Participatory Governance in the EU: Enhancing Or Endangering Democracy and Efficiency?

Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics Edited by: Michelle Egan, American University, USA, Neill Nugent, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, and William Paterson OBE, University of Aston, UK. Editorial Board: Christopher Hill, Cambridge, UK, Simon Hix, London School of Economics, UK, Mark Pollack, Temple University, USA, Kalypso Nicolaïdis, Oxford UK, Morten Egeberg, University of Oslo, Norway, Amy Verdun, University of Victoria, Canada, Claudio M. Radaelli, University of Exeter, UK, Frank Schimmelfennig, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Switzerland. Following on the sustained success of the acclaimed European Union Series, which essentially publishes research-based textbooks, Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics publishes cutting-edge researchdriven monographs. The remit of the series is broadly defined, both in terms of subject and academic discipline. All topics of significance concerning the nature and operation of the European Union potentially fall within the scope of the series. The series is multidisciplinary to reflect the growing importance of the EU as a political, economic and social phenomenon. Titles include: Ian Bache and Andrew Jordan (editors) THE EUROPEANIZATION OF BRITISH POLITICS Thierry Balzacq (editor) THE EXTERNAL DIMENSION OF EU JUSTICE AND HOME AFFAIRS Governance, Neighbours, Security Falk Daviter POLICY FRAMING IN THE EUROPEAN UNION Renaud Dehousse (editor) THE ‘COMMUNITY METHOD’ Obstinate or Obsolete? Kenneth Dyson and Angelos Sepos (editors) WHICH EUROPE? The Politics of Differentiated Integration Michelle Egan, Neill Nugent, and William E. Paterson (editors) RESEARCH AGENDAS IN EU STUDIES Stalking the Elephant Kevin Featherstone and Dimitris Papadimitriou THE LIMITS OF EUROPEANIZATION Reform Capacity and Policy Conflict in Greece Stefan Gänzle and Allen G. Sens (editors) THE CHANGING POLITICS OF EUROPEAN SECURITY Europe Alone? Eva Gross THE EUROPEANIZATION OF NATIONAL FOREIGN POLICY Continuity and Change in European Crisis Management Adrienne Héritier and Martin Rhodes (editors) NEW MODES OF GOVERNANCE IN EUROPE Governing in the Shadow of Hierarchy Wolfram Kaiser, Brigitte Leucht, and Michael Gehler TRANSNATIONAL NETWORKS IN REGIONAL INTEGRATION Governing Europe 1945–83 Hussein Kassim and Handley Stevens AIR TRANSPORT AND THE EUROPEAN UNION Europeanization and its Limits Robert Kissack PURSUING EFFECTIVE MULTILATERALISM The European Union, International Organizations and the Politics of Decision Making

Katie Verlin Laatikainen and Karen E. Smith (editors) THE EUROPEAN UNION AND THE UNITED NATIONS Intersecting Multilateralisms Esra LaGro and Knud Erik Jørgensen (editors) TURKEY AND THE EUROPEAN UNION Prospects for a Difficult Encounter Karl-Oskar Lindgren and Thomas Persson PARTICIPATORY GOVERNANCE IN THE EU Enhancing or Endangering Democracy and Efficiency? Ingo Linsenmann, Christoph O. Meyer and Wolfgang T. Wessels (editors) ECONOMIC GOVERNMENT OF THE EU A Balance Sheet of New Modes of Policy Coordination Hartmut Mayer and Henri Vogt (editors) A RESPONSIBLE EUROPE? Ethical Foundations of EU External Affairs Philomena Murray (editor) EUROPE AND ASIA Regions in Flux Daniel Naurin and Helen Wallace (editors) UNVEILING THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION Games Governments Play in Brussels David Phinnemore and Alex Warleigh-Lack REFLECTIONS ON EUROPEAN INTEGRATION 50 Years of the Treaty of Rome Sebastiaan Princen AGENDA-SETTING IN THE EUROPEAN UNION Carolyn Rowe REGIONAL REPRESENTATION IN THE EU Between Diplomacy and Interest Mediation Emmanuelle Schon-Quinlivan REFORMING THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION Roger Scully and Richard Wyn Jones (editors) EUROPE, REGIONS AND EUROPEAN REGIONALISM Asle Toje AFTER THE POST-COLD WAR The European Union as a Small Power Richard G. Whitman and Stefan Wolff (editors) THE EUROPEAN NEIGHBOURHOOD POLICY IN PERSPECTIVE Context, Implementation and Impact Richard G. Whitman (editor) NORMATIVE POWER EUROPE Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives

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Participatory Governance in the EU Enhancing or Endangering Democracy and Efficiency? Karl-Oskar Lindgren Researcher, Department of Government, Uppsala University, Sweden

Thomas Persson Associate Professor, Uppsala University, Sweden

© Karl-Oskar Lindgren and Thomas Persson 2011 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978–0–230–24178–7 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lindgren, Karl-Oskar. Participatory governance in the EU : enhancing or endangering democracy and efficiency? / Karl-Oskar Lindgren, Thomas Persson. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 978–0–230–24178–7 (hardback) 1. Political participation—European Union countries. 2. Democracy— European Union countries. I. Persson, Thomas. II. Title. JN40.L55 2011 323 .042094—dc23 2011021109 10 20

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Contents

List of Figures

vi

List of Tables

vii

Preface

viii

1 Participatory Governance: Promises and Pitfalls

1

2 Assessing Participatory Governance – A Survey Approach

22

3 The Structure of Political Contestation

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4 Opportunities for Participation and Access to Information: Adequate and Equal?

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5 Chances to Influence Policy: Equal and Effective?

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6 Input and Output Legitimacy: Synergy or Trade-off?

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7 Participatory Governance: The Way Forward?

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Data Appendix: Variables Used in this Study

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Notes

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References

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Index

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List of Figures 1.1 Three strategies for strengthening democracy in the EU 3.1 Lipset and Rokkan’s two dimensions of political contestation 3.2 Confidence-interval plot for position on REACH by country 3.3 Confidence-interval plot for position on REACH by organisational affiliation 3.4 Confidence-interval plot for position on REACH by interest affiliation 5.1 Confidence-interval plot for the influence of various organisations 5.2 Confidence-interval plot for the influence of various interests

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12 44 54 55 56 98 101

List of Tables 2.1 Number and share of participants in the survey from different countries 2.2 Number and share of individuals representing different actor categories in the survey 2.3 Number and share of participants in the survey representing different types of interest 3.1 Factor analysis of items relating to the REACH proposal 3.2 Dyadic analysis of opinion-congruence 4.1 The openness of the REACH process and the accessibility of decision-makers. Average estimations among organisations 4.2 The openness of the REACH process and the accessibility of decision-makers. Average estimations among interests 4.3 The representation of relevant viewpoints in the REACH process and accessibility of information. Average estimations among organisations 4.4 The representation of relevant viewpoints in the REACH process and accessibility of information. Average estimations among interests 5.1 The influence of organisations 5.2 The influence of interests 6.1 Determinants of output legitimacy

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36 37 37 51 60

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Preface The waning legitimacy of the European Union (EU) and its alleged democratic deficit have become a recurrent theme in the contemporary debate on the future of European integration. As demonstrated by, for example, the problems to ratify the Lisbon Treaty, the low turnout in the 2009 European Elections and the diminishing support for the EU following the financial and economic crises, the Union is in great need of improving its legitimacy among the European citizenry. In our view there is unlikely to be any quick fix to the legitimacy problems of the EU. Instead, we ought to look for reforms that may accomplish piecemeal improvements, without impeding what has already been accomplished in building a representative system of government at the EU level. This book is about one such reform, namely the ongoing drive to incorporate civil-society organisations and interest groups in EU policy making. According to the proponents of this strategy, the introduction of new fora for interestgroup participation and deliberation should help connect the EU more closely to its citizens and lead to more effective policies. Other observers, however, warn that these reforms will mainly serve to strengthen the position of already powerful actors yet further. In this book we seek to answer the vital question of whether reforms aimed at increasing civil-society and interest-group involvement in policy making enhance or endanger democracy and efficiency within the Union. Towards this end, the book provides a comprehensive empirical investigation of one of the most ambitious attempts in this direction: the recent EU chemicals policy overhaul. The first impetus for writing a book about these issues came from a research project in 2004–2006, “The EU decision process for chemicals regulation”, which was part of the so-called News programme, headed by Professor Sven Ove Hansson at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and financed by The Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research (Mistra). During this project the survey that provided data for the empirical assessment undertaken in this book was conducted. viii

