The Effectiveness of Soft Governance in the Field of European Anti-poverty Policy: Operationalization and Empirical Evidence

Abstract

While the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) literature has been a true growth industry in recent years, very little has been undertaken to develop variables which could be used in empirical research in order to evaluate the effectiveness and the legitimacy of the OMC in different policy fields. It is argued here that: 1) research about the OMC should involve both effectiveness and legitimacy; 2) both effectiveness and legitimacy need to be researched at EU and member state level as the interaction of these two levels is crucial in the case of soft governance modes and as the degree of institutionalization at EU level affects domestic implementation; and 3) that the influence of the OMC should be assessed much more carefully and cautiously. Second, variables for empirical research of social OMCs are developed before applying them to the case of the OMC inclusion in France and Germany. The final section discusses why this OMC scored poorly in its first years of existence. To be able to provide such an explanation is the merit of variable-based empirical research.