Wielding Soft Power in a World of Neglect: The Europeanization of Greek and Portuguese Public Employment Services

Sotirios Zartaloudis*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

13 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The Europeanization literature has extensively examined the influence of the European employment strategy (EES) on Member States' employment policies. However, two least-likely cases - Greece and Portugal - have been neglected in the literature. This article focuses on the activation of public employment services (PES), which has been one of the key elements of the EES. Based on a sample of 44 semi-structured interviews and primary and secondary document research on seven reform episodes during 1995-2009, it finds that the EES altered Greek and Portuguese employment policies by empowering policy entrepreneurs and, when the latter were absent, through European Social Fund financial conditionality. While the literature considers policy learning as the chief EES-Europeanization mechanism, little evidence is found herein to support such an explanation. The findings may be relevant for a number of EU policies based on voluntarism and EU funds, such as the new flagship EU initiative Europe 2020.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1178-1195
Number of pages18
JournalJournal of Common Market Studies
Volume51
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2013

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Business and International Management
  • Business, Management and Accounting(all)
  • Economics and Econometrics
  • Political Science and International Relations

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