Social Rights and Market Forces: Is the open coordination of employment and social policies the future of Social Europe?

This collection of essays examines the development of new modes of governance in the European Union, asking whether - and under which conditions - these new modes of governance offer a way out of the dilemmas which have plagued debates on ‘Social Europe’ since the very creation of the European Economic Community, and whether they may inspire developments in other fields. We focus in particular on the open method of coordination, both as an element of the European Employment Strategy and as a tool in the social policy. The open method of coordination is one of a number of new governance mechanisms which seek to foster mutual learning between the Member States and to limit the phenomenon of competitive deregulation in the internal market, while at the same time respecting the diversity of national practices and the existing division of powers between the European Community and the Member States. We sought to confront the practice of the open method of coordination with a number of different approaches to collective action proposed within the current debate on modes of governance. Our hypothesis was that the notion of ‘reflexive governance’ might serve to identify existing limitations of the current model under which the open method of coordination functions, and to help us come up with possible solutions for overcoming these limitations, especially as the open method of coordination may expand to other policy areas.