Bandwagons and Quiet Corners in Regulatory Governance

Caelesta Braun,Bert Fraussen,Adrià Albareda,Moritz Müller

doi:10.4000/irpp.1151

Abstract

Stakeholder engagement is often considered an essential component of regulatory policymaking and governance. Our main aim in this paper is to explain variation in stakeholder engagement across regulatory trajectories. More specifically we aim to assess why some regulatory policymaking processes attract a larger and more diverse set of stakeholders, while others attract much smaller and more homogenous regulatory crowds. We build on a newly established dataset of primary data regarding stakeholder engagement in EU regulatory governance to test our assumptions. We find that both the salience and the number of different consultation instruments affect the density and diversity of stakeholder engagement, whereas the complexity of regulations seems to mainly affect the density of stakeholder engagement. The combination of both institutional and regulation-specific drivers of stakeholder engagement in regulatory governance yields relevant implications for the study of responsive regulation and the role stakeholders can fulfill in regulatory decision-making.

Highlights

Stakeholder engagement has become a prominent principle in the study and practice of national regulatory policymaking and governance
Our findings indicate that the future models of stakeholder engagement in regulatory governance can be better specified by explicitly including regulation-specific and institutional explanatory factors
We focus on how the administrative capacity of public institutions, defined as “the ability to perform functions, solve problems and set and achieve objectives” (OECD 2003, p 5), affects stakeholder engagement in regulatory processes

Summary

Introduction

Stakeholder engagement has become a prominent principle in the study and practice of (supra) national regulatory policymaking and governance. We will contribute to the study of stakeholder engagement in (supra)national regulatory governance by explaining the number (density) and type (diversity) of stakeholders that engage with policymakers in regulatory governance, defined as the process by which multiple public and private stakeholders participate to advance regulations (Gray and Lowery 1996; Lowery et al 2015; see Arras 2017; Berkhout et al 2015; Halpin and Jordan 2012; Leech et al 2005). Our analysis and findings make a twofold contribution to the study of stakeholder engagement in (supra)national regulatory governance. Our findings indicate that the future models of stakeholder engagement in regulatory governance can be better specified by explicitly including regulation-specific and institutional explanatory factors

Objectives

Methods

Findings

Conclusion