When Good Intentions Go Astray: Policy Framing Processes and the Europeanization of Children's Rights

Abstract

• Empirical evidence of how Commission policy framing processes shape the Europeanization of Member States
• Analytical and empirical evidence of how and why Commission services develop and promote divergent policy frames in relation to children's rights
• Challenges faced by the EU's promotion of policy measures that have a cross-sectoral dimension
• Analytical and empirical evidence of how Commission services conceive their legal role and scope with respect to children's rights

This article examines how and why Commission policy framing processes impact on the Europeanization of children's rights at the national level. By employing the Hotline for Missing Children as a case study, it is demonstrated that Commission services failed to adopt a coherent policy line regarding the issue of missing children. Instead, Commission services promoted conflicting Hotline templates, which conveyed mixed messages and shaped the differential implementation of the Hotline at the national level. The contradictory Hotline templates are rooted in Commission services' embrace of divergent policy frames, which are determined by institutional fragmentation and conflicting interpretations of Commission legal competence to address the issue of missing children and the protection of child rights.