Lisbon Agenda Research Articles

Governing in the shadow of Bologna: return of the state in higher education quality assurance policy

The Bologna process emerged as a voluntary network of higher education systems, but within a few years it has gradually transformed into a new form of governance closely linked to the EU. This implies the return of executive power, though by using new tools and arenas. The article aims to analyse to which extent this shift in governing in the Bologna process is evident in higher education of Estonia. The analysis revealed similar developments in higher education quality assurance at both European and domestic levels, characterised by strengthening of executive agencies which govern by data and quality standards. Semi-structured interviews demonstrated that executive actors are better adjusted to the new situation of governance compared to legislative actors. While members of parliament and interest group representatives commonly failed to distinguish between the Bologna process and the EU Lisbon agenda, executive actors efficiently used the European agenda to advance domestic quality assurance reforms. Moreover, in contrast with parliamentary representatives, civil servants understood the need to reconfigure existing policy networks that may eventually further strengthen the position of executives in higher education policy.

Facing the Gender Gap in Aging: Italian Women’s Pension in the European Context

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the phenomenon of increasing gender inequalities that happen at old age regarding women’s pension. Moving from recent life-course theories and studies, this study analyzes the reasons behind gender-biased pension levels and how their cumulative effects result in (continuous) significant gender gaps. The article presents a European overview of pension gender gap, focusing on family and work-life issues in Italy. This is one of the first critical reviews of the small but growing literature and national data concerning the effect of gender inequalities related to pension gaps in Italy. In the past, research on the balance of welfare provision between State, family, and market has ignored gender, while more recent studies have barely explored how gender roles, changing over time, interact with the shifts in pension policies. Considering the effects of work-life balance policies since the 2000 Lisbon agenda process and its development, the study especially focuses on the Italian case within the European context. The article examines how the choices in work-life balance policies vary between different national contexts and welfare regimes, by highlighting the Italian case. In this country, welfare and social policy regimes remain very unbalanced, showing a lack of awareness of family and women’s needs, as in many Southern countries, and Italy is not able to give appropriate answers to these problems and to the question of the growing gender gap. This article finally shows the poignancy of structural and cultural reasons for gender differentiated pension levels in Italy, within the European context, according to patterns of employment, marital, and maternal status between earlier and later generations of women.

Socio-economic challenges to work-life balance at times of crisis

It is now well established that work life balance should not only be regarded as a fundamental employment right, but also as an important element for the achievement of other EU policies and is key to promote women’s activation in the labour market. For this purpose, European institutions (namely the Commission and the European Parliament) set about implanting a set of policies and legislative measures between the late 1990s and 2008. The onset of the sovereign debt crisis in 2008 and the associated austerity measures have posed a serious challenged to realisation of the Lisbon Agenda to establish a comprehensive framework for the reconciliation of work and family life. Crisis has provided an opportunity for ideologically driven cuts aimed at retrenching the Europe social model. The debates at the national and European level seemingly ignored the gendered nature of this policy shift, thus reasserting the centrality of hegemonic gender norms across Europe. This article seeks to assess the extent of the impact of the recession and of the austerity measure that were introduced as a mean to address the challenges of economic crisis on work life balance policies.

Has “Discretionary Learning” declined during the Lisbon Agenda? A cross-sectional and longitudinal study of work organization in European nations

This article explores changes in the organization of work in European nations over 2000–2010. Results show a decline in the Discretionary Learning (DL). Periods of economic expansion tend to be DL enhancing, while periods of economic stagnation tend to reinforce the use of more hierarchical forms of work organization. More generally, the results show that cross-country comparisons do not provide a sound basis for drawing conclusions about how the evolution of national labor market policies impact on changes in work organization over time within nations

Intellectual Capital – The Key for Sustainable Competitive Advantage for the SME's Sector

Abstract With the adoption of the Lisbon Agenda and its major objective, namely that the EU would become the most dynamic and competitive knowledge based economy in the world, it became clear the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME's) are the especially affected by these plans, because they represent the driving force for the European economy. In this context of creating and maintaining a competitive advantage for the SME's, it is crucial for them to make good use of the intellectual capital of their employees, in an efficient and proficient manner, in order to increase their potential for innovation. The aim of this article is to show, through an original argumentation, based on the analysis of specialized literature, the important role that intellectual capital plays in the sector of SME's in order to obtain a real and sustainable competitive advantage.

