Who needs interest groups’ information? When and why bureaucratic top officials interact with stakeholders in policymaking: a Southern European perspective.

The interaction between stakeholders and policymakers is one of the most important and most studied aspects of policymaking. However, this interaction has mainly been analysed from the perspective of interest groups and what they have to offer politicians in order to be involved in the policymaking. Much less studied is the role of ministerial bureaucratic staff in this interaction. It is taken for granted that bureaucrats suffer from information asymmetries and therefore inevitably need the information provided by stakeholders to implement policies. But is this really the case? This study builds on the data of an online survey submitted to around 700 top ministerial officials in three southern European countries – Greece, Italy and Portugal – to investigate which individual and organisational factors incentivise the central bureaucracy’s solicitation and use of information provided by stakeholders in policymaking. The empirical results are innovative from at least two perspectives: from the descriptive point of view, bureaucrats interacting with stakeholders and soliciting and utilising their information are fewer than is generally taken for granted in the literature. From the interpretative point of view, it is not the least competent public administrations and top officials who solicit and utilise the information provided by interest groups, but on the contrary the most competent ones. In addition, a more intense interaction with stakeholders is the prerogative of younger top officials, who have previous work experience in the private sector and work within ministries dealing with welfare affairs. Overall, empirical results suggest to refine the common wisdom that at the basis of the exchange of information between bureaucrats and stakeholders there is an extensive information asymmetry suffered by the former to the advantage of the latter.