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An opportunity to make contact with researchers with a similar interest in questions relating to civil society and democracy in the EU was given by the CONNEX (Connecting Excellence on European Governance) network headed by Professor Beate KohlerKoch in Mannheim. She arranged, among many other things in this impressive programme, a workshop on “The Institutional Shaping of EU-Society Relations” in 2006, which was an invaluable source of intellectual inspiration. In preparing this volume, we have incurred many debts from colleagues and friends who have provided valuable and, disturbingly often, justified critique on earlier drafts. We particularly wish to thank Sverker Gustavsson, Christer Karlsson, Moa Mårtensson and the other participants in the European Studies seminar at the Department of Government, Uppsala University, who provided valuable input during the early stages of this project. We also want to express our satisfaction at being part of the Swedish Network for European Studies in Political Science. Indirectly, it has very much supported our work through its regular conferences and the good relations it has promoted between scholars. In addition, Lindgren would like to acknowledge the financial support provided by Jan Wallander and Tom Hedelius Foundation. We are also grateful to the patient and supportive Commissioning Editor, Amber Stone-Galilee, and Assistant Editor, Liz Blackmore, at Palgrave, and to Peter Mayers who have helped in putting the manuscript together. Finally, our deepest gratitude goes to our families to whom we dedicate this book. So thank you Jessie, Signe, Hilma, Sara, Ebba and Hjalmar for constantly reminding us that there are more important things in life than EU policy making. Karl-Oskar Lindgren and Thomas Persson

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1 Participatory Governance: Promises and Pitfalls

In December 2006, the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers established a supranational system for the regulation of chemicals within the EU: the REACH system (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals). It was a historic decision, in two regards. First, the bill establishing the system was one of the most complex and hotly debated pieces of legislation ever enacted by the EU. The aim of the new system was to protect the population and the environment from dangerous chemicals. In its final form, the bill targeted tens of thousands of existing chemical substances. It replaced 40 previous legislative texts, and took seven years to complete. Second, and equally important, the policy-making process leading to the adoption of REACH made for an early test of the new participatory-governance strategy, which the European Commission had launched in its White Paper on European Governance in 2001. One of the main aims of this new strategy was to open up “the policy-making process [in order] to get more people and organisations involved in shaping and delivering EU policy” (Commission of the European Communities 2001a: 3). The preparation of the REACH proposal, accordingly, was marked by far-reaching and lengthy consultations with a variety of organisations and citizens. Upon its initial drafting of the legislation, for example, the Commission took the unusual step of organising an Internet consultation on the matter, attracting over 6000 responses from a variety of actors (Persson 2007; Selin 2007). 1

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Commentators remain divided, however, in their assessment of the outcome of this experiment. According to some scholars, the REACH process shows the fruitfulness of the participatorygovernance approach. In particular, they argue, the new approach helped – by creating cooperative arenas where “negotiated package deals, elements of joint problem-solving and deliberative processes could be organized” – to moderate conflict and to make an ambitious chemicals reform possible (Hey et al. 2007: 1871; see also Selin 2007). Others, somewhat more cautious in their optimism, describe REACH as “a first firm step towards the beginning of a reform process leading to inclusive governance” (Heyvaert 2008: 213). According to yet other observers, however, REACH illustrates the inadequacy of the participatory-governance approach to EU policymaking. According to Dieter Pesendorfer, for instance, the design of the policy process was the very reason why the final REACH proposal ended up (as he believes) serving the interest of the chemical industry rather than that of the environment: The “business” coalition used new modes of governance – developed by the Commission – and shifting the locus of decisionmaking as well as traditional forms of lobbying to bring the Commission proposal in line with neo-liberal ideas. Often overestimated within the environmental debate, “new governance” did not result in “better regulation” and in a “sound balance between economic, social, and environmental goals”. It reinstalled key players in a veto position and did little to enhance effective participation of the public. (Pesendorfer 2006: 111) Scholars disagree, then, both about the character of the new regulatory regime and about the nature of the process that led to it. Does the new regime primarily represent a victory for industrialists, or is it sooner a breakthrough for environmentalists? Is it possible, as advocates of this approach argue, to enhance decision-making efficiency and democratic legitimacy by involving organisations and citizens in the formulation and implementation of EU policy? Or does such a strategy mainly serve, as its critics contend, to strengthen the position of already powerful actors yet further?

Participatory Governance: Promises and Pitfalls

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We address these questions in this book. Admittedly, there is already a large and rather polarised scholarly literature on the subject. In the view of one camp in this debate, a greater involvement on the part of representatives of interest groups and civil society is an effective means for enhancing the democratic quality of EU policies and increasing the problem-solving capacity of the Union (Héritier 1999; Grote and Gbikpi 2002; Steffek and Nanz 2008). According to the opposite camp, however, the ongoing attempts at establishing new procedures for participation and deliberation at the European level serve sooner to deepen than to alleviate the Union’s problems with democracy and legitimacy (Grande 2000; Warleigh 2003; Michalowitz 2004). The debate is lacking, however, in systematic empirical studies of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the arguments put by the two sides. As Pollack concludes in a recent review of the literature on the subject, “the analytical and normative elaboration of the governance approach has frequently outpaced the empirical work needed to assess the plausibility of its claims” (2005: 390). The aim of this book, accordingly, is to begin to fill in the lacunae left by previous research, through an empirical study of how the actors involved view the content and outcomes of the decisionmaking process that led to REACH. We have been able to do this by using data from a unique expert survey, in which more than 600 respondents from over 40 countries took part. This approach sets our study apart, moreover, from the small number of other empirical studies in the field, which have typically been in-depth case studies of particular policy processes (e.g. Pesendorfer 2006; Risse and Kleine 2007; Friedrich 2008; Heyvaert 2008). As we explain in greater detail in the next chapter, our main reason for studying REACH is not that we believe this policy process to be reflective of the larger EU system in all relevant regards. We have chosen this case, rather, because it is not just one of the earliest but also one of the most ambitious attempts to apply the new mode of decision-making set out by the Commission in its White Paper on European Governance (Commission of the European Communities 2001a), and is heralded by many students of participatory governance. It has even been suggested that the REACH process can serve as a “blue print for participatory law-making” more generally

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(Heyvaert 2008: 198). Against this background, the differing opinions on the lessons to be learned from REACH become particularly interesting. One purpose of our analysis, accordingly, is to use the data at our disposal to ascertain whether it is the more optimistic or the more pessimistic interpretation of the REACH process that best accords with reality. At the same time, it is our firm belief that it is also possible to draw some more general lessons from the study of a single case such as REACH (i.e. as long as one keeps the idiosyncratic features of the case firmly in mind). Ultimately, we hope that the analysis offered in this book will bring us at least one step closer to answering the vital question of whether, and if so under what conditions, the current drive to establish a greater measure of participatory governance at the European level may justify the hopes placed in it. Can such an approach alleviate the current legitimacy crisis of the EU, by simultaneously enhancing democracy and increasing the problem-solving capacity of the Union? To this end, we set the stage in this introduction for the empirical chapters to follow. We review the (largely theoretical) research dealing with the promises and pitfalls of participatory governance, and we situate the analysis contained in this book in relation to the said research.

The twin promises: A more democratic Union, and a more efficient one The Union’s alleged democratic deficit and its waning legitimacy have inspired scholars and practitioners to look for new ways of improving democracy within its bounds. Acknowledging the weakness of traditional representative channels in the EU, and the difficult road ahead before parliamentarisation is accomplished, these observers have shifted their attention to the direct involvement of civil society in the European political system. Letting stakeholders and civil society take an active part in policy making is thought to offer a promising complement to more traditional forms of democracy (Smismans 2006; Finke 2007; Kohler-Koch and Rittberger 2007). A greater societal involvement in EU policy making, it is thought, will expose decisions to public scrutiny, and contribute in the long run to the emergence of a European public sphere. The idea, then, is

Participatory Governance: Promises and Pitfalls

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that participatory and deliberative arrangements have the potential to generate a better democratic legitimation of European governance (Steffek and Nanz 2008). Much recent discussion on these issues has taken place under the heading of participatory governance (Grote and Gbikpi 2002; Greven 2007; Heinelt 2007; Steffek and Nanz 2008). As is often the case with such catchwords, there is no unanimity on the meaning of the term. Loosely speaking, participatory governance refers to cooperation between state actors and members of civil society in the formulation, and at times the implementation, of public policy. In an attempt to provide a more rigorous definition, Philippe Schmitter has suggested that participatory governance involves the “regular and guaranteed presence when making binding decisions of representatives of those collectives that will be affected by the policy adopted” (2002: 56). Admittedly, the idea of societal involvement in policy making is hardly new, whether at the national or at the European level. The Commission, for instance, has always been open to stakeholders and civil-society organisations; for they supply expertise, and they serve as a check and balance on political institutions and on each other. Yet, the traditional notion of societal involvement has mainly been focused on the functional role played by these groups in improving the problem-solving capacity of the Union (i.e. the output-oriented legitimation they provide). Since the late 1990s, however, there has been a shift in how academic scholars and the Commission seek to promote the involvement of civil society in policy making. Increasingly, the focus is now on the way in which participation by stakeholders and civil-society representatives can contribute to the input-oriented legitimation of European governance. The White Paper on European Governance, published by the Commission in 2001, was an early and influential example of this shift in emphasis. A first important ingredient of the White Paper was, indeed, a recognition of the insufficiency of the output approach to legitimacy. Against the background of the changes in both the agenda and the composition of the Union, the Commission stated that the legitimacy of the EU could no longer rest solely on its “ability to remove barriers of trade or to complete an internal market”; rather, “its legitimacy today depends on involvement and participation”. This in turn was taken to mean that the “linear model of dispensing policies from

