The Political Function of the Example in the EU’s OMC

The aim of this paper is to unpick how examples of best practice are used in the EU’s Open Method of Coordination (OMC) and to analyse the political function examples play as a key knowledge practice. The paper sheds new light on the politics of knowledge in the OMC by arguing that examples function as a way of addressing endemic tensions and challenges that constitute the OMC. By drawing on political ethnography and document analysis of a ‘new generation’ Working Group coordinated by the European Commission’s Directorate General of Education and Culture (DG-EAC), the paper empirically demonstrates how examples of best practice have become a dominant knowledge practice in the OMC. By questioning how and why examples have achieved their status as a dominant knowledge practice and placing them in the context of existing critiques and identified challenges faced by the EU in operationalising the OMC (e.g. Radaelli 2004), the paper argues that the power of the example should be taken more seriously as a problem-solving knowledge practice in policymaking.