The Politics Behind the Consultation of Expert Groups: A Strategy to Offset Salience or to Reduce Complexity?

This paper examines the logic underlying the European Commission’s use of expert groups. Arguing that ‘policy affects politics’ the paper analyses whether and how ‘salience’ and ‘complexity’ of policy initiatives affect the use of expert groups. It is first hypothesized that the more salient policy is, the more likely an expert group will be used to “objectify” policy in order to depoliticize subsequent decision-making. Second, the more complex policy is, the more likely an expert group will be consulted to provide expertise in order to reduce uncertainty. The empirical analysis is based on cross-sectional data retrieved for three regulatory DGs. These are processed by multivariate regression techniques. The paper contributes to current literature in two ways. First, it studies expert groups at the level of policy initiatives whereas others retained a focus on policy areas. Second, alternative measures for the operationalization of salience and complexity are presented.