An Empirical Assessment of Participatory Governance Structures in Electricity Regulation

Abstract

Despite burgeoning scholarly interest in multi-actor governance, we have limited empirical evidence about the way that stakeholder participation in policy implementation affects policy outcomes. Scholars have theorized that stakeholder involvement may influence policy outcomes by providing resources that improve agencies’ capability to implement policies, or acting as a political counterweight to dominant business interests in regulatory processes; alternately, stakeholders may simply legitimize agency decisions without affecting outcomes. This paper examines stakeholder involvement in state energy efficiency policy implementation from 2001-2010 and empirically tests the impact of different types of stakeholder participation on policy outcomes. The paper finds stakeholders have no effect on policy outcomes when their involvement is limited to information provision, but that when stakeholders are allowed to propose savings goals and programs early in the policy process, they have a significant and positive effect on policy outcomes.