Europeanization through its instrumentation: benchmarking, mainstreaming and the open method of co-ordination … toolbox or Pandora's box?

By I. Bruno, Sophie Jacquot, Lou Mandin. 2006

157 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Understanding Europeanization through its instrumentation raises the issue of the supposed neutrality of policy tools used as soft modes of action. The aim of this article is to assess how this ‘new governance’ tends to guide policy-making on a specific path. Indeed, European construction cannot be restricted to the direct impact of Community law or to the indirect effects of economic integration. A new form of non-constraining co-ordination has been developing since the mid-1990s. In order to explain how the cognitive mechanisms of Europeanization work, we open the ‘toolboxes’ that allow European institutions to have an effect on national representations and practices. The use of benchmarking for building the European Research Area, the elaboration of gender equality policy according to the principle of mainstreaming, and the open method of co-ordination (OMC) in the field of pension reforms, illustrate how such policy instruments lead national governments to meet the competitiveness requirements of the Lisbon strategy.

Subfields: Law, Political Science and International Relations

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e8be581764e00ad6b4fc8ca0f23da9c0b3793514

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Law

1. M. López-Santana
2. C. Radaelli

In Political Science and International Relations

1. Sophie Jacquot
2. M. López-Santana
3. Cornelia Woll
4. S. Borrás
5. C. Radaelli
6. Kevin L. Young
7. Daniel S. Schiff

Citations in the corpus

• The politics of governance architectures: creation, change and effects of the EU Lisbon Strategy (2011, background): “Other studies (Bruno et al. 2006) have dealt with the Strategy tangentially, moving on from the theoretical premises of the Europeanization framework or in the context of the analysis of the so-called Lisbonization of individual policy areas.”
• Did you say reference conditions? Ecological and socio-economic perspectives on the European Water Framework Directive (2015, background): “Isabelle Bruno, who studied equal opportunity policies for men and women and programs for financing pensions, also noted that common definitions were very blurred in those policy fields (Bruno et al., 2006).”
• The domestic implications of European soft law: framing and transmitting change in employment policy (2006, background): “6 For a detailed analysis of the OMC and other ‘new’ soft modes of governance, refer to Bruno et al. (2006).”
• Using Europe: Strategic action in multi-level politics (2010, background): “…of pensions for instance, the OMC has become a resource for the economic and financial actors who sought to modernize the retirement system by developing employment of the elderly, cutting down early retirement options and increasing the privately financed part of pensions (Bruno et al, 2006).”