Active labour market policy, international organizations and domestic politics

Abstract: The paper deals with active labour market policies (ALMP) in 22 established democracies of the OECD country group, in the period from 1985 to 2002. It seeks to explain variations in policy effort. The focus is on international impacts on domestic policy developments. Since the mid-1990s, both the OECD and the EU have been strong proponents of activation measures. I argue that the impact of these international organizations is conditional on the fit of the proposed policies with path-dependent national policies and politics. The OECD may succeed in developing efficient policy proposals, but it fails at the level of implementation. EU recommendations covary with increased effort in ALMP, but it fails to develop efficient policies.