Future research on European Union Cohesion Policy: a Master Class during the OPEN DAYS 2014

In this paper we discuss EU Cohesion Policy, its development over time and prospects for future research. Since the introduction of the EU Cohesion Policy in 1988, its focus has transformed from overcoming regional disparities by developing disadvantaged regions towards economic investment. When Cohesion Policy was subordinated to the Lisbon agenda and subsequently to the Europe 2020 strategy, competitiveness, employment and growth became its primary targets. For 2014–20, a significant share of the €351.8 billion allocated to Cohesion Policy is being ring-fenced to target particular categories of investment in jobs and growth such as research and innovation, small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) competitiveness, the low carbon economy and social inclusion. In the following, we outline five fields that require rethinking and further research.

The Portuguese Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) policy agenda – examining a volatile panacea by means of ethno-phenomenological interpretations

This article discusses some results of a qualitative policy research study whose principal aims were: i) to analyse how sustainable the top-down decisions made on recognition of prior learning (RPL) policies and processes are; ii) to underline some of the local achievements of Portugal’s new public policies on adult experiential learning, in operation since the Lisbon Agenda. The analytical policy models proposed by Lima and Guimaraes (2011) were used for studying the various educational rationales involved. An ethno-phenomenological approach has been bringing to the fore the perceptions of educational actors, as: i) the weakness of the adult education public offer provision; ii) the vulnerable status of professionals working in the national scene. And a major strength of the experiential approach to learning: it’s potential to create opportunities for applying skills to new situations that can be related to education for a sustainable future, as UNESCO urges.

Government policy failure in public support for research and development

Promoting Research and Development (R&D) and innovative activity is a key element of the EU Lisbon Agenda and is seen as playing a central part in stimulating economic development. In this paper we argue that, even allowing for benevolent policy-makers, informational asymmetries can lead to a misallocation of public support for R&D, hence government policy failure, with the potential to exacerbate preexisting market failures. Initially, we explore alternative allocation mechanisms for public support, which can help to minimize the scale of these government policy failures. Of these mechanisms (grants, tax credits, or allocation rules based on past performance), our results suggest that none is universally most efficient. Rather, the effectiveness of each allocation rule depends on the severity of financial constraints and on the level of innovative capabilities of the firms themselves.

Has Discretionary Learningg Declined During the Lisbon Agenda? A Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Study of Work Organisation in European Nations

Has Discretionary Learningg Declined During the Lisbon Agenda? A Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Study of Work Organisation in European Nations

The European Social Model after the crisis: the end of a functionalist fantasy?

What is the European Social Model (ESM) for? This paper argues that it is best seen as an ideal type that facilitates the selection of values that sustains the political economy of the European Union. The ESM has facilitated integration in response to changing systemic requirements in the EU: to compensate for Economic and Monetary Union, to coordinate responses to globalisation under the Lisbon Agenda and to offer solace within the EU 2020 agenda after the sovereign debt crisis. As the systemic demands of the EU have changed, the ESM has not. It now has damaging effects on society which have harmed the political integration of the EU. In conclusion, it is argued that the ESM was a missed opportunity, and that while it remains an ideal type rather than a reality, it needs to present a more ambitious political agenda that would reconfirm the EU's commitment to its society over its markets.