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above must be replaced by a virtuous circle, based on feedback, networks and involvement from policy creation to implementation at all levels” (Commission of the European Communities 2001a: 11). To this end, the Commission argued for the need to open up the policy-making process in order to get more citizens and organisations involved in shaping and delivering EU policy. Increasing the involvement of civil society in EU policy making, it was suggested, could enhance not just input legitimacy but output legitimacy as well – by “improving the quality, effectiveness and simplicity” of EU policies (2001a: 20). In the years since the publication of the White Paper, the Commission has introduced, moreover, a range of instruments for improved consultation and dialogue with civil-society representatives, including ad hoc and online consultations, public hearings and institutionalised consultations in advisory committees and business test panels. Throughout the process, however, the Commission has cautioned that these elements of participatory democracy are a complement rather than an alternative to the traditional Community method (2001a: 4). The idea that the EU’s democratic legitimacy rests on these two complementary principles – representative democracy and participatory democracy – was further reinforced by the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. The former principle is elaborated in Article 10 of the Treaty, which states that “the functioning of the Union shall be founded on representative democracy”. The next article introduces the principle of participatory democracy: citizens and representative associations shall be given the opportunity to express their views “in all areas of Union action”; and the Union “shall maintain an open, transparent and regular dialogue with representative associations and civil society”.1 As these examples illustrate, the notion of participatory democracy is warmly embraced nowadays by many EU institutions, the Commission not least (Saurugger 2010). However, notwithstanding an occasional reference to citizen participation, most EU documents dealing with this issue tend to rest on a rather elitist conception of participation. Or, in the words of Paul Magnette: The rhetoric of “civil society” tries to convince us that these reforms concern all citizens, and not just the classic “interested parties”, but, in the white paper as in most documents published

Participatory Governance: Promises and Pitfalls

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on this subject, there is a constant hesitation between a universalistic, and a functional, conception of participation. On the one hand, the words citizens, civil society, people, general public, etc., are frequently used, but on the other, most concrete proposals concern organised groups. (Magnette 2003: 6, emphasis in original) The Commission is far from alone, however, in hailing the virtues of elite participation in international decision-making. Indeed, as Michael Greven (2007: 236) notes, the focus on collective rather than individual actors is one of the things that sets the participatorygovernance approach apart from more traditional accounts of participatory and deliberative democracy (see also Schmitters’s definition above). According to the standard argument, the actors involved in participatory-governance arrangements are not individual citizens as such, but “spokespersons” for groups, organisations and collectives of other kinds (Schmitter 2002: 53; Greven 2007: 240). Understood this way, the democratic virtue of civil society would seem to be closely linked with the idea of political representation. It is, therefore, rather surprising, as Beate Kohler-Koch has pointed out, that there is no academic debate over the relationship between civil society and representation (2010a: 101). One reason for the absence of the concept of representation in the debate over the democratic credentials of a closer involvement of civil society in EU policy making may be that many scholars consider the concept of “representation of civil society” to be an oxymoron. Especially for sociologically oriented scholars building on the seminal work of Habermas, civil society is a realm of participation and not of representation: that is, the democratic potential “of civil society emanates from the direct and active participation of citizens, whereas representation means delegation and is equal to a deterioration of political autonomy” (Kohler-Koch 2010a: 105). According to this sociological approach, the main function of civil-society associations is thus to help create a public sphere in which deliberations on important political matters can take place. In other words, civil-society organisations are considered important as arenas, not as actors. As noted above, however, the participatory-governance model ascribes a rather different role to the organisations of civil society. The importance of organised civil society is thought to lie in its actions,

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not in its mere existence. Or, as Jens Steffek and Patrizia Nanz put it when explaining how their preferred approach to the democratisation of international policy making differs from a more Habermasian understanding of transnational democracy: Our conception departs from this [the Habermasian] view in so far as it focuses on sites of public deliberation in which organized civil society participates as an intermediary agent between the political institutions and the wider public. We argue that, at the international level, the public sphere – conceived as a pluralistic social realm of a variety of sometimes overlapping or contending (often sectoral) publics engaged in transnational dialogue – can provide an adequate political realm with actors and deliberative processes that help to democratize global governance practices. (Steffek and Nanz 2008: 7) Although the concept of representation has been conspicuously absent in previous research on the subject, the pluralistic understanding of civil society underpinning the participatory-governance approach does indeed fit nicely with political representation in the traditional sense. “Citizens are represented in EU policy making by civil society organizations; it is a case of representation built on the expression of preferences” (Kohler-Koch 2010a: 107). In highlighting organisations and interest groups as democracyenhancing intermediaries, the participatory-governance approach accords with the normative theory of associative democracy developed by Joshua Cohen and Joel Rogers (1995). As these authors see it, the most effective way to invigorate modern democracy is to assign various secondary associations a greater role in formal deliberations with the state: such a “deliberate politics of associations”, it is believed, will “harness group contributions to democratic order” (Cohen and Rogers 1995: 9). Furthermore, in addition to having a positive impact on democracy, a greater role for associations improves the efficiency of government, because “deliberation about common problems with diverse participants might . . . reasonably be thought to enhance social learning and problem-solving capacity” (Cohen and Rogers 1995: 260). In this model of associative democracy, citizens mainly participate in politics through their associations. For this to work, however, there

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must be associations representing all societal interests; furthermore, these associations need to be internally democratic, or they will not be able to truly represent the interests of their members. Cohen and Rogers suggest, therefore, that the state play an active role in sponsoring and certifying associations. This has led many commentators to describe the ideal envisioned by Cohen and Rogers as a type of “inclusive corporatism” (e.g. Dryzek 2000: 91). There is thus a close connection between the literature on participatory governance and that on associative democracy. Most importantly, both models point to an increased involvement of interest groups in European decision-making as the answer to the Union’s legitimacy problem. Interest groups are seen as a way both to improve policy-making efficiency and to ensure effective participation and deliberation. Sabine Saurugger, for example, writes as follows in a critical assessment of the ongoing attempts to bind civil society closer to EU policy making: The model of associative democracy, by binding the neocorporatist agenda to the requirements of the theory of liberal democracy, assumes that interest groups can be at the same time instruments to improve the efficiency of policy-making and assure citizens’ participation. In situations where political parties do not supply adequate access to citizens to allow them to participate in the decision-making processes, interest groups can offer opportunities for such participation. (2006: 263) Kohler-Koch describes the claims made for the participatorygovernance model in a similar fashion: Civil society organizations are reaching out from the grass roots to remote Brussels and thus bring people’s interests into the decisionmaking process. As a partner in governance they are expected to voice the diversity of interests and views and to bring the knowledge and down-to-earth experience of citizens into the policymaking process. In other words, they are expected to contribute both to input and output legitimacy. (2010a: 106) For proponents of the participatory-governance approach, then, a closer involvement of organised interests in European policy making

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promises to make the EU both more democratic and more efficient. In this book, we shall attempt to assess the empirical validity of this claim. But before we do that, however, we need to consider the theoretical strengths and weaknesses of the participatory-governance approach in somewhat greater detail.

Posited mechanisms and potential pitfalls We share the view of Kohler-Koch (2010a) that previous theoretical and empirical research in this area has had an important weakness: to wit, it has not explicitly linked the potential contribution of civil society to the Union’s democratic legitimacy with the idea of political representation. Given the centrality of representation to modern democratic thought, namely, it would seem prudent to base an assessment of the democratic credentials of the participatory-governance model on its effects in the area of representation. A first difficulty in this regard, however, is that representation does not always involve democratic representation. Furthermore, views on what constitutes democratic representation may differ according to one’s particular understanding of democracy. Therefore, when discussing whether a closer involvement of organised civil society can help to improve democratic representation in the Union, it is imperative to be explicit about the definition of “democracy” – especially since much of the current controversy over the nature and extent of the democratic deficit is rooted in different understandings of democracy. With that said, this is not the place to discuss the enormous literature on how best to conceptualise democracy. Rather, as many others have done earlier, we shall take Robert Dahl’s well-known definition of a fully democratic procedure as our point of departure. In order to qualify as democratic, a political entity must meet the following five criteria (Dahl 1982: 6): 1. Equality in voting: In making collective binding decisions, the expressed preference of each citizen ought to be taken equally into account in determining the final solution. 2. Effective participation: Throughout the process of collective decision-making, including the stage of putting matters on the agenda, each citizen ought to have adequate and equal opportunities for expressing his or her preferences as to the final outcome.

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3. Enlightened understanding: In the time permitted by the need for decision, each citizen ought to have adequate and equal opportunities for arriving at his or her considered judgement as to the most desirable outcome. 4. Final control over the agenda: The body of citizens should have the exclusive authority to determine what matters are or are not to be decided by means of processes that satisfy the first three criteria. 5. Inclusion: The demos ought to include all adults subject to its laws, except transients. From the standpoint of this book, an appealing feature of this definition of “democracy” is that it is sufficiently general to subsume many of the more specific models of democracy found in the literature (Held 2006). Advocates of electoral democracy, for instance, tend to view democracy above all as a system for aggregating individual preferences into collective decisions in such a way as to respect the equal worth of each citizen’s preferences (e.g. Schumpeter 1942; Huntington 1991). The main concern for electoral democrats, then, is that the criteria of inclusion and voting equality (and, to a lesser extent, agenda control) be fulfilled. Other models of democracy, however, ascribe greater importance to the quality of the political process that precedes the voting stage. One example of this is the model of participatory democracy, which stresses on the intrinsic as well as instrumental value of citizen participation in the preparation of public policy (e.g. Pateman 1970). Viewed from this perspective, effective participation, as described by Dahl, is the key defining characteristic of a democratic political system. Another and closely related example is the model of deliberative democracy. Champions of this model view democracy primarily as a process of “decision-making by means of argument offered by and to participants who are committed to the values of rationality and impartiality” (Elster 1998: 8). According to deliberative democrats, then, democracy is not so much about the aggregation of preferences as about their formation. This understanding of democracy fastens particularly on Dahl’s requirement of enlightened understanding among citizens. One of the advantages, therefore, of using Dahl’s conception of democracy as the point of departure for our empirical investigation is that we can evaluate the democratic potential of the participatorygovernance approach without having to choose among these models.

