Europe 2020 and the Fight against Poverty – Beyond Competence Clash, Towards ‘Hybrid’ Governance Solutions?

Abstract

The supranational strategy ‘Europe 2020’ came along with two main innovations for social policy coordination in the EU: a quantified poverty reduction target and a new governance framework – the ‘European Semester’. Aiming to assess the effectiveness of the novel strategy in prompting the emergence of a European(‐ized) anti‐poverty arena – thus inherently multilevel and multi‐stakeholder, as well as integrated (across policy sectors) – the article first presents the strategy evolution at the supranational level in 2011–14. Then it analyzes its implementation in five member states – Germany, Italy, Poland, Sweden and the UK – through the first four annual cycles. By directing the analytical focus on processes – rather than outcomes – in order to capture the domestic changes produced by the Europe 2020 anti‐poverty strategy, the article argues that the latter marked significant discontinuity with the Social Inclusion Open Method of Coordination. The new strategy increased the political salience of the poverty issue both at the supranational level and in the selected member states, while leading to a ‘competence clash’ between national governments and the EU in Germany, Sweden and the UK. The emergence of such main tension substantially constrained the Europe 2020 potential in these three countries. Differently, in Italy and Poland, the implementation was smoother and the effects along the participation and integration dimensions were more evident. We contend that national policy legacies, the relevance of EU social funds, as well as partisan preferences, help to explain the differential effects of Europe 2020. The article concludes by suggesting that recent decisions at the EU level might eventually bring European anti‐poverty coordination beyond soft‐law towards ‘hybrid’ governance solutions.

Multiagent Collaborative Governance for Targeted Poverty Alleviation from the Perspective of Stakeholders

“…Linkov's work further unpacks the various notations of collaborative and multistakeholder governance for extreme system complexity and uncertainty (Linkov et al) [6]. Jessoula studied the effectiveness of multiagent collaborative poverty alleviation from the perspective of multilevel social structure in Europe [7]. Khumalo advocated a multistakeholder approach to the challenge of poverty and reconsidered the structural issue of perpetuating poverty [8].…”

The European Semester and EU Social Policy

“…For Crespy and Menz () social policy concerns have been further marginalized in the new governance arrangements. Zeitlin and Vanhercke (), Bekker () and Jessoula () have been considerably more positive, arguing that from 2012 onwards social actors were able to navigate the European Semester and advance social issues, as evidenced by increased visibility and activity in the social policy sphere, including a greater social focus in the CSRs. We seek to deepen knowledge, by bringing new evidence and more penetrating analyses to bear on the EU approach.…”

The Political Attitudes of Divided European Citizens

“…to reposition their problem perceptions and interpretations, interests and strategies of action within a European framework (Eder 2004;Trenz and Eder 2004), thus generating new conflict lines (Fligstein 2008;Vobruba 2014). Even in areas where the EU does not have its own legislative powers with "hard" rights of intervention, the expansion logic is not invalidated, as research on Europe has indicated that the EU has developed "soft" management and coordination instruments to achieve unification and harmonisation goals also in these fields (Hodson and Maher 2001;Mosher and Trubek 2003;Jessoula 2015). In this context, it was noted that the EU is very successful in the diffusion and creeping convergence of political problem diagnoses, proposed solutions and regulatory ideas (Featherstone and Radaelli 2003).…”