The Lisbon Strategy’s architecture of governance was modified, formally or informally, various times in the course of its ten years of life. This study dwells on these changes, contributing to the ongoing debate on the future of the Lisbon Strategy and the appropriate architecture of governance for coordinating Eu policies after 2010. The paper is in two main parts; the first reconsiders the governance of the Lisbon Strategy since March 2000, giving a general critical view of the three main phases of its development. The second looks forward, examining an appropriate future architecture of governance for coordinating Eu policies after 2010. The last part assesses the probable outcomes of the ongoing debate on the Lisbon Strategy post-2010, on the basis of the information available at the moment of writing.only subscribers can see the full article

Within the EU there is currently an explicit struggle to articulate and render coherent a range of policies, narratives, definitions and processes for governing migration, and in particular for introducing new governing logics and relationships under the heading of ‘new immigration policy’. The struggle to assert a coherent governance regime in the field of migration involves combining and re-combining different policy narratives, institutional assumptions and relationships within the EU, and between EU and member states. In this article we identify and evaluate the key, often contradictory narratives, mediated among the institutions and broader dynamics of EU policymaking: (human) rights, security, economic needs, and social integration. These discourses interact to construct a new, identifiable policy terrain of European migration governance. only subscribers can see the full article

This article offers a short review of the main tools available to the European Union (Eu) for intervening in social and labour policy. This analysis aims to illustrate the themes that are part of the social dialogue in Europe, the European employment strategy (Ees) and the process for coordinating pensions policy, known as the Open Method of Coordination (Omc). For each of these tools we shall try to evaluate the degree of involvement of the social partners, with particular reference to the trade union movement. Beyond the European rhetoric based on «social partnership», the concrete development of the three processes illustrates a limited involvement of the unions in European governance with the risk of making their influence on the European agenda for social and labour policy marginal. only subscribers can see the full article

This article is an introduction to a first and incomplete assessment of the influence of the Lisbon Strategy on the European social model. This exercise is complex for various reasons: first, because of the complexity of the Strategy; secondly because of the difficulty in identifying a clear definition of the European social model. On the basis of the existing literature and the main indicators proposed by the Strategy itself, we try in each case to suggest some reflections on the (limited) success and the (many) limitations of the Strategy. By this we mean the contents of the Lisbon Agenda and its influence on the modernization of the European social model, and also the development of the southern-European welfare model (further removed from the aims of Lisbon and so subject to greater pressure). We also study the procedural aspects of the Strategy and its capacity to influence participation, the learning process and the institutional capacities of individual member countries. The article ends with a comment on the lights and shadows linked to the implementation of the Strategy and (substantive and procedural) tensions that are still to be resolved. only subscribers can see the full article

The article is based on qualitative and ethnographic research and on interventions of consultation and training in various medium-sized districts in two Italian regions (Emilia-Romagna and Lombardy). The analysis makes use both of categories relating to welfare dynamics and references typical of organizational studies. After introducing matters concerning the application of law 328/2000 and describing the main scenarios concerning two regional architectures, it considers the ongoing dynamics in some local welfare systems, bringing out some of their strongly ambivalent aspects.only subscribers can see the full article

When the mechanisms of workfare enter the academic and political debate about the oft-announced reform of the social shock absorbers, they are often seen as a panacea that can solve the most serious defects of unfairness in the present system. The article that follows seeks to show how, the current legal position is already to a large extent in line with this aim, at least formally. Therefore, any reform clearly needs to fill the gap between the abstract provisions of the regulations and how they are actually applied, but also to intervene to strengthen the governance of the system.only subscribers can see the full article

For long-time observers of EU social and employment policies it is hardly surprising that the concept of flexicurity has gradually become a central concern in EU reform initiatives. The linguistically awkward combination of flexibility and security into flexicurity captures well the essence of European economic policy making since its inception and it is a good example of the distinct character of the European Social Model: a balancing of economic and social interests that understands social and employment policy as an integral part of economic policy and an important factor of production in the European economy. Flexicurity forms part of efforts to introduce new modes of governance and a greater reliance on soft law instruments in European policy making. It will be argued in the following that we increasingly witness elements of reflexivity in these supranational efforts of policy making. The central thesis of the paper is that in order for soft forms of governance to be effective, European law and policy must become reflexive. In the areas of European social and employment policies, flexicurity and the debate over a European Social Model play an important role in this process.only subscribers can see the full article

This article examines the changes in the welfare systems of eight European countries, considering the (implicit and explicit) processes of the territorial reorganisation of welfare policies as a valuable observation point. These processes have involved new territorial configurations and public and private agents in organising and financing various welfare policies. The vertical and horizontal analysis of these changes brings out a notable interaction between these two dimensions that leads to coherent, but specific, outcomes. Indeed, the convergence of trends of rescaling and governance leads to outcomes linked to the characteristics of the national and local welfare models that adapt changes to local conditions.only subscribers can see the full article

This article analyses the changes in the regulations and institutions of the social policies system following the economic crisis through the case study of the region of the Marches, and starts from the theory that less structured institutional contexts are feeling the economic crisis more markedly and their choices tend to break with the general trend of the last ten years. The change of institutional paradigm taking place in the Marches suggests a series of reflections of national significance on the potentiality and limitations of local governance and organization as encouraged by law 328/2000, bringing out some of the main limitations and potentiality in the processes of institutional learning at local level.only subscribers can see the full article

The building of informational bases of judgment must be considered as a key issue for research on deliberative democracy. Usually, research on that issue focuses on the optimal rules that could achieve fair intercommunication between participants. But such focus neglects that who chooses the knowledge basis, which has to be taken as relevant, is in a position for predefining the kinds of outcomes of the deliberative process. This is precisely what can be observed in governance mechanisms like the European method of coordination. How to democratically build a knowledge basis, both fair and efficient, to assess capabilities? And how to place capabilities at the core of public policies? Such an undertaking implies the active participation of people to knowledge building, through processes of deliberative inquiry, able to transform their practical experience into general knowledge relevant for fair collective choices. The contribution explores what legitimate claims people can formulate with regards to knowledge building and what rules, possibly, such processes could follow. only subscribers can see the full article