How does the Request for Greater Transparency Affect Interest Inter-Mediation?

When cabinet members and high-level civil servants meet representatives of interest groups to negotiate on public policies the latter find themselves in an intermediary position in which they represent their members towards the government and the government towards their members. Confidentiality appears to be a necessary precondition for consultations of that kind, since public observation – as a common argument goes – would negatively affect and weaken the negotiation strategies of both sides and eventually render agreements less effective. Therefore corporatist interest-intermediation and associational governance involving corporate non-state actors and specific stakeholders in public policy-making may clash with rising popular demands for transparency and open public deliberation. Moreover corporatist negotiations with a small number of peak-associations tend to become supplemented or even replaced by consultations with large numbers of participants. This leads to the question how the logics of membership and influence adapt to situations in which smallness and confidentially cannot be maintained or would eventually undermine the overall legitimacy of associational governance. The paper starts from the assumption that greater openness and publicity affect not only the structure and process of interest-intermediation but also its contents and the bargaining positions of the parties involved. Comparing old-style corporatist arrangements negotiated behind closed doors with new forms of open round-table discussions and summit meetings shows that governments and officially appointed experts gain whereas old-established interest associations lose influence. As a consequence the logic of membership may change too. Associational representatives tend to refrain from bringing their members in tune with public policies which are no longer based on a mutual exchange paradigm. As a consequence one would find a loss of general commitments and a loss of associational control over policy arrangements as can be illustrated with examples of energy-transition policies and labor market policies in Germany.