Pulling through: Leaders, laggards and the Open Method of Coordination

Abstract: The present study is a comparative analysis of the effects of the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) through the i2010 eGovernment Action Plan on two categories of EU member states: leaders and laggers, the latter of which has been divided into two categories. It examines the development of eGovernment within the categories mentioned above based on the EU‟s annual eGovernment benchmark reports. Furthermore, the study utilizes concepts found within research of leader-laggards dynamics to provide a constructive analysis of the relationship between the categories. The purpose was to provide an accurate account of the effectiveness of this particular OMC-process while highlighting factors of interest from the perspective of leader-laggards dynamics. The results of the investigation show that the OMC has, in this process, been effective in driving development across all the member states included in the study. However some have benefitted more from the process than others. By modifying, and subsequently applying concepts from the leaders-laggards discourse to the case at hand, it is revealed that the OMC process is indeed an institutionalisation of practices common outside of soft-law frameworks. In such conditions, member states at an advanced level of development implicitly pull lagging member states towards their own level, converging towards normative goals. The results of the study imply that researchers need to be aware and take into account factors such as relative development differences when analysing the existence, and causes of OMC-effectiveness.