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Democratic and Technocratic Innovations in EU: Pathways to Stakeholder Participation in Supranational Executive Policymaking

Democratisation
European Union
Executives
Institutions
Representation
Policy-Making
Adriana Bunea
Universitetet i Bergen
Adriana Bunea
Universitetet i Bergen

Abstract

In the European Union, stakeholder consultations, impact assessments and policy evaluations feature amongst the key policy innovations marking the modernisation and reform of executive policymaking. They also constitute a landmark of the democratic vs. technocratic policymaking conundrum that describes supranational politics and policymaking. They lay at the core of EU Better Regulation policy and law-making. The European Commission has recently organised a public consultation demanding for citizens and interest organisations’ feedback on the manner in which the European executive manages to balance the imperatives of democratic and technocratic policymaking in its agenda-setting and policy formulation procedures. This study examines the extend to which these stakeholders consider that the European Commission has managed to reached an optimal balance between satisfying the substantive and procedural requirements of democratic and technocratic policymaking. Theoretically the study builds on the literatures on bureaucratic politics and executive policymaking and examines stakeholder consultations, impact assessments and policy evaluations as instruments used to democratise supranational executive policymaking, while also building and maintaining a reputation for solid, evidence based policymaking. The study uses a novel dataset providing key information about stakeholders’ assessment of the democratic and technocratic performance of the EU Better Regulation instruments in supranational policymaking. The study contributes to the literature in several ways. Conceptually, it proposes an innovative conceptualisation of democratic and technocratic policymaking. Theoretically, it proposes an interesting explanatory argument about stakeholders’ assessment of the democratic and technocratic performance of Better Regulation tools. Empirically, the study proposes a new operationalisation of democratic and technocratic policymaking and employs a new dataset to test its theoretical expectations.