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We can thus sidestep the thorny question of exactly how decisions must be reached in order to qualify as democratic and focus instead on the overall effect of the proposed reforms on the different aspects of democracy featured in Dahl’s definition. So, given this definition of “democracy”, how might a closer involvement on the part of interest organisations help improve democratic representation within the Union? In attempting to answer this question, we find it useful to contrast the participatorygovernance approach with two alternative proposals for making the EU more democratic, as depicted in Figure 1.1: According to a first set of scholars, strengthening the elements of competitive democracy within the EU is key to alleviating the democratic deficit. Typically, proposals in this direction aim at establishing a firmer connection between EU institutions and citizens by increasing the importance of pan-European political parties. The way to democratise the EU, from this point of view, is to enhance the functioning of the path a–b in Figure 1.1.2 Or, as Simon Hix, a leading champion of this perspective, has put it: Competition between rival European-level parties for control of the EU policy agenda is the only way to make the EU truly democratic – to ensure that EU policies reflect citizens’ wishes and to hold EU level politicians accountable for their actions. (2004: 8) Others maintain, however, that the EU is democratically justified primarily via the representation of its member states in intergovernmental negotiations at the Union level, that is the link c–d in

a

Citizens

c e

Figure 1.1

European political parties

Member-state governments

Interest organisations

b

d

EU institutions

f

Three strategies for strengthening democracy in the EU

Participatory Governance: Promises and Pitfalls

13

Figure 1.1. Through the procedures for parliamentary scrutiny of the government within each member state, and through the general elections which ensure democratic accountability therein, citizens enjoy sufficient opportunities to hold European decision-makers to account. This is the view held by those who basically deny the Union’s democratic deficiencies, and who therefore oppose major reforms (Majone 1998, 2005; Moravcsik 2002, 2008). Or, in the words of Andrew Moravcsik, a leading advocate of the state-centric view of European integration: Rather than toying with radical democratic reform, Europe should embrace the mode of indirect democratic oversight currently employed, whereby national governments representing national parties manage EU policy, via the European Council, the Council of Ministers, and the directly elected European Parliament. (Moravcsik 2008: 340) Advocates of the participatory-governance approach, by contrast, consider a strengthening of the interest-based channel – path e–f in Figure 1.1 – to be the most effective method for alleviating the democratic deficit. However, proponents of this strategy are divided as to whether their model of elite participation and deliberation should be considered the optimal solution to the EU’s democratic deficiencies, or whether, instead, it merely offers a second-best method in the absence of structural mechanisms which might otherwise endow the Union with input legitimacy – such as pan-European parties, EU-wide media and competitive elections (Greenwood 2007b: 44). In an attempt to explicate the theoretical underpinnings of the participatory-governance approach, Steffek and Nanz have suggested that organised collective interests can act as a “transmission belt” between citizens and decision-makers, and that this transmission belt operates in two directions: First, civil society organizations can give voice to citizens’ concerns and channel them into the deliberative process of international organizations. Second, they can make internal decision-making processes of international organizations more transparent to the wider public and formulate technical issues in accessible terms. (2008: 8)

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Participatory Governance in the EU

Interpreted in terms of Dahl’s democratic criteria, this means that a more extensive involvement of organised interests in international decision-making can help both to secure effective participation (by voicing and channelling citizens’ concerns) and to promote enlightened understanding (by making the content of decision-making more transparent and accessible to citizens). Marco Verweij and Timothy Josling reason along similar lines, but stress instead on the efficiency gains that arise when multilateral organisations like the EU are forced continuously to discuss and to coordinate their policies with representatives of international organisations and of local citizens’ groups. According to these authors, reforms in this direction [w]ould increase the number of policy perspectives considered within multilateral organizations and encourage comparison and debate. It would stimulate a search for synthetic policy solutions that would address the normative and other concerns of a larger plurality of viewpoints. Thus, it could improve the design and implementation of multilateral policy. In this way the output legitimacy of multilateral organizations might improve. (2003: 11) In line with the associative model of democracy, the idea of organised civil society functioning as a transmission belt enunciated by Steffek and Nanz and by Verweij and Josling operates in two steps. In the first step, individual citizens express their views on various Union issues within the organisations or interest groups to which they belong (link e in Figure 1.1). In the second step, representatives of these organisations voice their members’ concerns in dialogue with EU officials at the European level (link f). Thus, when the structure of decision-making works in accordance with this normative model, organised interest groups help to bridge the gap between the Union and its citizens – thereby improving both democracy and efficiency.3 However, as critics of the participatory-governance approach like to remind us, there are numerous reasons why actual decision-making in the EU may fail to accord with the theoretical underpinnings of this approach. More specifically, we would argue, at least six potential pitfalls can be identified in connection with the ongoing attempts to

Participatory Governance: Promises and Pitfalls

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improve democratic representation in the EU by strengthening the interest-based channel: Pitfall 1: In their internal workings, the interest organisations may not be democratic enough. A first potential pitfall concerns the internal decision-making procedures of the organisations in question. The participatory-governance approach assumes that these organisations are internally democratic, so that the views expressed by their leaders accurately reflect those of their members. In the view of sceptics, however, such an assumption is doubtful at best. Alex Warleigh, for instance, subjected a sample of EU civic-interest groups to empirical analysis and found “little evidence of structures which allowed supporters either to make a regular input into the making of NGO policy, or to hold officers or the NGO to account for it afterwards” (Warleigh 2003: 29). We risk a situation, then, in which Union institutions respond to the views of group “oligarchs” rather than to those of group members (cf. Cohen and Rogers 1995: 65). The Commission, as a matter of fact, was well aware of this problem, having stated in its White Paper on European Governance that “civil society must itself follow the principles of good governance, which include accountability and openness” (Commission of the European Communities 2001a: 15). In 2008, moreover, the Commission followed up this statement by adopting a code of conduct, with which interest-group representatives must comply when taking part in public consultations initiated by the Commission. Pitfall 2: Political cleavages within the EU may be territorial rather than functional. Another potential pitfall associated with the participatorygovernance strategy concerns the structure of political cleavages within the EU. Historically, as Stefano Bartolini points out, the EU system has been based on three competing principles of political representation: territorial, electoral and interest-based (Bartolini 2005). Seen from this perspective, advocates of the participatory-governance approach appear to be arguing for a strengthening of the interestbased channel of representation within the EU system. Arguably, however, the relationship between the three channels of representation is zero-sum in character; if so, an increased importance for interest-based representation will entail a diminished importance for territorial and/or electoral representation (cf. Mårtensson 2007). Because of this, and because the three channels of representation vary

16

Participatory Governance in the EU

in their ability to handle different types of political cleavage, the prospects for the success of the participatory-governance approach depend crucially on the nature of political contestation within the Union. In the literature on the EU, two main perspectives on the character of political conflict in the EU can be found. According to the traditional state-centric view of European integration, conflicts in the Union are primarily of territorial origin (Moravcsik 1993, 1998). From this perspective, a reinforcement of interest-based representation at the expense of territorial representation is not the way to overcome the EU’s legitimacy crisis. On the contrary, given that political contention in the Union is primarily territorial in nature, proposals aimed at weakening the territorial channel of representation are doomed to aggravate public discontent with the EU still further (cf. Moravcsik 2006). The upshot of this is that the democratic potential of the participatory-governance approach is inconsiderable unless the latter of the two views above is inaccurate. If political conflict within the Union mainly follows territorial lines, then the answer is neither to reinforce the interest-based channel (through a greater involvement of organised interests in EU policy making) nor to strengthen the electoral channel (by importing more competitive democracy). The best prospects lie, rather, in bolstering the territorial channel of representation within the Union. Accordingly, the representativeness of organisations and the existence of significant non-territorial cleavages constitute necessary background conditions for the strategy advocated by proponents of participatory governance. Yet, even if these conditions are met, there is no guarantee that the elite model of participation and deliberation envisaged by supporters of participatory governance will serve to alleviate the democratic deficit. For this to be so, namely, it must also be the case that a reinforcement of the interest-based channel of representation will help to alleviate current deficiencies in relation to Dahl’s democratic criteria. Pitfall 3: Opportunities for participation may differ across groups. As seen above, the criterion of effective participation states that all citizens must have equal and adequate opportunities for expressing their preferences on important political issues. From the standpoint of the associative model of democracy, this criterion translates into the

