The Lisbon strategy was the most high-profile initiative of the European Union (EU) for the governance of markets and the knowledge-based society of the last decade. The current economic crisis turned the formal deadline of 2010 into a remarkable political opportunity to re-define the European way to competitiveness, growth and jobs with the Europe 2020 Agenda. With this special issue, we provide an innovative framework and a set of state-of-the-art articles based on the best empirical research on a topical yet neglected issue in EU politics.

 

Paradoxically as it may seem, the Lisbon strategy is indeed one of the most neglected subjects of EU politics. Up until now, researchers have looked either at some elements of the Lisbon strategy, such as the open method of coordination and Europeanisation, or at the (rather weak) effects on domestic public policies, often in relation to the debate on the convergence (or lack thereof) with the EU goals for growth and jobs. However, political scientists have largely disregarded three crucial issues of the Lisbon strategy, namely, (a) the emergence and re-definition of this meta-policy agenda in its historical and institutional context, and the administrative-organizational impacts on national policy-making, specifically the issue of whether the agenda has triggered more control of policy agendas by elected politicians or empowered the technocrats. (b) Even rarer are comparative attempts to investigate the differences between the Lisbon strategies and other political visions, such as the single market, Economic and Monetary Union, and, looking outside the EU, the Millennium Goals. (c) Finally, the discussion on the significance of the Lisbon strategy for integration theory and the historical trajectory of integration has been limited to debates on the nature of the open method of coordination.

 

One important step in addressing theoretically,comparatively and historically these issues is to understand what is the Lisbon strategy a case of? In this special issue, we consider the hypothesis that Lisbon is a case of governance architecture. Drawing on international relations and comparative policy analysis, we approach the concept of governance architecture as a political structure consisting of ideational and organisational components.

 

With different emphasis, the articles of this special issue address the following research questions: How was the Lisbon governance architecture (ideational and organisational components) created? Once created, how was it maintained and adapted over time? How has this governance architecture affected patterns of public policy? How have different political entrepreneurs made use of the architecture?

 

ISSN: 1466-4429 (electronic) 1350-1763 (paper), Subjects: European Studies; Public Policy; Publisher: Routledge, The politics of governance architectures: creation, change and effects of the EU Lisbon Strategy