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'Discursive institutionalism' provides a potentially fruitful means of overcoming the tendential structuralism of much new institutionalist scholarship. In particular, it focuses attention on the interplay of structure and agency and raises important questions about how far we should expect policy--and indeed the polity--to be coherent. Radaelli and Schmidt's drawing together of their discursive institutionalism with the tradition of policy analysis provides a valuable framework for 'bottom-up' analysis of the EU, and particularly of Europeanisation, and provides conceptual guidance for the careful empirical work required to make sense of these phenomena. Historical sociology, with its caution against 'the fallacy of retrospective determinism', provides additional elements for this conceptual framework. In particular, it helps us to interrogate 'general trends' or 'toaster discourses', rather than taking them for granted as wholly 'external' pressures on particular policy sectors., In 1984, Jacques Delors, a French 'social(ist) Christian', was appointed President of the European Commission. When his decade-long period as President ended, Europe had been transformed and was continuing to [...]

The consistent failure to match EU market integration with social policies provoked the development of new modes of European governance for welfare provision in the early 1990s. Based on policy co-ordination rather than integration, these new governance modes were consolidated as the 'Open Method of Co-ordination' (OMC) at the Lisbon Summit in 2000. This article analyses the scope and limits of the OMC, locating it in the context of broader trends and tendencies in governance and social provision. Indeed, the perceived 'success' of the OMC may reflect a deeper trend in social policy across western Europe and beyond, towards 'active' welfare policies. In many ways the OMC is consistent with the influential 'regulatory state' vision of the EU. Yet by 'activating' welfare the OMC may challenge market liberal theories of European economic regulation. The first seeks to integrate economic and social policies while the latter is premised on their separation.

The White Paper on European Governance can be seen as a bid to make a major contribution to the strategic leadership of the Union. By centring its deliberations and proposals on the concept of `governance', the Commission signalled an intention to explore the limits of conventional hierarchical law and policy, and propose alternatives. Yet the White Paper concludes that a renewed and reinvigorated `Community method' should be at the heart of EU policy-making, with the Commission itself playing an enhanced role. Moreover, the paper criticizes the Member States and `intergovernmental' institutions, rather than the Commission itself. These features are neither good politics nor a full response to the questions raised by the White Paper or set for it by Prodi. Enlargement and the increased importance of the issues of (re)distribution and related emergence of new modes of governance, such as the open method of co-ordination, pose challenges and provide opportunities for the Commission and the Union more generally. A White Paper that was both more modest and self-confident about the part to be played by the Commission might have made a more important intervention in current debate.

The Labour Party's social policies regarding children and parenting and improving the welfare states are examined. The author, arguing in support of stronger parent-child policies, maintains the Labour Party does not have a clear political strategy, even though the subject has received a great deal of attention from them.

The author discusses the relationship between the European Court of Justice and the European Union. Further discussion is given to the strategic role of the European Court, along with other European Union institutions, in the development and maintenance European Community laws. The history and the legal developments which led to the creation of Community law are also explored.

Hall and Taylor must be lauded for their challenging and detailed analysis of the many facets of the new institutionalisms although their assertion that there is a common ground between rational choice and historical institutionalism is not entirely valid. These two variables have many totally opposite views on social ideas and concept of knowledge. Institutionalism has to be finetuned before it can be able to dialogue with rational choice. It can do so if the relationship between structure and agency is more carefully defined.

The process of European integration in the political, economic and monetary spheres has been speeded up with the signing of the Treaty of Maastricht in 1991. However, the treaty should not be viewed as the definitive legal document on European integration. Rather, it must be seen as a political compromise on the part of those for and against integration. Viewed closely, the treaty can even be seen as promoting the fragmentation of the European Union.

The liberal intergovernmental approach towards analyzing the effectiveness of economic integration in the EU is generally inadequate to explain the concept because it does not qualify as a theory which would have made its biases reasonable. An alternative approach based on policy analysis is considered more effective.

An article by Christopher Lingle in West European Politics 14/1 (Jan. 1991) raises important issues about the development of the European Community.(1) Briefly his argument is that the EC Social [...]

Comparative Public Policy: Patterns of Post-war Transformation. FRANCIS G. CASTLES. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 1998. Pp.ix + 352, 29 tables, 12 figures, biblio, index. [pound]59.95 (cloth) ISBN 1-85898-816-0; [pound]19.95 (paper) [...]

By MARK BLYTH. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp.xii + 284. index. 15.99 [pounds sterling] (paper) ISBN 0-521-81176-7; 40 [pounds sterling] (cloth) ISBN 0521-01052-7. Great Transformations is a significant book [...]

The New Social Question: Rethinking the Welfare State. By PIERRE ROSANVALLON. Princeton: Princeton University Press 2000. Pp.152. [pounds sterling]16.95 (paper) ISBN 0-691-1640-2. The New Social Question is an intriguing read. [...]