Sophie Jacquot

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

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.

Introduction: The Usages of Europe in National Employment- friendly Welfare State Reforms

What is the use of EU policy? Does European integration influence national social policies? This book focuses on the relationship between European integration and its effects on national institutional and political settings. The most recent literature has shown that the EU is an important variable by which to understand recent welfare state changes, but it remains relatively unclear precisely how Europe matters. Our project is aimed explicitly at exploring and specifying what the political mechanisms are through which the EU plays a role in domestic social policy changes.

DOMESTIC RECONCILIATION POLICIES AND THE USAGES OF EUROPE

In recent years, European institutions have promoted the development of reconciliation policies in an overall context where most European countries are saying ‘farewell to maternalism’ (Orloff 2006) and are now implementing policies aimed at helping individuals (especially women) to combine paid work and family responsibilities. Is it possible to consider that these changes in national reconciliation policies have been due to EU actions in this policy field and, if so, what are the mechanisms of possible EU influence? In section one, we review the Europeanisation literature in order to situate our own perspective. In the second section, we present our approach in terms of ‘national usages of Europe’. In section three, we come back to the policy content to be analysed, presenting the EU definitions of reconciliation policies, and reviewing the tools we have used to situate each national case of care regimes and reconciliation policies. In the fourth section, we introduce our common hypotheses and the analytical framework that is used in all the articles of this special issue. Finally, in section five, we summarise our main findings.

Law as weapon of the weak? A comparative analysis of legal mobilization by Roma and women's groups at the European level

ABSTRACT This article is interested with the legal mobilization of transnational interest groups at the European level (European Union and Council of Europe). It compares the legal and political lobbying strategies of two umbrella organizations – the European Womens Lobby (EWL) and the European Roma and Travellers Forum (ERTF), which seek respectively to promote the rights of women and those of Roma – focusing on their interactions with European institutions and law. The article analyses the contrasted relationship of these groups to legal mobilization as a rights advancement strategy, shedding new light on how law can be strategically used by both strong and weak civil society actors. Beyond classical factors linked to organizational characteristics and identity, the differential usages of law by the two groups are explained by the role of strategic actors who adapt to the specificities of the system of governance in the two policy sectors – gender equality and anti-discrimination.

A Means to a Changing End. European Resources: The EU and the Reconciliation of Paid Work and Private Life

European resources related to reconciliation policies have been incrementally developed and transformed. Three main phases of this process can be distinguished in the progressive institutionalisation and evolution of this field of action at the EU level. At first, the reconciliation issue appeared on the European agenda as a spillover interpretation of ‘equal treatment’. It then acquired greater autonomy, becoming an equal opportunity policy, leading to the development of various (legal, financial, cognitive and political) instruments around the objectives of improving work/family balance and the division of labour between women and men. Finally, this field has been converted into an economic employment policy field aimed at modernising welfare systems and guaranteeing budgetary sustainability through increases in fertility rates and, most importantly, female employment rates. However, this has come at the expense of the initial gender equality goals. The conclusion underlines the diverse and evolving meanings of the ‘reconciliation’ issue and its orientation. This diversity in meanings and orientations allows greater room for manoeuvre at the domestic level and even more diverse patterns of national usages of Europe, as is shown in the rest of this special issue.

L'égalité au nom du marché ?

L’Union europeenne est consideree comme un des systemes politiques les plus progressistes du monde en ce qui concerne la promotion de l’egalite entre les femmes et les hommes. La politique europeenne visant a lutter contre les inegalites de genre est souvent consideree comme « exceptionnelle ». Pendant pres de quatre decennies, l’Union europeenne a impose aux Etats membres un ensemble de normes et de valeurs plus elevees que celles qui ont cours dans la plupart des pays et offert un environnement particulierement accueillant aux mobilisations feministes. Cependant, depuis la fin des annees 2000, l’Union et ses Etats membres font face a une grave et durable crise economique et budgetaire. Dans ce nouveau contexte, le regime de genre de l’Union europeenne est-il toujours un des plus avances du monde ? Le systeme politique europeen offre-t-il encore un espace privilegie pour mener une politique ambitieuse de promotion de l’egalite entre les femmes et les hommes ? Base sur une enquete de plus de dix ans, cet ouvrage presente une lecture des transformations de la politique europeenne d’egalite entre les femmes et les hommes sur le long-terme, analyse les mecanismes de construction, de consolidation puis de deconstruction de l’« exceptionnalite » de l’action europeenne dans ce domaine et s’interroge sur les effets de son demantelement en cours.

Boasting the National Model: The EU and Welfare State Reforms in France

French elites have an ambiguous and contradictory relationship to Europe, especially in the social domain: on the one hand, they claim to inspire European integration developments, but, on the other hand, they tend to deny the influence of such developments on the national reform processes. This chapter aims to analyse this intriguing situation and its consequences in the context of the process of Europeanization of French social policies.

Social Europe in Action: The Evolution of EU Policies and Resources

The question common to the various chapters of this book is whether and how the European Union (EU) has contributed to employment-friendly welfare reforms. In order to investigate the mechanisms which cause the various EU initiatives to matter at the national level, we have chosen to concentrate on the national ‘usages of Europe’ (see Graziano, Jacquot and Palier, introduction to this volume; and for a general presentation of this analytical approach see Woll and Jacquot, 2010). From this perspective, analysing the way EU resources are used at the national level first requires analysing what kind of resources the EU can provide national actors with.

Conclusion: Europa, Europae: The Many Faces of Social Europe

The chapters presented in this volume have tried to answer to some overarching, basic research questions. How does Europe matter in domestic welfare state reforms? What is the degree of change in the recent evolution of domestic welfare state policies? Which European resources have been used by domestic institutional and social actors in order to support domestic reform processes? Which actors have been using Europe and how?

The ‘Governance Turn’ Revisited

Since the mid 1990s, European governance has evolved substantially, particularly in the direction of fewer constraints: flexibility, coordination, peer monitoring, and soft law have become fashionable themes. The literature on ‘new modes of governance’ (or NMGs) has flourished alongside these transformations.1 Some authors have referred to a ‘governance turn’ in European studies (Kohler-Koch and Rittberger 2006). The analysis of the nature, significance and impact of this ‘new’ governance has indeed created a scholarly movement in its own right (with its ‘stars’, a specific language, quasi-specialised reviews, a multiplication of large-scale research programs, etc.). NMGs are defined, more or less implicitly, in opposition to the Community method. Despite occasional doubts regarding their legitimacy (Georgakakis and de la Salle 2007) or their effectiveness (Idema and Kelemen 2006), they tend to be viewed as increasingly important in EU policy-making.