This study aims at empirically improving public policy theory by unfolding the concept of policy goals and contributing to their classifications. The research focuses on the thematic dimension of policy goals and investigates 11 Croatian governmental strategies using qualitative content analysis. The research identifies original policy goal types and classifies them into sector-, process-, evaluation-, instrument-, and value-oriented goals. Article concludes with a more comprehensive definition of policy goals, as governmental statements about desired futures in relation to specific sectoral purposes, values, and principles in democratic political systems, policymaking process improvements, necessary instrumental innovations, and evaluation standards that should be fulfilled. The application of this definition and developed goals' classification reveals that elements of policy-process theories, evaluation research, policy design theory and instrument analysis, democracy theory, and sector-specific research need to be synthesized to better understand the concept of policy goals and to advance their research.
Focusing on two key instruments, the Just Transition Fund and the Social Climate Fund, this article assesses to what extent the EU’s pledge for a ‘just transition’ has the potential to foster greater social justice while implementing the European Green Deal. We analyse the related objectives, policy tools and patterns of political conflict and find that both Funds have narrow objectives anchored in a reactive logic complementing existing social investment initiatives with a focus on reskilling the workforce hit by decarbonisation. Both instruments rely on multi-level investment aiming to generate green growth, combined with targeted compensation for the more vulnerable. This, we argue, is not conducive to a just transition that addresses the intersection of environmental and social problems in a holistic way. Finally, various political fault lines pose the threat that EU action will be insufficient to tackle exacerbated inequalities in the future.
The European Semester of socio-economic policy coordination has been criticised for poor capacity to induce national ownership of reforms. Reacting to these pressures, the European Commission intensified bilateral and multilateral efforts to increase the legitimacy of the Semester. European Semester officers (ESOs) were sent to Commission's representations in Member States to reinforce policy dialogue. This paper spells out to what extent and how ESOs contribute to national ownership and throughput legitimacy of the European Semester in Member States. The findings suggest that ESOs are an important domestic link in fostering throughput legitimacy of the European semester by way of establishing dialogue with domestic actors and justifying the reasoning behind Commission's initiatives. Conversely, they succeed less in transmitting stakeholders' policy concerns and suggestions to the Commission. ESOs' domestic engagement could, nonetheless, serve as an entry point for Commission's future efforts in building domestic ownership and hence reducing blame-shifting practices.
This article addresses a gap in the Eurocrisis literature by investigating the role of important socio-economic actors, such as representatives from organised business and labour, as well as parliamentarians in determining governmental preferences on the European Stability Mechanism during the Eurocrisis and in more recent discussions on the future of the European Stability Mechanism. It is argued that the study of the roles of key interest groups, parliaments and public opinion adds important weight to existing studies and frameworks. It speaks particularly of studies which suggest that governments enjoyed important leeway in forming their preferences on the European Stability Mechanism and were driven predominantly by internal technocratic advice and their integration into EU-level structures of bureaucratic cooperation. The findings show that initial governmental preferences were not challenged by important interest groups and that where they were challenged by parliamentary actors, concessions did not affect the original principles of the European Stability Mechanism design.
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