Words into deeds: the use of framing strategy in EU higher education policy

This article offers an analysis of the framing strategy of EU policymakers within the framework of the open method of coordination (OMC). It argues that the institutional embeddedness of agents has an impact on the way policy ideas are framed and maintained over time. The study interprets a multi-method, qualitative research project that analyzes the evolution of European Union higher education policy from 2000 to 2011, a period in which the introduction of the OMC brought about drastic changes, making higher education, once a highly contested policy field, a cornerstone of the Lisbon Agenda. By combining framing theoretical insights with neo-institutional theory, we show that the framing strategy adopted by policy agents in the European Commission operates in two ways: first, the strategic adoption of frames increases the visibility of the higher education agenda at the European level and second, it serves as a means to take action in politically opportune circumstances, thereby paving the way for the development and implementation of new programs.

Social Innovation: a Novel Policy Stream or a Policy Compromise? An EU Perspective

Spurred by the recent global economic crisis, Social Innovation (SI) has gained increasing attention in the European Commission (EC) agenda. However, it remains a heterogeneous and ill-defined concept, whose boundaries are unclear. Currently, within EC discussions, it encapsulates a variety of concepts from social enterprises to societal change. Adopting an ethnographic methodology, this analysis provides insight into the contrasting official ‘front-stage’ and ‘back-stage’ views, constraints and practices by which SI has been adopted and promoted by the EC. While the ‘front-stage’ perspective is more intentionally based on the official situations, documents, and statements, the ‘back-stage’ is informed by both the ethnographic analysis and its relationship with the ‘front-stage’ perspective. The main finding of the analysis is that SI might presumably be seen as the only way to align the Commission's conservative-liberal policy, which is rooted in the Lisbon Agenda, with the pressing social demands that stem from the 2008 financial crisis. However, this analysis also indicates that, rather than a novel policy stream, SI can also be seen as a policy compromise that can be used to detract from debates around the need to develop a fully-fledged EU Social Policy; more deeply, it can detract the policy debate from facing a thorough reflection on our society and development model. The analysis here will also provide an overview of the risks associated with current thinking viewed from the perspective of EU players operating in the socio-political domain.

Lisbonizing versus Financializing Europe? The Lisbon Agenda and the (un)Making of the European Knowledge-Based Economy

The Lisbon Agenda was meant to make the European Union ‘the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy (KBE) in the world’ by 2010. As that date has now come and gone, it is apt to ask whether the Lisbon Agenda achieved its objective. We engage with this very question by analyzing new empirical material on the supposed transition to a KBE. Theoretically, we problematize the very notion that EU policies promoted the emergence of a KBE by highlighting how the Lisbon Agenda was tied to the financialization of the European economy. Our findings illustrate the abject failure of the EU's decade-long strategy to foster a new economy and better employment opportunities. We show that the main winners of the EU's economic strategy have been the finance sector and those who work in it. In summary, we argue that, despite the earlier assurances of Bell and Drucker, it is not the scientist or engineer but the banker who has been empowered to command a higher price in the new world of the KBE.

Towards a social investment welfare state? Ideas, policies and challenges. Edited by Nathalie MOREL, Bruno PALIER and Joakim PALME

