Alexandra Hennessy examines an area of Europeanization that has been largely ignored by political analysts: the development of an internal market for workplace pensions. This book offers an analysis of what is at stake in workplace pension reforms, tracing how different states approached them and how national political economy models have shaped actors' bargaining strategy at the EU level. Employing statistical analysis, formal modelling, and in-depth case study research, Hennessy highlights the role of informal signalling and communication processes in designing a common pension market. This book offers a theoretical framework that accounts for historical institutionalism, informal signalling processes and discourse in the Europeanization of workplace pensions – a must-read for students of comparative social and public policy, comparative politics and European politics.

‘In this rich and fascinating book, Alexandra Hennessy provides a novel theorization of both EU pensions regulation and the changing nature of European workplace pensions. [She] carefully traces the ways in which preferences and bargaining strategies for EU coordination over pensions vary across national political economies, but are also crucially shaped by domestic and EU discourse, providing an incisively crafted explanation of the character of EU regulation over the emerging pensions markets. In so doing, she offers an important account of both workplace pension regulation in Europe and a new perspective on EU decision making in the social policy arena.’

Jane Gingrich - University of Oxford