Participatory Governance: Promises and Pitfalls

17

requirement that all citizens must have equal and adequate opportunities to voice their concerns through the associations that influence decision-making at the European level. Advocates of participatory governance often argue that a more extensive involvement of organised interests in EU policy making will promote effective participation, because the organisations in question will provide citizens with an effective channel to voice their concerns on important EU issues. Sceptics of this view, however, doubt that strengthening the interest-based channel of representation will contribute to a better fulfilment of the criterion of effective participation. They cite two reasons for this. First, the capacity to organise is likely to differ among citizens. According to Michael Walzer, it is “a general rule of civil society that its strongest members get stronger. The weaker and poorer members are either unable to organise at all – or they form groups that reflect their weakness and poverty” (Walzer 2002: 39). Second, even when citizens have access to organisations which further their particular interests, it is the resource-rich among them that tend to have better access to the policy-making process. As a result, many fear it is inevitable that certain classes of citizens and interests will be overrepresented in an interest-group system, whereas others will be underrepresented. Or, as E.E. Schattschneider famously noted half a century ago: “the flaw in the pluralist heaven is that the heavenly chorus sings with a strong upper class accent” (1960: 35). Pitfall 4: Access to information may differ across groups. A closely related problem concerns the criterion of enlightened understanding, which requires that all citizens enjoy equal and adequate opportunities for discovering and validating their preferences on important political issues. According to the participatory-governance approach, a greater involvement of organised interests in the policy process can promote enlightened understanding, because the said organisations make the content of decision-making more transparent and accessible to their members. This view rests on the assumption that all organisations have equal and adequate access to relevant information. However, if the capacity to obtain information from political institutions differs widely across organisations, a reinforcement of the interest-based channel of representation may hamper rather than facilitate the fulfilment of the criterion of enlightened understanding.

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Participatory Governance in the EU

Pitfall 5: Opportunities to influence policy may differ across groups. Even if all organised interests have equal and adequate access to information and to relevant policy-making fora, the process may nonetheless fail to meet another of Dahl’s criteria. Equal opportunities for access, namely, do not necessarily translate into equal opportunities for influence (Heyvaert 2008: 198). Or, as Dahl himself explains: Suppose that, for whatever reasons, some organizations have greater resources than others; that as a consequence, these organizations have greater influence on decisions; and that, as a further consequence, the preferences of their members count for more than the preferences of citizens who belong to weaker organizations. Then the government of the state does not meet the first criterion of the democratic process – voting equality. (1982: 83) Thus, if a greater involvement on the part of organised interests is to help alleviate the democratic deficit, then all organisations must not only enjoy equal and adequate access to information and to relevant policy-making fora, but they must also have equal and adequate opportunities to influence EU policy. As critics of the participatorygovernance approach rightly point out, these are indeed strong assumptions (e.g. Grande 2000). Pitfall 6: Broad participation can hamper efficiency. Finally, according to proponents of the participatory-governance approach, a greater involvement on the part of organised interests holds the promise of making the EU not only more democratic but more efficient as well. That is, a strengthening of the interest-based channel can simultaneously enhance the Union’s input legitimacy and its output legitimacy. According to this view, the two types of legitimacy are mutually reinforcing. Some scholars argue, however, that the notion of a synergetic relationship between input legitimacy and output legitimacy is more a hope than a reality. Ellen Immergut, for instance, makes this point when discussing the pros and cons of the associative model of democracy: Institutions that guarantee access to decision-making protect citizens from injustice, and notably, they protect minorities from domination by majorities, but they may also create policy stalemate. Similarly, broad access to group negotiation may conflict with the effectiveness of these negotiations. Thus the conditions

Participatory Governance: Promises and Pitfalls

19

for effective/efficient policies pose problems for the democratic/participatory aspects of associative democracy. (Immergut 1995: 204) In this view, then, the relationship between input legitimacy and output legitimacy is not synergetic; rather, it is competitive. The problem with the participatory-governance approach is that any potential gains in legitimacy on the input side (from extensive participation and deliberation) risk being offset by a corresponding loss on the output side. In other words, a greater involvement of organised interests in EU decision-making does not solve the Union’s legitimacy problem; it merely reshuffles it (Höreth 1999: 258).

Criteria for evaluation In our view, the current legitimacy crisis of the Union cannot be alleviated through increased interest-group participation unless the six pitfalls identified above are avoided. In order, therefore, to assess the capacity of organised interest groups to act as democracyand efficiency-enhancing intermediaries – in the way envisioned by champions of participatory governance – we should focus on the extent to which the following six conditions apply in respect of actual EU policy-making processes: (1) The organisations involved in EU policy making accurately represent the views of their members. (2) Political cleavages in the Union are functional rather than territorial. (3) All interests enjoy equal and adequate representation in EU policy-making fora. (4) All interests have equal and adequate access to relevant information. (5) All interests have an equal and adequate influence on policy. (6) The broad access to information and to policy-making fora does not interfere with decision-making efficiency. We do not pretend to break any new ground with this list of evaluative criteria. On the contrary, the problem at hand – how to assure an unbiased connection between the preferences of citizens and the outcomes of policy making through interest-group participation – was

20

Participatory Governance in the EU

extensively discussed by students of pluralism in the 1950s (Truman 1951; Schattschneider 1960; Dahl 1961), as well as by students of neocorporatism in the 1970s (Schmitter 1974; Anderson 1977; Lembruch 1997). This is furthermore to be expected, given the close relationship between the participatory-governance approach and the pluralist and neocorporatist modes of interest representation (it is not for nothing that the ideal envisioned by promoters of participatory governance is often referred to as “inclusive corporatism” and “elite pluralism”). The challenges faced by the participatory-governance approach, then, are to a great extent the same as those traditionally faced by pluralist and neocorporatist governance arrangements. The intent of this book is not to add to the already huge theoretical literature on the nature and severity of these challenges, but to furnish an empirical evaluation of how participatory governance performs in practice when applied within the EU. We deem this a worthwhile undertaking, because much of the controversy among students of the Union over the merits of participatory governance appears to be rooted in conflicting views about the tenability of the assumptions upon which the strategy is based. Some observers take a rather optimistic view of the prospects for meeting the six conditions listed above, while others are far more sceptical. Yet, notwithstanding the fact that the accuracy of these views is ultimately an empirical question, most previous research in this area has been theoretical. We seek to remedy this situation in this book, by presenting the results of a systematic empirical study of the policy process that led to the adoption of REACH. We use the survey data at our disposal to assess the degree to which conditions (2) through (6) in the list above were met in this case. We do not try to ascertain whether the organisations involved in the REACH process accurately represented the views of their members (i.e. condition (1) in the list above). That is not because we think this question any less important; however, answering it would require a rather different research design. Another limitation of our study lies in its exclusive focus (dictated by reasons of time and space) on proposals which aim to democratise the EU by strengthening the interest-based channel of representation. Thus, even if we were to find that the participatory-governance approach performs flawlessly on all counts, we could not conclude from this that the said approach is the only way – or even necessarily the best

Participatory Governance: Promises and Pitfalls

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way – to overcome the legitimacy crisis of the Union. Other strategies for democratising the EU – for example, increased parliamentarisation, or the introduction of various direct democratic elements – might prove still more effective in this regard. We shall return to the question of our study’s limitations (and the consequences thereof) in the final chapter (Chapter 7) of the book.

The plan of the book In this introductory chapter, we have presented the theoretical underpinnings for our study. In the chapters that follow, we examine the extent to which the policy-making process did in fact meet conditions (2) through (6) in the list above. To begin with, however, we must present the policy issue in question. In Chapter 2, therefore, we explain the relevance of the EU chemicals policy overhaul; and we outline the expert survey we conducted in order to gather data on the matter. In Chapter 3, we attempt to ascertain whether condition (2) above is met. Are the cleavages which structure the conflict over the chemicals policy functional rather than territorial? In Chapter 4, we examine whether the steps recently taken by the Commission to improve consultation and dialogue with interested parties satisfy conditions (3) and (4) listed above. Are all interested parties assured equal and adequate representation in the process, and do they enjoy equal and adequate access to relevant information? Chapter 5 takes up the critical issue of the distribution of power. By studying respondents’ perceptions on the distribution of power among participants in the process, we seek to ascertain whether all interests have an equal and adequate influence on policy. Chapter 6 takes its point of departure in the debate over the inputoriented dimension of democratic legitimacy. In this chapter, we assess the relationship between input legitimacy and output legitimacy empirically. In the final and concluding chapter (Chapter 7), we provide a concise summary of the major findings presented in previous chapters, and we discuss the implications of these findings for future research and policy.

