This book offers an empirical and theoretical assessment of the European Semester, examining its implications along three critical axes, running respectively between the economic and the social, the supranational and the intergovernmental, and the technocratic and democratic poles of EU governance. The chapters were originally published in a special issue of the Journal of European Public Policy.

Introduction: the European Semester as a new architecture of EU socioeconomic governance in theory and practice Amy Verdun and Jonathan Zeitlin 1. Socializing the European Semester: EU social and economic policy co-ordination in crisis and beyond Jonathan Zeitlin and Bart Vanhercke 2. Flexicurity in the European Semester: still a relevant policy concept? Sonja Bekker 3. Deciding on the European Semester: the European Council, the Council and the enduring asymmetry between economic and social policy issues Adina Maricut and Uwe Puetter 4. Enforcing the European Semester: the politics of asymmetric information in the excessive deficit and macroeconomic imbalance procedures James D. Savage and David Howarth 5. Cherry-picking external constraints: Latvia and EU economic governance, 2008-2014 Edgars Eihmanis 6. Explaining the evolving role of national parliaments under the European Semester Mark Hallerberg, Benedicta Marzinotto and Guntram B. Wolff 7. Parliamentary accountability in multilevel governance: what role for parliaments in post-crisis EU economic governance? Ben Crum

Jonathan Zeitlin is Distinguished Faculty Professor of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Amsterdam, and Scientific Director of the Amsterdam Centre for Contemporary European Studies (ACCESS EUROPE).

Amy Verdun is Professor of Political Science, Jean Monnet Chair Ad Personam, and the Faculty of Social Science Lansdowne Distinguished Fellow in European Integration Studies at the University of Victoria, Canada.