Deliberative Governance and EU Social Policy

Abstract

This article argues that EU social policy has weakened the long established bond between economic citizenship and the nation-state yet is unable to establish a fully-formed European replacement model. Part of the explanation lies within the unstable institutional design of EU social policy. At first a fairly pragmatic style of policy-making was used in response to this problem, but over time a new institutional architecture has evolved which is called deliberative governance. While the author welcomes this development, he is cautious whether or not it will produce greater organizational coherence for economic citizenship in the EU.