The adoption of a new instrument of governance in the EU – the open-method-of-coordination - has renewed the notion of convergence/divergence across EU member states. This paper examines the role of European integration in shaping and changing social welfare systems and investigates whether...

The paper investigates how European welfare states respond to reform pressures arising from European integration. We examine the impact of two institutional variables that mediate the impact of reform pressures on national pension systems: the extent of public pension provision and the number of...