Abstract
In light of the new modes of governance debate, the open method of coordination (OMC) has renewed the discussions around policy convergence patterns across EU Member States. The OMC is a relatively new (EES 1997), ‘soft’ and intergovernmental policy instrument of EU governance which is based on voluntary cooperation of its Member States (Trubek and Trubek 2005). OMC benchmarking, by now, covers a broad EU policy spectrum – from development to education – and is expected to facilitate the achievement of the overall goals and objectives of the Europe 2020 strategy.
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Notes
- 1.
This chapter draws from a co-authored research memorandum with O. van Vliet ‘Globalisation, European Integration and Social protection – Patterns of Change or Continuity?’, Department of Economics of Research Memorandum 2007.06, Leiden: Leiden University.
- 2.
Lisbon European Council 23 and 24 March 2000, Presidency Conclusions, paragraph 37.
- 3.
Generally, convergence can be understood as a decrease in variation of policies across countries over time. In fact, different aspects of policies can convergence. In general, economists are mainly interested in the convergence of policy outcomes, like unemployment rates, which can be either the results of economic processes or public policies (Unger and Van Waarden 1995). Policy analysts, by contrast, analyse the convergence of policy outputs, which are the policy programs adopted by governments, with which policy makers attempt to influence society and economy (Unger and Van Waarden 1995: p. 10; Holzinger and Knill 2005: p. 776). Welfare state scholars, represented by economists as well as policy analysts, typically focus on convergence of expenditures on welfare state programs, which can be considered as policy inputs (Hill and Hupe 2002: p. 9). However, since social expenditures also give an indication of the generosity of social security systems, others may regard social expenditures as policy outputs.
- 4.
These expenditures include the following nine social policy areas: old-age (i.e. pensions), survivors (i.e. pensions and funeral payments), incapacity-related benefits (i.e. disability benefits), health care, family (i.e. child allowances), active labour market policies (i.e. employment services, labour market training, subsidised employment), unemployment (i.e. unemployment compensation, early retirement for labour market reasons), housing (i.e. housing allowances and rent subsidies), other social policy areas (i.e. social assistance, food subsidies).
- 5.
Convergence effects can be identified and measured by decreasing variation in the relevant indicators (Martin and Simmons 1998: p. 753). In the convergence literature four types of convergence can be distinguished (Heichel, Pape and Sommere 2005: pp. 831–834). The first one, σ-convergence, is the most common type. Studies concerned with this type, analyse the decrease in variation of domestic policies. Because of its indication of ‘growing together’, it is a basic logic for studies measuring the similarity of policies. The second type, β-convergence, refers to situations when laggard countries come up with leader countries. It occurs for example when poor economies grow faster than rich ones. Over the years, several types of β-convergence have been developed and it is typically used by economists to study economic growth rates (Barro and Sala-i-Martin 1992; Sala-i-Martin 1996; Galor 1996). Gamma-convergence occurs if country rankings on the subject of a certain policy change over time, as an indication of the mobility of countries. An interesting dimension is that γ-convergence can occur where other types of convergence do not change at all. It is possible that rankings change while variance does not decrease. According to the concept of δ-convergence, the distance of policies towards an exemplary model, for instance a model encouraged by an international organization, has to decline. Often, σ-convergence and δ-convergence go hand in hand. If policies of countries grow more and more towards the same model, variance between these countries will be reduced. However, it is not necessary that these two convergence types occur simultaneously. When policies advance a model with the same speed, differences between them will not diminish. Because we are interested in the variation of social policies across countries over time, we use σ-convergence.
- 6.
Standard deviation:
$$ \sigma =\sqrt{\tfrac{\sum\limits_{i=1}^{N}{{{\left( y-\mu \right)}^{2}}}}{N}}$$in which y is the level of social expenditures in country i; m is the average level of social expenditures in the selection of countries and N is the number of countries in the selection. Coefficient of variation = s/ m. Because the standard deviation rises with the mean of the data set, it is valuable to use both the standard deviation and the coefficient of variation.
- 7.
In addition, the data do not account for the differences in tax treatment of social benefits across the countries. Furthermore, since the study takes only public social expenditures into account, total social expenditures of some countries with for example mainly private health-care systems might be skewed.
- 8.
The number of people unemployed as a percentage of the labor force.
- 9.
Population aged 65 and above as percentage of the total population.
- 10.
Unfortunately, the ‘new’ Member States are not included because of a lack of data.
- 11.
It should be mentioned that the European non-EU countries Switzerland and Norway may also be influenced by European integration, for example via policy competition.
- 12.
These results also hold for analyses with slightly different periods or a slightly different set of countries.
- 13.
Partial analyses (not displayed here) indicate that the increase in average is mainly influenced by ageing of populations, while the convergence is mainly influenced by the unemployment level.
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Kaeding, M. (2013). Implementing Open Methods of Coordination across Member States. In: Towards an Effective European Single Market. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-531-19684-8_6
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