Who feeds information to regulators? Stakeholder diversity in European Union regulatory agency consultations

Abstract

To design regulatory policies, agencies depend on information from the industries they are tasked to regulate. Therefore, agencies can organise consultations with the aim of obtaining information from different perspectives. This article focuses on stakeholder diversity in agency public consultations. We ask to what extent is information provided by stakeholders other than the regulated sector, such as other business interests, experts or nonbusiness interests? Stakeholder diversity is relevant as it may prevent agencies to become exposed to one-sided information and capture by specialised interests. Are there consultation design factors that foster consultation diversity? Or, is (a lack of) consultation diversity structurally shaped by the context in which an agency operates? Analysing a wide range of public consultations organised by European Union regulatory agencies indicates that most information agencies receive via consultations comes from regulated interests and that the limited participation of nonregulated interests is highly tenacious.

The tip of the iceberg – interest group behaviour in rule drafting and consultations during EU agency rulemaking

“…Despite decades of privatisation (Thelle & Sonne, 2018), many such actors have close ties with governments. National public authorities are prevalent in EASA's consultations (Beyers & Arras, 2019), making H1a and H2a less likely. Furthermore, EASA has limited environmental decision-making competences, limiting its appeal to environmental interest groups.…”

“…Lastly, the paper contributes to EU agency literature. Recent contributions in this area investigated EU agencies' interaction with interest groups (Arras & Braun, 2018;Beyers & Arras, 2019;Borrás et al, 2007;Chalmers, 2015;Pérez Durán, 2017. This paper builds on this trend by introducing and testing findings from the literature on US regulatory agencies in the context of EU agencies.…”

“…Researchers in the US and Europe therefore investigated which actors participate in (rulemaking) consultations. They find that business actors often participate in large numbers (Beyers & Arras, 2019;Golden, 1998;Rasmussen & Carroll, 2014). Furthermore, these actors are found to have much impact on the outcome of consultations (Binderkrantz et al, 2014;Bunea, 2013;Yackee & Yackee, 2006).…”

“…However, the technical nature of regulatory rules often prevents the general public to mobilise and provide input (Culpepper, 2011;Olson, 1971). There is therefore a concern that consultations and therefore regulatory rules are biased towards business (Arras & Braun, 2018;Beyers & Arras, 2019).…”

Should I stay or should I go? Explaining variation in nonstate actor advocacy over time in global governance

“…Indeed, previous research has indicated mixed results as to whether or not business groups or NGOs have better chances to maintain their advocacy activities (see Halpin & Jordan, , for discussions on this issue). An interesting implication might be that increased openness of global political venues could lead to more inequality than mobilization at venues where access is more exclusive and managed by the IO staff (see also Beyers & Arras, ). While we cannot test this hypothesis with the data at hand, this is certainly a relevant avenue for future comparative research.…”