At the heart of this book is the long standing debate within the Europeanization literature whether the non-binding Open Method of Coordination (OMC) does really have any significant influence on Member State policies. While some authors claim that the OMC simply represents a form of ‘window dressing’ or symbolic politics, others value it as an important vehicle for progressive reform. Bringing together some distinguished OMC researchers with various countries’ expertise, the volume sets out to empirically assess the impact and effectiveness of the Social Inclusion and Social Protection OMC since 2006, when the previously separate processes for social inclusion, pensions and health and long-term care were streamlined into one ‘Social OMC’, until 2010, when the Lisbon Strategy was replaced by Europe 2020. The authors thus offer a much needed update on previous studies that mainly focused on the pre-streamlining phase from 2000–2005. To measure impact, an analytical framework developed earlier by co-editor Zeitlin is used that integrates a range of competing theoretical approaches to EU institutional analysis. With this the contributors try to measure substantive as well as procedural changes in Member States. Based on interviews with relevant stakeholders in each country and documentary evidence, potential causal pathways of the OMC on national policy making were analysed through contextualized process tracing.

The introductory chapter sets the volume into context and presents the analytical framework, followed by an overview tracing the Social OMC over time. The first substantive chapter provides an analysis of the adequacy of six key OMC tools and processes. It finds that despite widespread scepticism about the Social OMC, particularly four features – the common indicators, peer reviews, country profiles and thematic reports –, it did adequately provide opportunities for policy change (although with varying uptake of these opportunities as the following country case studies demonstrate). The following country chapters examine the impact of the OMC at national level. The selected cases (Belgium, France, Germany, Denmark and the UK) represent a good mix of welfare regimes with slightly different problem pressures in the three policy areas that fall under the Social OMC, yet unfortunately exclude Southern Europe as well as new Member States, which might be considered ‘least likely cases’ and would thus potentially offer very important insights from a theoretical perspective. While slightly varying in structure, each chapter first discusses the particular challenges in the respective country in the three concerned policy areas and then gives a brief review of the Social OMC's impact in the phase before 2006. Regarding this earlier period, the country chapters mainly confirm existing findings although the German case study identifies much more impact of the Social OMC during its first phase than acknowledged in previous studies on the basis of new evidence.

The main empirical evaluations concern the period 2006–2010. A common finding was that the OMC had the strongest impact in the social inclusion strand, particularly thought networks of experts and NGOs, a more moderate effect in the pensions strand and for various reasons a negligible effect in health/long-term care. For example, in Denmark and Germany these were seen as two core national welfare state domains in which any EU interference was rejected. While it remains difficult to demonstrate any direct influence on national policy reforms, another common finding was that it was often indirect ‘capillary effects’ triggering cognitive and normative changes that had the most impact, i.e. actors did not realise that the terms and ideas they were using emanated from the OMC.

Regarding the selected countries, important variations were found: Belgium lived up to the expectation of being the ‘most likely case’ in which impact could be found; while in others knowledge about the Social OMC remains reserved to only a small circle of policy insiders and experts.

A final chapter summarises and tries to explain the variations in the use and influence of the OMC. Most noteworthy, it includes evidence from five additional cases from Southern and Central Eastern Europe, based on the original research report for the European Commission that underpinned this book project. It concludes that the OMC had undeniable effects on national policy processes in all EU countries. For example, particularly in countries with procedural shortcomings, important effects, such as statistical capacity-building or allowing NGOs to make their voice heard, could be identified. Structural factors were not deemed to be relevant regarding impacts in any of the three fields, as influences of the OMC did not correlate with welfare regime type or political systems. Agency, however, did matter, albeit in often unexpected ways. Partisanship and power resources mattered only little, while the engagement by social NGOs, civil servants and regional or local authorities were relevant at times when these actors (often in a combined effort) made strategic use of the opportunities afforded by the OMC. Trade unions mainly chose not to become involved, not even in the pension strand, often because the OMC was perceived as a neo-liberal ‘Trojan horse’ due to the financial sustainability goal. This leads to the final explanation, namely the architecture of each OMC strand. The social inclusion strand is the only one that demands the involvement of all relevant stakeholders and thus generally succeeded in mobilising NGOs. Due to its content it was also seen as less threatening by actors who feared the OMC to be a tool for a hidden neo-liberal agenda. The much smaller influence of the OMC in health and long-term care, in turn, was explained, on the one hand, by the ‘crowded’ policy-making space in which several DGs compete for leadership, leading to protracted negotiations, and, on the other hand, by the much more politically controversial character of potential indicators than in the other two areas.

Overall, the book constitutes a welcome and authoritative update on the extent of and ways in which the OMC influences Member States. While the changes to the Social OMC under the Europe 2020 strategy could reasonably not be evaluated yet (given the timing of the underlying research), some reflection on the impact of the OMC (vs. the much stronger effect of the various EU governance measures put into place in response to the financial crisis) could have been included. Nevertheless, this is a highly recommended addition to the literature on Europeanization and soft governance.