More Of The Same: A Qualitative Perspective To Advisory Stakeholder Bodies In EU Agencies

Stakeholder engagement has become an important aspect of European Union (EU) agencies’ governance structures and can be realized via a number of instruments. One of these instruments is advisory bodies: permanent bodies of a fixed number of stakeholder representatives that assist the agency in its operations. Agencies themselves can select which interest groups to involve in the stakeholder bodies, and hence try to balance and strategically exploit certain interests. This discretion is deemed essential, as agencies are known to have a high risk of capture by regulated business interests through, for example, open public consultations. However, previous research has shown that the membership of similar advisory bodies in the EU suffer from a profound bias towards business actors. This raises the question whether agencies’ advisory bodies can be an effective instrument to ensure a balance of interest and limit agency capture. To answer this question, one has to look beyond mere membership and assess the dynamics within the bodies, by examining how members perceive the bodies, their role in the bodies, their capability to contribute to the bodies, and their ability to influence the bodies’ outputs. This paper assesses these dynamics based on interviews with members of four advisory bodies from three regulatory agencies in the financial sector.