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Abstract
The open method of co-ordination’s (OMC’s) emphasis on transparency, democratic participation and learning has led to a particular interest in this governance mechanism from the perspective of deliberative democracy. This article analyses the ‘democratic’ dimension of the OMC from a normative and an empirical perspective. We first present relevant theories of deliberative democracy, from which we derive a list of normative criteria, which we then use to explore the democratic quality of the OMC in the areas of employment and pensions. The empirical analysis reveals that there are important differences in the democratic quality of the OMC between these two areas, but that, ultimately, the OMC (as yet) does not live up to its own democratic ambitions.
Notes
For helpful comments on previous drafts of this paper, we would like to thank Jean-Claude Barbier, Kerstin Jacobsson, Stephan Leibfried, David Natali, Martin Rhodes, Philippe Pochet, Stijn Smismans and David Trubek. We thank Lorraine Frisina, Kristina Frels and Saime Özcürümez for help with editing the English text. The usual disclaimer applies.
My research has been supported by a Marie Curie Fellowship of the European Union (contract number MCFI-2001–01348).
The European Commission and the European Economic and Social Committee have been active in developing a normative discourse on the role of civil society organizations in fostering a more participatory and democratic European governance.
De Búrca and Zeitlin (Citation2003) had proposed including explicit requirements for transparency and the broad participation of all relevant actors in all OMC processes in the Constitutional Treaty.
Cohen and Sabel (Citation2003: 346) have defined deliberation as ‘(self-)reflective debate by which participants reason about proposals, and are open to changing their initial preferences – aimed at consensus’. In deliberative fora actors participate through ‘collaborative problem-solving on equal terms’ (Cohen and Sabel Citation2003: 363).
The new ‘ten commandments’ of the EES are: 1. Active and preventive measures for the unemployed and the inactive; 2. Making work pay; 3. Fostering entrepreneurship to create more and better jobs; 4. Transforming undeclared work into regular employment; 5. Promoting active ageing; 6. Promoting adaptability in the labour market; 7. Investment in human capital and strategies for lifelong learning; 8. Gender equality; 9. Supporting integration and combatting discrimination in the labour market for people at a disadvantage; 10. Addressing regional employment disparities (CEC 2003).
While responsiveness is also an important criterion for democratic quality, it is not possible to examine this dimension of governance owing to lack of data. The research required to examine responsiveness of the OMC from the perspective of deliberative democracy would have to rely on participant observation in the committees of the OMC and/or an analysis of the protocols of the meetings of the committees that are not available publicly. Such research would have to reveal the extent to which the concerns of civil society and other actors were actually taken into account in the deliberations of the decision-makers. Parallel to this, the interests and concerns of civil society organizations and other actors would have to be identified. This would require an analysis of documents produced by these actors, as well as interviews with civil society representatives.
Dominique Jadot of the documentation centre of the Observatoire Social Européen has analysed Le Monde (France), La Libre Belgique (Belgium), the Financial Times (United Kingdom) and The Economist (United Kingdom) from the beginning of the pensions OMC–2001.
EAPN is an independent coalition of non-governmental organizations and groups involved in the fight against poverty and social exclusion in the member states of the EU. It is made up of fifteen members representing the national networks (voluntary and grass-roots organizations in the fight against poverty and social exclusion) and three members representing the European organizations.
This organization was set up in 2001, to improve and strengthen co-operation between older people’s organizations at EU level. It is the first and only civil society organization of this type. Its objective is to voice and promote the interests of older people in the EU. Its members are European, national and regional non- profit making organizations. AGE is co-financed by its members and by the European Commission (www.age-platform.org).
They emphasized the right to a decent level of pension, mainly through public pension provision; a guarantee of the indexation of the first pillar of the pensions; the need to ensure a high income replacement rate at retirement; the need to focus on the gender dimension of the pensions strategy; and the need to allow and encourage older people to remain in the workforce for a longer period of time.
The criterion on responsiveness could not be operationalized owing to lack of data.
To guard the OMC in social policy against the tendency to an economic bias or a regulatory ‘race to the bottom’, it had been suggested including fundamental principles, e.g. of social protection, in the Constitutional Treaty (Vandenbroucke Citation2003).
