Project coordinator: professor Jacob Torfing

Since the mid 1980s, we have witnessed a gradual change in the welfare state from the old welfare paradigm to a new workfare paradigm. Social policy and labour-market policy has been fused into a new ‘employment policy’ and this is increasingly concerned with the provision of active offers of counselling, education or job training to the unemployed.

The shift from passive welfare policies to active workfare policies has been accompanied by a shift in the mode of governance. The governance of the new active employment policy is transnationalised, decentralised,  and subjected to New Public Management techniques in terms of management by objectives, bench marking and contracting out. In many countries we also see a strengthening of the role of governance networks both at the local, national and transnational levels. The EU Commission strongly recommends the inclusion of the social partners and civil society organizations through the constructions of social partnerships.

The present research project aims to analyse and assess the development of new interactive modes of network governance in the fields of employment policy. As such, we will conduct a comparative multi-level study of governance network in the field of active employment policy in Denmark, England and France. The main objectives of the collaborative research project are:

• to analyse the scope, form and functioning of local, national and transnational governance networks
• to assess the contribution of governance networks to an effective and democratic governance of employment policy
• to analyse how effective and democratic governance can be enhanced by metagoverning self-regulating governance networks

Theoretically, the research project will draw on theories of network governance and theories of democracy. Methodologically, it will be based on a broad range of methods including surveys, document studies, interviewing, social network analysis, expert reports, observation studies, and diary writing.

The research project consists of 10 sub-projects:

1. Measuring effective and democratic network governance (Eva Sørensen and Jacob Torfing)
2. The Open Method of Coordination and the European Employment Strategy: effective and democratic governance? (Susana Borras)
3. Network governance of the Danish National Action Plan for employment: effective and democratic governance through cooperation between civil servants and social partners (Birgitte K. Poulsen and Eva Sørensen)
4. Comparative analysis of the social partners in the NAP-procedure in Denmark, England and France (Anders Esmark)
5. A survey-based analysis of the role and functioning of the Regional and Local Employment Councils (Thomas Bredgaard and Flemming Larsen)
6. Evaluation of the local network governance of one- and two track job centres (Bodil Damgaard and Jacob Torfing)
7. Network governance of Danish employment policy: which non-state actors are involved, why and why which effect? (Bodil Damgaard)
8. Comparative analysis of local network governance in Denmark, England and France (Mette Zølner)
9. Multi-level study of the metagoverning of national and local governance networks (Peter Triantafillou)

All the sub-projects will use the same analytical instrument to assess the contribution of governance networks to effective and democratic governance.  The development of the Effectiveness Assessment Toll and the Democracy Assessment Tool will be one of the key contributions of the research project.

The research project has been award 2,5 mio. DKR from the Danish Social Science Research Council.

The project will begin the 1st of April, 2006 and will run for three years.