Stakeholders wanted! Why and how European Union agencies involve non-state stakeholders

Abstract

This article examines why and how European Union agencies involve non-state stakeholderssuch as non-governmental organizations (NGOs), business associations or trade unionsvia three access instruments: public consultations; stakeholder bodies; and representation in management boards. We assess how the use of these instruments varies across agencies, and how they are linked to different motivations driving the demand for stakeholder participation. We present two alternative sets of hypotheses, first focusing on agencies' need for information, organizational capacity and reputation, and second, considering stakeholder involvement as an instrument of legislative control. We draw on a new dataset of stakeholder involvement practices of the full population of EU agencies, compiled via document analysis and interviews. Our findings indicate that stakeholder involvement is a doubleedged sword, contributing to agency accountability and control, but with an inevitable risk of dependence on the regulated industry.

Organizing Transmission Belts: The Effect of Organizational Design on Interest Group Access to EU Policy‐making

“…Second, although we ran separate regression models for access to administrative and political officials, our findings confirm the necessity to diversify between access to different public officials given their varying informational demands demonstrated elsewhere (Arras and Braun, ; Beyers and Braun, ; Bouwen, ; Coen and Katsaitis, ). Our results also suggest the importance of incorporating other contextual factors, such as the network position of interest groups (Beyers and Braun, ), previous relations with public officials and the reputation of the interest groups (Berkhout et al, ; Braun, ; Fraussen, ), or other more general demand‐side factors such as policy issues under debate (Coen and Katsaitis, ).…”

“…Second, we opted for intra‐institutional variation between administrative and political officials and for different actual access points. Other options to get access to administrative officials, such as open consultations, or hearings when it comes to access to political officials, might have a different effect, as has been earlier indicated by the distinction between open and closed access instruments (Arras and Braun, ; Pedersen et al, ).…”

“…As both types of information can strengthen the capacity of EU public institutions to develop effective and legitimate policy proposals, interest groups capable of offering policy‐relevant information have been demonstrated to enjoy high levels of access to EU public officials (Bouwen, ; Bunea, ; Eising, ). Moreover, recent studies show that varying informational demands by public officials explain different levels of access depending on the type of information interest groups were able to provide them with (Arras and Braun, ; Beyers and Braun, ; Bouwen, ; Coen and Katsaitis, ). The varying informational demand of policy‐makers thus serves as a key assumption underlying our analytical approach of how organizational structure affects (levels of) interest group access.…”

“…In order for this so‐called transmission belt to function, it requires certain organizational features to generate policy‐relevant information for public officials. Given the varying informational demand of public officials, which we take as the starting point of our analytical approach (Arras and Braun, ; Beyers and Braun, ; Bouwen, , ; Coen and Katsaitis, ), we expect different effects of our main explanatory factors – i.e. decision‐making procedures, functional differentiation, EU scope and membership type – on access to different EU public officials.…”

The promise of bureaucratic reputation approaches for the EU regulatory state

“…P-A-based explanations have offered relevant insights into the institutional design (e.g., Kelemen and Tarrant 2011), the de jure independence (e.g., Wonka and Rittberger 2010), and the control mechanisms used to oversee EU agencies' day-to-day activities (e.g., Busuioc 2013;Curtin 2007;Font and Pérez-Durán 2016). More recent empirical work has also increasingly examined agencies' ties with interest groups and other stakeholders (e.g., Arras and Braun 2018;Pérez-Durán 2017). In a similar vein, organisational scholars have contributed much to our knowledge of agencies' legitimacy imperatives, their de facto organisational autonomy, and socialisation practices (e.g., Egeberg and Trondal 2011;Groenleer 2009;Wood 2018).…”