2 Assessing Participatory Governance – A Survey Approach

Our objective in this book is to offer an empirically well-grounded answer to the vital question of whether recent governance reforms within the EU should be seen as enhancing or as endangering democracy. As we stressed in Chapter 1, we believe there is a great need for such a study. There has been a far-reaching theoretical debate on the desirability of reforms to promote participation and deliberation at the European level. However, empirical studies on the actual effects of such reforms in general – and on the impact of the European Commission’s new governance regime in particular – have been sparse. In order to address this shortcoming in the previous literature, we shall carry out an empirical investigation of the democratic effects of the participatory and deliberative arrangements which have recently been instituted within the EU. We examine one policy-making process in particular: the recent overhaul of the Union’s chemicals policy, in which the so-called REACH system was introduced. This case is generally seen as an early test of the new governance strategy, since it entailed inviting stakeholders, civil society and the public to provide their input throughout most of the legislative process. In our empirical investigation of this case, we have made use of a survey designed specially for the purpose. This survey approach sets our study apart from most other empirical studies in the field, which typically take the form of an in-depth case study of a particular policy process (e.g. Steffek et al. 2008). Yet many scholars have argued that “future research should be designed around 22

Assessing Participatory Governance – A Survey Approach

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large-scale quantitative and qualitative empirical studies that investigate participation designs and effective participation in the EU” (e.g. Saurugger 2008: 1274). This study, we believe, fits the bill. In this chapter, we describe the above-mentioned survey. The purpose of the survey was to gather data on the EU’s review of chemicals policy, in which more than 600 stakeholders representing over 40 countries took part. We explain the distribution of participants in the survey, what kind of questions they were asked and how the survey was conducted. We also present the policy issue that was at stake, as well as a detailed account of the decision-making process and the negotiations that preceded the adoption of REACH. Finally, we explore the relevance of this policy overhaul, and we consider whether any general conclusions can be drawn from this particular case. Before presenting the survey and the policy issue, however, we try first to identify the kind of players that ought – for theoretical reasons – to be included in a study of this kind. As noted in Chapter 1, the current debate over participatory governance is vague on the question of which actors can be expected to take part. We present, therefore, a brief summary of the changing character of research into the role of associations in the Union: from having essentially been restricted to looking at functional interest groups, it has now broadened to include the analysis of civil society generally. The chapter is accordingly disposed as follows. In the first section, we try to define the kind of actors that are relevant in a study of participatory governance. In the second, we examine the decisionmaking process and what we can learn from it. In the third section, we describe our survey and how it was conducted. In the fourth section, finally, we present our conclusions.

Studying associative democracy in the EU – who should be included? At the very heart of the participatory-governance approach is the idea that increased societal involvement in the making of public policy offers a promising complement to more traditional forms of political representation in the Union (Kohler-Koch and Rittberger 2007; Kohler-Koch 2010a). Yet, as noted in Chapter 1, there is no real consensus on whose participation should be increased. Reference is often

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made, on a general level, to citizens, civil society, the people and the general public (Magnette 2003: 6). In practice, however, the idea of participatory governance tends to rest on a rather elitist conception of societal involvement: the participation in question is mainly that of interest groups, stakeholders and organised civil society. A first thing to remember from our discussion in Chapter 1, therefore, is that the actors involved in participatory governance in the Union are not primarily individual citizens, but rather delegates for groups, organisations and collectives of other kinds. Before embarking on a study of participatory governance, therefore, we must first define the kind of organisations which are likely to be helpful for enhancing EU democracy (or – as critics of participatory governance might sooner put it – the kind of organisations which are likely to help make the situation worse!). Fortunately for us, there is already a lot of research on the role of associations in the EU; after all, as Rainer Eising points out, “interest organizations have been steady companions of European integration” (Eising 2008: 4). This is not the place to recapitulate the vast literature on this topic (for recent reviews, see, e.g., Finke 2007; Greenwood 2007a; Beyers et al. 2008; Eising 2008; Saurugger 2008). However, a quick tour through the field should help put our study in context and identify the actors to be studied. Until the 1980s, interest organisations in the EU were mainly of interest to researchers for their impact on the integration process itself. The two dominant approaches to the study of European integration – neofunctionalism and intergovernmentalism – portrayed interest groups as among the driving forces of European integration (albeit in very different ways). Neofunctionalists anticipated the emergence of transnational interest associations at the EU level, and believed the impact on continued integration would be positive (Haas 1958; Lindberg 1963). Intergovernmentalists maintained the member states had not ceded any of their major powers to supranational institutions, and so remained in control of the integration process; accordingly, the primary efforts of interest organisations would continue to be directed at their respective national governments (Hoffmann 1966, 1982; Milward 1984, 1992; Moravcsik 1993, 1998). This debate has never really cooled down, but the one-sidedness of its focus on the territorial dimension of European integration has

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left room for other approaches to emerge for understanding the role of organised interests in the EU. Already, in the 1970s, for instance, a group of scholars shifted away from grand theorising in the style of neofunctionalism and intergovernmentalism, and concentrated instead on theorising and investigating the conditions for collective action in the European Community (EC) setting. They looked both at the mobilisation and intermediation of organised interests in policymaking, and at the role of such interests in the implementation of EC policies. Since then, students of comparative politics have explored how interest intermediation actually operates in the European Community, and what role interest organisations play in policy-making. This research is ultimately driven by an ambition to characterise the Community in terms of either pluralism or corporatism, although no definitive conclusion has ever been reached (Eising 2008: 7; Beyers et al. 2008: 1103). Notwithstanding this early interest in the relationship between interest-group politics and democracy, it was not until the 1990s – when the debate on the Union’s democratic deficit got going – that “organised civil society” was increasingly seen as having a potential to enhance democracy in the EU (Greenwood 2007a; KohlerKoch and Rittberger 2007; Saurugger 2008; Kohler-Koch 2010a). In this vein, the Commission began stressing the involvement of stakeholders and civil society in EU policy-making, as a way to make the Union more effective and democratic (Commission of the European Communities 2001a). The Commission’s reasoning was straightforward enough: if those affected by the Union’s policies are also able to take part in their making, the democratic legitimacy of European governance can be increased. It bears stressing here, however, that participatory-governance arrangements in the EU (as noted in Chapter 1) primarily involve those with something at stake – not just anyone. Furthermore, the participation of civil society is mainly seen in this debate as something outside of the formal representative apparatus of the Union – a complement for, not a replacement of, the traditional representative channels. As Beate Kohler-Koch points out, the only aspect of representation considered here is the representativeness of civil-society organisations (Kohler-Koch 2010a: 101). In the treaties, accordingly, the involvement of civil society in EU policymaking has been codified as an obligation for the institutions of the

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Union to consult with representative organisations: “the institutions shall maintain an open, transparent and regular dialogue with representative associations and civil society” (Article 11 in the consolidated version of the Treaties; our emphasis). Yet, as Justin Greenwood points out, “the apparent distinction in the wording between associations and the rest of civil society is not as significant as it seems on first reading due to the somewhat clumsy use of nomenclature whereby ‘representative associations’ are denoted as producer associations and ‘the rest of civil society’ is meant to denote citizen organizations” (Greenwood 2007a: 336). In practice, then, the Union’s conception of civil society includes both economic and business interests (such as producer associations) and public-interest groups and citizen organisations (like nongovernmental organisations (NGOs)). Thus, argues Sabine Saurugger, there is “a trend in the literature to incorporate the complete range of societal actors in interest group research which makes the distinction between the ‘civil society’ and the ‘interest groups’ increasingly fictional” (Saurugger 2008: 1287). In the political and academic discourse of the Union, then, organised civil society has become synonymous with interest groups. A third thing to note, then, is that the actors involved encompass a broad range. The point here is that, when studying societal involvement in the EU, it is essential to include the complete range of organised societal actors that are affected by EU policies: that is, both those that represent general and public interests, and those that represent economic and private interests. We therefore subscribe to the understanding of participatory governance proffered by Philippe Schmitter: it is a question, he writes, of the “regular and guaranteed presence when making binding decisions of representatives of those collectives that will be affected by the policy adopted” (2002: 56). Additionally, however, we include various representatives of the Union and of national governments in our study; for example, officials from the Commission, the Council and the governments of the member states, as well as elected politicians from the European Parliament. These officials may not be directly “affected” by EU policies, but they are the ones who initiate, negotiate and decide policies; and it is accordingly they who are the object of lobbying by societal actors. If we are to get a full picture of how participatory governance works in practice, we must include them in a study of this kind. We are aware that, by including

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both governmental and non-governmental stakeholders in our analysis, we risk blurring the distinction between those on the giving end of policy decisions and those on the taking end. For the most part, therefore, we treat the two separately, in order that the reader can see the distinct effects associated with each. Let us turn now, then, to a more detailed presentation of the case under study.

