New Governance in European Social Policy: The Open Method of Coordination

Is the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) an effective and legitimate tool in European social policy-making? Milena Büchs analyses the goals and instruments of the OMC, discusses approaches which theorize its functioning, examines its policy content and develops a framework for its evaluation. Through the examination of a case study the author demonstrates how policy actors apply the OMC in employment in Germany and the United Kingdom. The book concludes that the OMC pursues contradictory goals and is unlikely to achieve them simultaneously.