Reforming the European Social Model and the politics of indicators: from the unemployment rate to the employment rate in the European Employment Strategy

The Open Method of Coordination (OMC) was introduced for the purpose of monitoring the ‘modernisation’ of the European social model from a hypothetical ‘centre’ towards greater flexibility, better economic efficiency and lower costs. What verdict can be issued concerning the OMC, in the context of reform of the European social model? This chapter will focus on the European Employment Strategy as an exemplar of what could be called ‘a politics of indicators’, by which is meant the specific type of political action and monitoring introduced by the OMC. Under the European Employment Strategy (EES) the benchmarking of national employment policies, by means of a set of indicators, plays a key role. In benchmarking management techniques, identifying good practices is the precondition for finding ways of applying them (Tronti 2001). The performance gaps between firms have to be measured in a consistent and reliable manner and properly correlated with the objectives of the firm. They must be clearly attributable to the causes, i.e. the good practices. It is at this decisive point that the indicators appear on the scene. While, in the case of a