The case of REACH – a chronological narrative We believe that the best way to study the potential of participatory measures is in relation to specific policy-making processes, rather than as an abstract and general attribute of an entire political system or regime. Ultimately, the democratic functioning of a system or regime is a question of how politics is structured and implemented within specific policy areas. As we pointed out in Chapter 1, our main argument for studying the chemicals policy overhaul is that it involved one of the most ambitious attempts so far to apply the new approach to decisionmaking championed by the Commission in its White Paper on European Governance (Commission of the European Communities 2001a). Some scholars describe the REACH process as a “blue print for participatory law-making” (Heyvaert 2008: 198), while others claim it “did little to enhance effective participation of the public” (Pesendorfer 2006: 111). Against this background, we believe the lessons to be learned from this case are of particular interest. By studying REACH in greater depth, we should be able to judge whether it is the more optimistic interpretation or the more pessimistic one that best accords with reality. That said, we do not mean this policy process was representative of EU politics in general. It was just one policy process at one time in the history of the Union. It is too early to tell how attempts at participatory governance will evolve over time, or how well they can be applied in other areas. Nevertheless, it is our firm belief that general lessons can be drawn from studying a single case such as REACH – as long, that is, as one keeps the idiosyncratic features of the case clearly in mind. Ultimately, we hope, our analyses in the chapters to follow will bring us at least one step closer to answering the vital question of whether, and if so under what conditions, the current

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drive to expand participatory governance at the European level can help alleviate the current legitimacy crisis of the Union. Just now, however, let us analyse REACH’s development in greater detail. As Henrik Selin has aptly put it, “chemicals are of great importance to modern societies and policy-makers are faced with the challenge of regulating hazardous chemicals in a socially acceptable way, often in cases of competing interests and scientific uncertainty” (Selin 2007: 72). This was very much the situation faced by EU decision-makers in the mid-1990s. There was a growing consensus among policy-makers and stakeholders that the Union’s existing system for chemicals regulation had many shortcomings. First, it was too complex and opaque, with too many different pieces of legislation. Second, knowledge was generally lacking about 99 per cent of the chemicals which had been placed on the common market before 1981; prior to that date, namely, there were no strict health or safety tests that needed to be passed before chemicals were marketed. The disparity in the treatment of old and new chemicals had the effect of encouraging the use of old untested chemicals, and discouraging the introduction of newer and safer alternatives. Third, the allocation of responsibilities between government authorities and chemicals manufacturers was inappropriate. The former rather than the latter were responsible for risk assessment, making for lengthy committee procedures and leaving little room for applying the precautionary principle. Hence, notwithstanding the declaration in the Maastricht Treaty that all Union environmental policy is based on it, the said principle had not really been integrated into EU chemicals management (Hansson and Rudén 2004; Pesendorfer 2006; Selin 2007; Erikson et al. 2010). In order to remedy this imbalance, and to promote human health and the environment as well as innovation, the Commission presented a new strategy for chemicals policy. It did so in response to, among other things, concerns that had been raised at an informal meeting in 1998 of the Council of Environment Ministers, to the effect that the regulatory system was not providing sufficient protection. The Commission proposed that a single new system be established for chemicals regulation – REACH (Registration, Evaluation, and Authorisation of Chemicals) – which would replace the previous 40 legislative texts, and make old and new substances subject to the same procedures (Commission of the European Communities

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2001b, 2003). The aim of the new system, in line with the overriding goal of sustainable development, was to make the chemicals industry accept more responsibility, while safeguarding the single market and the competitiveness of European industry. The draft legislation, which the Commission sent to the Council and the Parliament in November 2003, was the result of lengthy deliberations. In answer, as mentioned above, to the concerns raised at the Environment Council about the rules for the chemicals sector, the Commission had published a White Paper: Strategy for a Future Chemicals Policy (Commission of the European Communities 2001b). Extensive consultations with stakeholders followed, as did a series of meetings – under the joint auspices of DG Environment and DG Enterprise – of working groups of technical experts. At this early stage, discussions for a revision of chemicals policy were dominated by a “green coalition”, which consisted primarily of the following: leading green member states (e.g. Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and so on); environment ministers and the Environment Council; DG Environment and the Environment Commissioner; “green” Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and the Parliament’s Environment Committee; consumer associations; and NGOs for the protection of animals and the environment (Pesendorfer 2006: 99–100; Selin 2007: 77–78). Initially, then, the Commission championed the precautionary principle as a key guiding principle for achieving a more effective regulation and management of risks. The new regulatory framework for chemicals was mainly seen as an environmental issue. In an international context, however, tough environmental requirements for the chemicals industry had the potential to threaten one of Europe’s most important business sectors (Smith 2010). It was necessary to strike a balance: between the benefits that chemicals bring and the risks that they entail. At the time of the negotiations, the chemicals industry was the third-largest manufacturing industry in the Union, with about 500 billion euros a year in sales and nearly 2 million employees – making the EU the leading chemicalsproducing area in the world. The Union was also the world’s leading exporter and importer of chemicals (CEFIC 2005). Over the course of the law-making process, therefore, the Commission grew more concerned with the competitiveness of European industry, and started to downplay environmental concerns (Eckley and

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Participatory Governance in the EU

Selin 2004; Pesendorfer 2006). As Christian Hey and his co-authors (2007: 1871) note: The initiative for a re-regulation of chemical policy clearly came from a coalition of few Member States and the DG Environment within the Commission. This environmental coalition was able to frame the agenda, but was politically too weak to overcome the fierce opposition from other sectors. Therefore, already the drafting took place not as a pure environmental policy initiative but as a joint effort of DG enterprise and environment. Having gathered new information from the first round of consultations with regulators, scientists, businesses, downstream users, NGOs and representatives of member states and applicant countries, the Commission drew up a revised legislative draft. At this stage, “DG Enterprise became much more active and engaged in protracted negotiations with DG Environment, often in collaboration with the chemical industry” (Selin 2007: 80). A “business coalition” was now under way: it consisted primarily of the European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC) and other industry associations; DG Enterprise and the Enterprise Commissioner; the Internal Market, Industry and Competitiveness councils; key ministries in member states with large chemical industries (such as Germany, France, Italy and the UK); and business-friendly MEPs (Pesendorfer 2006: 99). This business coalition raised concerns that the proposed system would place an excessively heavy burden on the chemicals industry, thereby threatening its competitiveness. Stakeholders and the general public were then invited to a public Internet consultation in May and June 2003, with the aim of assessing the workability of the proposed REACH system (Persson 2007). Upon the conclusion of this consultation, the Commission analysed the contributions made therein; and it was set to make appropriate changes to the proposal. At this stage, however, it came in for a flood of lobbying. For example, President Jacques Chirac of France, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Great Britain and Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany wrote a joint letter to Commission President Romano Prodi, in which they urged that the new EU chemicals policy not be framed in such a way as to threaten the competitiveness of the European chemicals industry (Selin 2007: 80). This unusual action by

Assessing Participatory Governance – A Survey Approach

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the leaders of the three largest member states shows how important REACH had become. Following adoption in the College of Commissioners in October 2003, Environment Commissioner Margot Wallström and Enterprise Commissioner Erkki Likkanen jointly presented the final proposal for a new regulatory framework for chemicals (Commission of the European Communities 2003). This final version of the REACH proposal, which the Commission sent to the Council and the Parliament in November 2003 under the co-decision procedure, provoked a flood of reactions from the chemicals industry and environmental NGOs alike. Two important events at the time, moreover, had the effect of slowing down the REACH process: the enlargement of the Union in 2004, which brought ten new countries into the process; and the election of a new Parliament and a new Commission during the same year. These events had no significant impact on the general framework of the REACH system, which was already established and could not be changed in any significant way. But after these two events, and as the co-decision procedure got under way, there was considerable debate about which committee in the Parliament was to take the lead, and also which formation in the Council. Some business-friendly MEPs suspected the Environment Committee might not take industrial interests into account; some member states feared it would be too skewed towards an environmentalist perspective. In the end, the Environment Committee was given charge of REACH in the Parliament; other parliamentary committees were to give their opinions. At the Council, however, the Competitiveness Council was put in charge. This clearly shows that the proposal had come to be regarded not just as a piece of environmental legislation, but as something which affected the competitiveness of the European chemicals industry – a matter to be taken very seriously (Pesendorfer 2006: 110; Selin 2007: 84). Finally, after marathon talks, the EU’s two law-making bodies – the Parliament and the Council – came to a compromise agreement on 30 November 2006. This compromise package was adopted by the plenary of the European Parliament on 13 December 2006, and unanimously by the Council on 18 December 2006. The REACH system targets approximately 30,000 existing substances, which must undergo a registration procedure. This requirement covers most chemicals. The general criterion for priority-setting is the production

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volume of each chemical, which is used to assign different test requirements to substances (higher production volumes, accordingly, require more extensive testing). The basic rationale for using production volume as a priority-setting tool is that it can be used as a proxy for potential risks. This has been one of the most debated issues in connection with REACH, along with such questions as the general applicability of the precautionary principle (according to which risk-reducing actions are to be taken even when there is uncertainty about the precise nature or magnitude of potential damage) and of the substitution principle (according to which hazardous substances must be replaced by safer alternatives whenever possible) (Eckley and Selin 2004; Pesendorfer 2006). The prerogatives of the new European Chemicals Agency in Helsinki have also been widely debated, inasmuch as the powers given to it represent a substantial shift of authority away from the regulatory agencies of the member states. Furthermore, the extent to which companies are able to submit group applications in consortia when registering similar substances with the agency – through the so-called “One Substance, One Registration” (OSOR) principle – has been the subject of controversy. In the end, most commentators agree, the final compromise package relaxed many of the requirements which had figured in earlier proposals. Mitchell Smith (2010: 945), for instance, says that “during the course of the policy-making process, EU institutions moderated the rigor incorporated in initial versions of the regulation, sufficiently accommodating concerns of European industry to reduce the risk of a massive compliance deficit”. Some even argue that the final agreement was a victory for neoliberal ideas: “Given the sector’s importance in trade and competition on the world market, the concerns for profitable economic activities and jobs were superior to progressive environmental goals. The ‘business coalition’ used new modes of governance – developed by the Commission – and shifting the locus of decision-making as well as traditional forms of lobbying to bring the Commission proposal in line with neo-liberal ideas” (Pesendorfer 2006: 111). Yet others maintain that, “although an opposing coalition consisting of the chemical industry, several conservative and socialist MEPs, and high level European politicians succeeded in lowering several requirements compared to the Commission’s earlier proposal, the pro-REACH coalition succeeded in

