Information Processing, Policy Beliefs and Policy Settings in the European Union’s Fisheries Conservation Policy

Processing information is crucial for effective policymaking. If policies are to address societal issues, signals about the severity and nature of those issues, as well as the effects of existing policies on them, should somehow feed back into the policy process. In this paper, we develop the argument that policy beliefs affect policy settings by mediating the attention given by policy-makers to various types of incoming signals. Changes in policy beliefs then affect policy settings by shifting attention toward certain types of signal and away from others. We test this argument by analysing decisions on Total Allowable Catches (TACs) under the European Union’s Common Fisheries Policy. Our analysis shows that over time the TACs that are adopted by the EU increasingly reflect independent scientific advice on fish stocks that serves as input into the decision-making process. This trend can be linked to a shift in the policy beliefs underlying EU fisheries policies, toward a more environmentally-oriented approach. The analysis contributes to our understanding of the nature of information processing and the way in which outside signals affect (or fail to affect) policies and policy-making.