For Better (Regulation) or Worse? Retracing the Evolution of Evidence Culture in the European Commission's Meta-Regulatory Discourse

Scholarship on the European Commission has long emphasised how the EU’s executive extensively relies on expertise and access to knowledge as a crucial source for legitimation and influence (Metz 2015; Boswell 2008). Over time, the Commission’s technocratic approach has faced criticisms related to the accountability and democratic legitimacy of EU decisions, alongside challenges posed by rampant misinformation and increasing contestation of science — what has been defined as a “crisis of expertise” (Eyal 2019, Abazi et al. 2021). And yet, expertise and evidence-informed policymaking still is at the centre of the Commission’s meta-regulatory approach, codified in the Better Regulation Guidelines (European Commission 2015; 2021). Drawing on existing research in critical policy studies and STS, we conceptualise the Commission’s discursive construction of policymaking as a terrain for evidence-based policies through the lens of ‘evidence culture’ (Bandola-Gill et al. 2024, Lorenc et al. 2014, Straßheim 2024). From this perspective, expertise and its role in policymaking are understood as constantly validated and contested through practices and discourses (Elomäki & Haapala, 2023). Evidence cultures, conceived as dynamic institutional- and discursive-driven forces, influence what kind of evidence is perceived as valid, useful and relevant for policy. To understand how the Commission’s evidence culture is (re-)produced, and how the institution’s discourse on evidence adapted to changing contexts and circumstances, we focus on the meta-regulatory architecture of Better Regulation that guides policymaking across the different domains of EU action. In particular, the paper analyses official documents, guidelines, and reports published in the last twenty–five years. Building on these materials, we aim to study how the Commission’s evidence culture redefined over time the role of evidence, science, and expertise in policy, hence contributing to ongoing debates on regulation in the EU and on evidence-based policy.