Public Parliamentary Activities and Open Methods of Coordination

Abstract

This study investigates how members of parliament (MPs) of opposition parties in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands go public with information on the performance of national policies from six open methods of coordination (OMCs), and to what extent country differences in the set-up of parliamentary systems matter in this context. The empirical findings indicate that Dutch MPs use more information from OMC reports to shame the incumbent government than do British MPs. In both parliaments these shaming activities take place primarily in committee meetings and have no link with newspaper coverage on OMCs. Activities of MPs aimed at going public with information from OMC reports established only a weak link between OMCs and the citizens in European Union member states.