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Abstract
The Treaty of Amsterdam launched the European Employment Strategy, a supranational non-binding instrument to boost employment rates and competitiveness. The open method of coordination, a new governance regulatory instrument, rules this common strategy. The article argues that the ‘framing effect’ of soft law is significant to policy-making across states, especially in the case of policy formulation. The analysis is grounded in the argument that to understand the effect of ‘foreign’ non-binding governance instruments researchers studying these types of governance instruments should unpack the ‘black box of policy-making’ and focus on process. Specifically, the article contributes to the literature on Europeanization by studying an instance of ‘soft Europeanization.’ To sustain and illustrate my argument, I present data from interviews conducted in the European Union, in Sweden, Spain, and Belgium at the national and subnational levels.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank James Caporaso and Joerg Wittenbrinck for excellent comments on previous drafts. For providing financial support, I wish to thank the Program for Cultural Cooperation between Spain's Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports and the United States, and the European Union Center at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. I am very much obliged to the Juan March Institute and the Stockholm Centre for Organizational Research where I was a visiting researcher.
Notes
1. The goal of this project becomes even more relevant if we accept Goldstein et al.'s Citation(2000) argument about a rising worldwide movement towards legalization and an increase in the regulation of important actors' behavior by international organizations. For a detailed analysis of soft law, refer to Abbott and Snidal Citation(2000), Mörth Citation(2004), and Shelton Citation(2000).
2. In the EU, I interviewed people working in the European Commission and in the European Structural Fund, as well as the people working with the three main EU social partners.
3. Given that most of the interviewees were elites and high-ranking policy-makers, it was agreed not to disclose names or identities.
4. For example, Vifell (Citation2004: 8) argues: ‘at the time when the co-ordination was initiated, Sweden was one of the most active member states in developing and promoting the EES.’
5. For an account of how the European monetary union affects the macroeconomic foundations of the European Social Model, refer to Martin and Ross Citation(2004).
6. For a detailed analysis of the OMC and other ‘new’ soft modes of governance, refer to Bruno et al. Citation(2006).
7. When I refer to the government, I am primarily talking about the national ministries involved in the process, because they are the main ‘players’ in the EES process.
8. The goal of this analysis is to illustrate the trends discerned from the interviews by showing aggregate descriptive figures. Yet some points should be clarified. First, the interviews conducted in the EU were not included in this analysis because these policy-makers do not participate in the domestic implementation of the EES. Second, I coded as ‘problem definition’ the statements that referred to the EES affecting policy-makers' understanding of a problem, and/or raising awareness of problems, and/or providing a framework to understand the problems. I did not test these data for statistical significance because this is a small non-random sample. The samples were chosen similarly across sites, as I mainly conducted interviews with experts and elites.
9. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has also promoted the idea of the active welfare state. Most of the interviewees recognized the existence of these international policies; yet they believed that the EU had a major role in the promotion of active labor market policy. These differences are partially explained by the fact that the EES is a treaty-based and political process, while OECD processes are mainly of an administrative nature. For a detailed discussion of these issues, refer to Noaksson and Jacobsson Citation(2003).
10. The EU utilizes both hard and soft law to promote and regulate gender equality; refer to Fuhrmann Citation(2004).
11. On this point, also refer to Pochet and Plaaschaert Citation(2003/2004).
12. For a thorough discussion of the influence of the EES on intra-governmental relations, refer to López-Santana Citation(2005).
13. Haas (Citation1990: 194) defines learning as the process by which an organization questions basic beliefs in a way that the results affect the content of public policy. Moreover, the objective of learning is to promote the welfare of an organization and its ability to survive and prosper.
14. Lesson-drawing implies that decision-makers voluntarily draw and transfer lessons (negative and positive) from and to other countries. The availability of lessons is relevant when making policy because the chances of a problem regressing into condition status diminish when there are solutions available (Kingdon Citation1984).
15. I define practical compliance (vis-à-vis legal compliance) as an acceptance of policy frameworks that leads to changes in the standards of procedure used by policy-makers. Practical compliance could be more effective than legal compliance given that in many instances law remains on paper and does not have any effect on the behavior of policy-makers.
16. For example, the Commission proposed that each member state should appoint a ‘Mr. or Ms. Lisbon’ (Barroso Citation2005).