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SOFT EUROPEANIZATION?: THE INFLUENCE OF THE EUROPEAN EMPLOYMENT STRATEGY IN PROCESSES AND EMPLOYMENT POLICIES IN EU MEMBER STATES
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SOFT EUROPEANIZATION?:
THE INFLUENCE OF THE EUROPEAN EMPLOYMENT
STRATEGY IN PROCESSES AND EMPLOYMENT POLICIES IN
EU MEMBER STATES
(Work in Progress)
Mariely López-Santana
Ph.D. Candidate
Political Science Department
University of Michigan
## email not listed ##
www.umich.edu/~marielyl
Prepared for delivery at the 2004 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association,
September 2 - September 5, 2004. Copyright by the American Political Science Association.
Abstract
The Treaty of Amsterdam formalized the idea of a ‘European Employment Strategy’ (EES), a supranational instrument to boost European employment rates and competitiveness. The European strategy is ruled by the ‘Open Method of Coordination’ (OMC), a new governance regulatory instrument for developing the ‘social dimension’ of the European Union that is not legally binding and is voluntary in nature. This paper proposes a theoretical framework to understand how non-binding measures, specifically the EES, influence policy-making processes and outcomes on member States. To sustain and illustrate my argument, I present data from interviews conducted in Sweden, Spain and Belgium, and from patterns of spending on active and passive labor market policy in fifteen member States. This paper seeks to expand the literature on ‘Europeanization’ of domestic configurations by providing a theoretical framework to analyze how non-binding measures affect policy-making processes in member States. In addition, it makes a contribution to the policy-making literature by trying to comprehend: a) the relationship between ‘soft institutions and instruments’ and the process of policy-making; b) policy settings that do not necessarily require the creation of legislation; and finally c) how exogenous, i.e., non-domestic, inputs affect policy-making processes on domestic settings. The analysis is grounded on the reasoning researchers should open the ‘black box of policy-making’ when understanding the effect of non-binding and non-domestic governance instruments. Keywords: Europeanization; Open Method of Coordination; active labor market policy; employment policy; soft-law; policy-making process; European Union; Spain; Sweden; Belgium.
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For providing financial support, I wish to thank the European Union Institute at the University of Michigan, and the Program for Cultural Cooperation between Spain’s Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports and the United States. I am very much obliged to the Juan March Institute (Spain, Madrid), and El Centro de Estudios Europeos (Tres Cantos, Spain) of which I was a visiting researcher in the Winter of 2003. In addition, I wish to express my thanks to the ‘Stockholm Centre for Organizational Research’ (Stockholm, Sweden), especially to Prof. Kerstin Jacobsson, of which I was a visiting researcher in the Fall of 2003. For meaningful comments, I want to thank Prof. James Carporaso, Prof. Ken Kollman, Prof. Jonathan Zeitlin, Jae Jae Spoon and Alana Hackshaw. Please do not quote without permission from the author. Comments are very much welcomed.
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| | Authors: Lopez-Santana, Mariely. |
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1
SOFT EUROPEANIZATION?:
THE INFLUENCE OF THE EUROPEAN EMPLOYMENT
STRATEGY IN PROCESSES AND EMPLOYMENT POLICIES IN
EU MEMBER STATES
(Work in Progress)
Mariely López-Santana
Ph.D. Candidate
Political Science Department
University of Michigan
## email not listed ##
www.umich.edu/~marielyl
Prepared for delivery at the 2004 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association,
September 2 - September 5, 2004. Copyright by the American Political Science Association.
Abstract
The Treaty of Amsterdam formalized the idea of a ‘European Employment Strategy’ (EES), a supranational
instrument to boost European employment rates and competitiveness. The European strategy is ruled by
the ‘Open Method of Coordination’ (OMC), a new governance regulatory instrument for developing the
‘social dimension’ of the European Union that is not legally binding and is voluntary in nature. This paper
proposes a theoretical framework to understand how non-binding measures, specifically the EES, influence
policy-making processes and outcomes on member States. To sustain and illustrate my argument, I present
data from interviews conducted in Sweden, Spain and Belgium, and from patterns of spending on active
and passive labor market policy in fifteen member States. This paper seeks to expand the literature on
‘Europeanization’ of domestic configurations by providing a theoretical framework to analyze how non-
binding measures affect policy-making processes in member States. In addition, it makes a contribution to
the policy-making literature by trying to comprehend: a) the relationship between ‘soft institutions and
instruments’ and the process of policy-making; b) policy settings that do not necessarily require the
creation of legislation; and finally c) how exogenous, i.e., non-domestic, inputs affect policy-making
processes on domestic settings. The analysis is grounded on the reasoning researchers should open the
‘black box of policy-making’ when understanding the effect of non-binding and non-domestic governance
instruments.
Keywords: Europeanization; Open Method of Coordination; active labor market policy; employment
policy; soft-law; policy-making process; European Union; Spain; Sweden; Belgium.
--------------------------------------
For providing financial support, I wish to thank the European Union Institute at the University of Michigan,
and the Program for Cultural Cooperation between Spain’s Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports and
the United States. I am very much obliged to the Juan March Institute (Spain, Madrid), and El Centro de
Estudios Europeos (Tres Cantos, Spain) of which I was a visiting researcher in the Winter of 2003. In
addition, I wish to express my thanks to the ‘Stockholm Centre for Organizational Research’ (Stockholm,
Sweden), especially to Prof. Kerstin Jacobsson, of which I was a visiting researcher in the Fall of 2003.
For meaningful comments, I want to thank Prof. James Carporaso, Prof. Ken Kollman, Prof. Jonathan
Zeitlin, Jae Jae Spoon and Alana Hackshaw. Please do not quote without permission from the author.
Comments are very much welcomed.
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