Towards a welfare state? Ideas, policies and challenges. Edited by Nathalie MOREL, Bruno PALIER and Joakim PALME. Bristol, Policy Press, 2012. xiv + 386 pp. ISBN 978-1-84742-924-7.Europe's dubious recovery from the global recession continues to be threatened by sovereign default because of the financial sector bailouts that aggravated existing public deficits and debts in a number of countries. So the order of the day still seems to be austerity, - to contain or cut public expenditure and shrink the role of the State in the economy. Yet this appears to ignore the positive role that the welfare state initially played in mitigating the impact of the global crisis with its automatic stabilizers (income replacement and transfers). This change of policy has been prompted by pressure of the financial markets, relayed to varying degrees by the international financial institutions (World Bank, IMF, European Central Bank), the OECD and the European Commission, despite the fact that their strategies for employment promotion and for competitive, innovative and inclusive economy and society have produced disappointing results. As the recessionary climate continues into 2013, the austerity measures and related cures are increasingly challenged by academics and stakeholders aspiring to a more socially responsible macroeconomic approach.As early as 2009,18 academics from different European countries, the United States and Canada examined possible alternatives for a viable social Europe, focusing on a strategy, with the ambition of modernizing the welfare state to better address new risks and needs, securing the financial and political sustainability of the welfare state, and sustaining the emerging knowledge-based economy. Central to this approach is an attempt to reconcile and economic goals, balancing economic efficiency with justice. It implies redefinition of a set of guiding principles for reforming the State, the education system, the labour market and protection systems.This book is the outcome of that project, launched in 2009 by the Stockholmbased Institute for Futures Studies with a series of conferences and seminars aiming to follow up the EU Commission's Lisbon Agenda 2000, while avoiding the implementation shortcomings in its successor strategy Europe 2020. The long-advocated social investment approach was considered to offer a possible basis for a new economic model more conducive to political mobilization.The ambitious exercise of clarifying this concept's meanings, ambitions, shortcomings and potential opens with a retrospective description of the perspective from the post-1945 emergence of the welfare state (Introduction and Chapters 2 and 3). Despite claims that the welfare state had run its course by the end of the twentieth century, the first decade of the new century saw it pursuing a reform process initiated in the late 1990s under the impetus of contributions by the OECD, Anthony Giddens, G0sta Esping-Andersen, Maria Rodrigues and others with the aim of redefining its principles, goals and institutions to adapt it to the new socio-economic context of the post-industrial era. With the aim of preparing rather than repairing, the underlying policy logic differs from the one that underpinned the post-1945 economy in that it seeks to sustain the knowledge-based economy's reliance on a skilled and flexible labour force, while covering the new needs and risks to which the population is exposed by means of a broad safety net combined with in lifelong education and training, efficient use of people's skills and qualifications, adequate labour regulation, and protection policies that enable people to access, and progress in, the labour market. In this approach, policies are considered as a productive factor that is essential to economic and employment growth, rather than a cost that hinders such growth, as they tend to be seen in the neoliberal view. …

Dropout prevention measures in the Netherlands, an explorative evaluation

In line with the Lisbon Agenda, set by the European Council in the year 2000, European governments formulated ambitious plans to halve the level of early school-leavers by 2012. This paper outlines the dropout prevention measures in the Netherlands and analyzes their influence at both the individual and school level. While most policy measures correlate negatively with the individual dropout decision, only “mentoring and coaching” (i.e., matching of students with a coach from public or private organizations), “optimal track or profession” (e.g., work placement) and “dual track” (i.e., re-entering education for dropout students) have a significant negative impact on the individual dropout decision. By means of quantile regressions, we observe that schools with a relatively high dropout rate benefit the most from dropout prevention measures.

The Lisbon Agenda and Innovation-oriented Cohesion Policy: A New Challenge for Economic Integration among the EU Regions

The EU’s cohesion policy should now be confluent with the goals of the Lisbon strategy by promoting growth and employment. In this context the promotion of regional innovation systems has become important in the EU for guaranteeing long-term regional economic growth. This paper investigates the major determinants of varying degrees of innovation promotion from one region to another provided in the context of the EU’s regional support program for the periods 2000~2006 and 2007~2013. While the new innovation-oriented policy appears to be incompatible with the goal of economic convergence among European regions, our research findings further question the consistency between the cohesion policy’s objectives and its practice.

