl. supports the development of a policy agenda in fighting exclusion, an area that is generally underdeveloped and at the sidelines of the core social protection reform agendas. The OMCincl. nevertheless continues, in terms of information provision, and as a policy agenda, to develop incrementally and to different degrees, in the domestic context of various Member States of the EU-15.

This article analyses the role of the OECD through its "Jobs Strategy" and the European Union (EU) through the "European Employment Strategy" in the development of macro-economic, employment and labour market policy in the Czech Republic. As a full member of the two organisations, the Czech Republic has been subject to their soft non-binding policy advice in the area of labour market reform. The OECD and EU policy models are similar, both insisting on growth-oriented macro-economic policy, supported by active labour market policies, an active and effective public employment service (PES) and the de-regulation of labour markets. However, the OECD actively advocates private actor involvement in labour markets, while the EU insists on the role of the public sector. The inquisitive styles of the two organisations differ: the OECD has a decontextualised and quantified analysis of performance accompanied by a supportive in-depth qualitative analysis, while the EU has a more contextualised analysis, which is also more politicised. However, the EU's policy is partially supported by European structural funds, while the OECD has no comparable instrument. Despite some differences in policy model and inquisitive style, both the OECD and the EU have given the same major policy recommendations over time to the Czech Republic, although the OECD has insisted more on de-regulation, whereas the EU has also emphasised worker security and anti-discrimination. In macro-economic policy, de-regulation and increasing flexibility on the labour market, the Czech Republic conforms with OECD and EU policy models and recommendations. The PES has been developed institutionally to fit both models. However, activation, shifts in expenditure from passive to active labour market policy, training and placement of the PES have not changed substantially since the Czech Republic became member of the EU, suggesting that the real impact of the OECD and the EU has been weak.

Intro -- Foreword -- From Two to Three Tiers of European Union Socioeconomic Governance -- European Lessons from the Great Recession -- Is Social Investment (with Teeth) Still the Answer? -- References -- Preface and Acknowledgements -- Contents -- Contributors -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- 1: Introduction: Is the European Union More Involved in Welfare State Reform Following the Sovereign Debt Crisis? -- References -- 2: A New Era of European Integration? Governance of Labour Market and Social Policy Since the Sovereign Debt Crisis -- Introduction: The European Union and Social Policy -- Analytical Framework for Analysing Alterations in EU Integration in Labour Market and Social Policy -- Analysing Governance of Social and Labour Market Policy Since the Crisis -- Altering the Governance of EMU Since 2010 -- Six-Pack -- Fiscal Compact -- Two-Pack -- Altering the Governance of the European Social Dimension Since 2010 -- Europe 2020 -- The Euro-Plus Pact -- Social Investment Package (SIP) and Youth Guarantee -- Assessing the Institutional Alterations of the EMU and the European Social Dimension -- Conclusion -- References -- 3: A Framework for Social Investment Strategies: Integrating Generational, Life Course and Gender Perspectives in the EU Social Investment Strategy -- Introduction -- Social Investments from a Generational Perspective -- Social Investments in a Life Course Perspective -- Social Investments from a Gender Perspective -- Concluding Remarks -- References -- 4: 'Pushing Against an Open Door': Reinforcing the Neo-liberal Policy Paradigm in Ireland and the Impact of EU Intrusion -- Introduction -- Policy Paradigm Change, Ideas and Power -- Economic and Social Policy Paradigms in Irish Welfare State Development -- Framing the Economic Crisis: The Influence of the Existing Paradigm -- Constructing and Contesting Austerity.