Authors Iain Begg | Gabriel Glöckler | Anke Hassel ... - The Europaeum

of insiders may fight hard to avert institutional reforms that have an effect
on rent-seeking activity and a bearing on the security and distribution of
even lower rents, albeit at the cost of inefficiency.
Therefore, the strategic dimension of the Lisbon process is likely to have
little impact on the domestic politics of economic reform. In other words,
the Lisbon process may barely allow for favourable changes in the
incentives and constraints facing policy actors, particularly governments.
Several commentators have argued that the impact of the Lisbon process
and especially of the soft policy coordination processes on national policy
fields may mostly be felt at the cognitive level. Although perhaps later,
that impact may be traced in policy outcomes too. 23 The cognitive
dimension of the Lisbon process has specifically entailed mutual learning
and exchange of experiences among member states, associated with
benchmarking and comparison of economic performances, and has
implied a change in national discourses.
The alleged importance of the cognitive dimension of the Lisbon process
may not be empirically confirmed. Notwithstanding its scope, coverage
and density, the Lisbon process of mutual learning may claim neither
exclusivity, nor unrivaled influence. Besides, there is enough evidence to
suggest that informal learning processes have played a bigger role than
formal ones with regards to shaping policymaking and institutional
reforms. 24 The best example of this is the emergence of independent
central banking across the globe. 25 In addition, formal policy learning
processes may often fail to take into consideration informal norms and
long established conventions that may crucially impact on policymaking,
yet they may not readily be taught, let alone exported. 26 Lastly,
institutionalised policy learning processes may often adjust slowly to
rapid changes in the broader policy environment. In that case, policy
advice should favour diagnosis and experimentation over prescription,
benchmarking and identification of best practices. 27 Yet, there is an
obvious trade-off between the stability of the process and state-of-the-art
policy advice, the former being indispensable for a policy strategy, but the
latter being readily supplied by other equally authoritative sources (for
example the OECD).
Therefore, major doubts may be raised about the effectiveness of the Lisbon
strategy in facilitating economic reforms. Are those doubts empirically
sustained? And how might the effectiveness of the Lisbon strategy be
increased? Those issues are dealt with in the following section.
Chapter 6 – Nikos Koutsiaras 95