Abstract: This paper develops a conceptual framework for the analysis of hard and soft law that is drawn in part from recent work in the field of international relations. We examine the literature on the role of soft law, noting that scholars have approached this phenomenon in very different...

This paper is about the difficult relationship between law and governance in the European Union. The turn to governance which the Prodi Commission has forcefully propagated is a continuation of much older developments. By means of these developments the European Community (now Union) has sought...

This paper argues that current widespread characterizations of EU governance as multi-level and networked overlook the emergent architecture of the Union’s public rule making. In this architecture, framework goals (such as full employment, social inclusion, “good water status”, a unified...

Recently, political science has seen an intense debate about the phenomenon of “governance”. The aim of this paper is to clarify the basic concepts that are at the heart of this debate, notably “governance” and “modes of governance”. It argues that most contributions share a common...

Processes of soft policy coordination in the EU and of Europeanization have in recent years mostly been conceptualised in terms of learning. The OMC is mostly seen as inducing ideational, cognitive and possibly normative learning between member states. However, the generalised learning...

This paper examines the normative, empirical, and constitutional debates surrounding the use of the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) in European social policy. The OMC is an experimentalist approach to European Union governance, based on benchmarking national progress towards European...

Abstract: Although not originally foreseen in the founding Treaty, today the most important and widespread form of EU regulation in the internal market is concerned with the government of risk. Indeed, similarly to what occurred in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s, the EU has in recent...

After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communist regimes, many Central and East European countries successfully managed a ‘return to Europe’. For many observers, the ‘return to Europe’ signaled the ultimate victory of democracy and rule of law over the legacy of...

This paper takes a closer look at one of the EU’s foundational values, the rule of law, and relates it to the external dimension of the EU’s migration policy. It examines how the EU’s powers in migration management have been put to use in order to project EU migration policies beyond the...