Next steps in Europe's digital agenda

The 2005 European Commission review of the ICT sector concluded in late 2009 and was transposed into national legislation by all Member States by 25 May 2011, including the 12 countries that joined the EU since 2004. The Internet and mobile sectors had continued their rapid growth over this period so that by late 2000s the ICT sector was seen as a major driving force in the European economy. Whereas the First wave of liberalization reforms focused on the telecom sector, and the second on the converged ICT sector, the current wave is on telecom/ICT driving economic growth via applications to improve efficiency, productivity and employment throughout the EU economy and society. The original objective remains the liberalization of access to national markets so as to obtain a competitive European common market in telecom network provision and services as a platform for ICT products and services that will be applied across the European economy and beyond. It attempts to put into action key building blocks for the Lisbon Agenda objective to make the EU the “most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion” (Lisbon 2000). The review of the EU telecom policy framework acknowledges that although competition has grown in some markets and countries, it had not done so in many others and the European market is still largely fragmented, with few operators offering services across several Member States. It concludes, as did past reviews, that, “the revised rules would focus regulation on those market sectors where competition is still lacking, and develop stronger EU-level regulation to foster the development of the internal market.” (EU 2009). The revised EU regulatory framework covers all forms of fixed and wireless telecom, data transmission and broadcasting. The new policy framework provides a laundry list of focus areas that includes, “Giving consumers more choice by reinforcing competition between telecoms operators.” But surprisingly there is no mention of any new liberalization initiatives or indication of how competition among telecom operators will be expanded, or how liberalizationwill enhance policy objectives in any of its other focus areas. (Melody 2012). Apparently competition, although still in the general rhetoric of EU policy, is no longer seen as a key element for successful implementation of these programs. Significant further steps focused on the implementation of effective competition were not forthcoming. It is of course possible that increased opportunities for competition could be enhanced by successful implementation of some of these new programs, but barriers to competition could also be created. The important change in policy priorities is that liberalized market initiatives and enhanced competition are not seen as essential elements in the implementation of the new policy framework intended to progress the movement toward common European markets in telecom-based services.

Ciudadanía y participación en el espacio electrónico europeo

The Lisbon Agenda and e-Europe 2002 and 2005 plans aimed to promote the European information and knowledge society. Although public participation was not a priority in the first phase, since 2005, the EU has shifted its strategy, promoting the creation of the Single European Information Space and fostering citizens’ electronic participation, making it sometimes depend on e-inclusion, sometimes on governance. The i2010 program was a step towards the use of the European electronic space for citizen participation. The recent Digital Agenda for Europe, however, does not seem to prioritize e-participation, although it maintains plans for the e-inclusion and e-government.

Ciudadanía digital y sociedad de la información en la Unión Europea. Un análisis crítico

La noción de Sociedad del Conocimiento define, en nuestro tiempo, un nuevo marco lógico de mediación social que incide directamente en el proceso general de desarrollo. Desde hace una década, la Unión Europea (UE) viene proponiendo, por ello, impulsar a escala local nuevas formas de gobernanza basadas en las nuevas tecnologías de la información. En el presente artículo, se analizan algunas experiencias comunitarias y se discute la visión estratégica de la Agenda de Lisboa, a fin de explorar los límites que, hoy por hoy, determinan los procesos de apropiación social de las nuevas tecnologías, así como el discurso público sobre eGobierno implementado por la Comisión Europea a partir de los resultados obtenidos en el último lustro.

Mental Models and the Europe 2020 Strategy: Neo-schumpetarian Ideas in Innovation and Education

This article asks how ideas have mattered for the establishment of policy goals for the Europe 2020 Strategy. I argue that despite the specification of new environmental and social targets, the overall policy goals of Europe 2020 remain consistent with the 2000 Lisbon Agenda because the European Council and the European Commission have had resilient causal beliefs about the challenges of globalization, as well as the appropriate responses to these challenges. Using Alan Jacobs's theory of mental models and attention heuristics, this article describes the connection between neo-schumpetarian ideas and the policy outcomes of Europe 2020, particularly in the domains of innovation and education policy. Establishing this connection is an essential first step to explain precisely how ideas can determine and maintain the policy preferences of particular EU actors, a direction for future research.
 
 Full text available at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v7i2.217