Europeanisation and Soft Law

This chapter starts by introducing the notion of Europeanisation research of hard law. This strand of literature might be one of the largest in comparative policy research as it still offers a large bouquet of research objects. Yet, this research has also undergone an evolution over the years and nowadays focuses especially on the differential implementation of EU directives. On the other hand, Europeanisation issues in the area of soft law are still not as comprehensively researched (although this is currently changing). The most prominent exemption is the so-called Open Method of Coordination (OMC), which is used to agree on some common European goals without any obligation on how to reach them (if at all). Nevertheless, OMCs possess the potential to change member state policies through exchanges of best practices and policy learning. This makes them rather hard to study as causalities of change often remain unclear. The chapter therefore closes by suggesting the potential combination of hard law Europeanisation and general comparative policy research to solve this puzzle.