Experts versus politicians: The role of partisan ideology in European Union employment policy

This study examines the role of partisanship in the effectiveness of the Lisbon Strategy for Growth and Jobs. As a soft governance approach, Lisbon aims to disseminate best practices on labour market policy across EU member states. The policy learning view, as the underlying philosophy of Lisbon, holds that national governments can learn new and better policy practices through interaction with alternative ideas. In contrast, the partisanship approach suggests that governments choose only the components of the Lisbon strategy fitting the ideological preferences of the political parties in government. In this article, I analyse the labour market policies of Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden in two separate years to trace the effects of the Lisbon strategy in varying political environments. The study reveals that the governments of these countries do not give equal attention to all recommendations and guidelines; they address in particular those recommendations and guidelines that fit the ideological preferences of the incumbent parties. Comparative European Politics (2013) 11, 70-92. doi:10.1057/cep.2012.3; published online 2 April 2012