Assessing Participatory Governance – A Survey Approach

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advancing a new REACH regulation that will significantly reshape and strengthen EU chemicals policy” (Selin 2007: 87). Irrespective of how one judges the outcome, however, the chemicals policy overhaul is widely regarded as having been one of the most open, transparent and inclusive decision-making processes in the history of the EU (Greenwood 2007a: 352; Friedrich 2008; Heyvaert 2008: 198). That said, REACH cannot be considered representative of EU policy-making in general. As our review clearly shows, it was a highly technical system of regulation, with a polarising potential which involved a mixture of distributive and efficiency concerns. The purpose of the overhaul was to address market failures arising from the integration of the single market; the danger, however, was that stringent environmental requirements might put trade and the international competitiveness of European industry at risk. The new regulatory system needed therefore to strike a balance – particularly between defenders of the environment and champions of the competitiveness of European industry. REACH was indeed, then, a very costly and polarising piece of legislation; and it provoked strong industry mobilisation, particularly within a few large member states. Its highly technical nature, moreover, meant that many public interests declined to get involved. It is not our aim, then, to generalise from this particular case to EU governance as a whole. If that were our intention, we would need to compare the REACH process with similar cases in which stakeholder participation and deliberation have been promoted (cf. Kohler-Koch and Finke 2007). Examples of such cases include GMO (genetically modified organisms) regulation (Skogstad 2003; Dabrowska 2007), the Constitutional Convention (Pérez-Solórzano Borragán 2007; Karlsson 2008) and experiences from social policy and the Open Method of Coordination (Büchs 2008). We could also turn, at this point, to more general research on “participatory engineering” in the EU (see, e.g., Kohler-Koch et al. 2008). Notwithstanding this, however, we believe REACH provides a good testing ground for examining the EU’s new and more open strategy of governance. It was a pioneering experiment in stakeholder participation; as such, it says more about the future prospects for improving European democracy through participatory governance than do the standard ways of making policy in the Union. REACH is not just interesting in its own right, due to the relevance of the policy area, but it also provides

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an opportunity to assess the results of the new governance strategy championed by the Commission.

The survey In order to evaluate the effects of participatory arrangements during the REACH process, we carried out an online survey in 2006. Our purpose was to ascertain the opinions of various actors who had been involved in the process or affected by it. We believe that the values, expectations and attitudes of those affected are essential in determining the prospects for enhancing democracy through participatory governance arrangements. Hence, it is the subjective perceptions of the stakeholders involved that we intend to examine. With that said, one caveat bears noting: actors can of course be wrong. Thus, even if all the actors agree that the REACH process met the criteria of a democratic decision process, such an assessment may well be wrong from a more objective point of view. All the same, we believe the method we have chosen is the best way for assessing democratic success. The survey included roughly 2000 potential respondents who had been involved, in one way or another, in the discussions on the REACH proposal. However, since the entire population of actors who took part in the law-making process in connection with REACH is impossible to determine, we sought simply to include all relevant actors – that is, all influential actors reflective of the full range of positions on the new regulatory system. Accordingly, we tried to capture the views of all actors who had been working on REACH within the EU institutions, or who had interacted with Union institutions in the course of the law-making process. We had two criteria for whom to include in the survey. The persons in question were either: (1) individuals with positions in the Commission, the Parliament and the Council who had been working actively with REACH; or (2) individuals who had served as panel discussants, keynote speakers or workshop participants in EU conferences on REACH. Our selection of respondents thus reflects both position and participation (Scott 1991/2000). As we see it, involvement in decision-making can be seen as an affiliation, as surely as any official position with relevance for REACH. Consequently, our selection of respondents included representatives of the Commission, the Parliament, the Council, member-state governments and public

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authorities, governments and public authorities in candidate countries, governments and public authorities in third countries, industry and business associations, individual firms, political parties, academic institutions, NGOs, other civil-society associations and individual citizens. In all, 1951 actors were sampled, of whom 175 were excluded for various reasons; 651 actors responded to the survey. Our response rate, accordingly, was 37 per cent. The relatively low response rate was partly due to the fact that this was an online inquiry with a target group composed largely of elite officials (people who are normally quite busy, in other words). Moreover, we received very few replies from MEPs: among them, only 16 per cent responded. If MEPs are excluded, in fact, the response rate rises to 46 per cent. The tables below show the absolute and relative number of respondents according to country (Table 2.1), actor category (Table 2.2) and type of interest (Table 2.3). The figures above suggest that NGOs and the Council, among others, are underrepresented in the survey; while industry associations and private businesses are overrepresented. Similarly, certain countries are overrepresented in the survey (in relation to population), for example, Austria, Belgium, Sweden and the Netherlands, while others are underrepresented, for example, Spain, Greece, Portugal and Poland. This imbalance may reflect differences between countries in the policy relevance of REACH. The survey was designed in such a way as to enable us to assess the capacity of different associations to act as democracy- and efficiencyenhancing intermediaries. Thus, we can use data from the survey to examine the extent to which REACH meets the criteria for democratic decision-making discussed in Chapter 1 (complete questions can be found in the Data Appendix, together with information on our method for recording responses).1 First, we have gathered data on respondents’ background characteristics: that is, their nationality, their institutional/organisational affiliation, their current professional situation, their level of engagement with regard to REACH and the type of interest which they consider themselves primarily to represent. Second, we asked respondents to state their views on seven of the most contentious issues connected with the REACH proposal (see following list). These issues were: (i) the OSOR proposal; (ii) the

36

Table 2.1 Number and share of participants in the survey from different countries Country

Number of respondents

Share of respondents (per cent)

Austria Belgium Denmark Finland France Germany Greece Ireland Italy Luxembourg the Netherlands Portugal Spain Sweden United Kingdom EU 15 Cyprus Czech Republic Estonia Hungary Latvia Lithuania Malta Poland Slovakia Slovenia EU10 EU25 Applicant countries Third countries Unknown

33 47 27 16 44 91 11 13 37 8 46 11 23 43 66 516 2 9 6 11 5 6 4 9 11 11 74 590 9

5.1 7.2 4.1 2.5 6.8 14.0 1.7 2.0 5.7 1.2 7.1 1.7 3.5 6.6 10.1 79.3 .3 1.4 .9 1.7 .8 .9 .6 1.4 1.7 1.7 11.4 90.6 1.4

42 10

6.5 1.5

Total

651

100.0

Note: Applicant countries at the time of the survey included Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Turkey and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

37

Table 2.2 Number and share of individuals representing different actor categories in the survey Actor category

Number of respondents

European Commission Council of the European Union European Parliament Other EU institutions/authorities Industry associations Private businesses/foundations Trade unions NGOs International organisations Member-state governments/public authorities Applicant-country governments/public authorities Third-country governments/public authorities Academic and technical institutes Other Total

Share of respondents (per cent)

56 7 87 8 90 89 39 56 9 145

8.6 1.1 13.4 1.2 13.8 13.7 6.0 8.6 1.4 22.3

4

.6

11

1.7

30 20

4.6 3.1

651

100.0

Note: Applicant countries at the time of the survey included Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Turkey and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Table 2.3 Number and share of participants in the survey representing different types of interest Type of interest

Number of respondents

Share of respondents (per cent)

Environmental interests Consumer interests Animal-welfare interests Health interests Worker interests Industrial/business interests Private interests General interests Other interests Unknown

137 29 8 66 65 164 2 90 14 76

21.0 4.5 1.2 10.1 10.0 25.2 .3 13.8 2.2 11.7

Total

651

100.0

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Participatory Governance in the EU

test requirements for low-volume chemicals; (iii) the question of whether the “burden of proof” should be placed on the industry rather than on the public authorities; (iv) the responsibilities of the European Chemicals Agency; (v) the substitution principle; (vi) the precautionary principle; and (vii) the limiting of animal testing. Third, we asked respondents how they perceived their opportunities to participate during the decision-making process, their access to information from the three major EU institutions involved and their opportunities for influencing policy. In other words, we asked respondents about their perceptions of the distribution of power among the stakeholders involved. Fourth and finally, we sought to gauge respondents’ attitudes towards the quality of the decision-making process, and to match these with their views on the policy outcome. For this purpose, we asked respondents how they perceived the informational openness, representativeness and inclusiveness of the REACH process; and then we asked them to assess the outcome of the process from the standpoint of efficiency.

Conclusion Despite the central role organisations are thought to play in pluralist democracies, researchers in this field have failed to agree on a common terminology for their central unit of observation (Eising 2008; Saurugger 2008). In this chapter, therefore, we have presented – in an orderly manner, we hope – the way in which research on the role of associations in the EU has evolved over time. Our conclusion from this review is that the research has changed substantially in respect of scope: from having essentially been restricted to looking at functional interest groups, it has now broadened to include the analysis of civil society generally. If we are to assess the role associations can play for the enhancement of EU democracy, we must take account of a wide range of societal actors: both those which represent general and public interests, and those which represent economic and private interests. This study is based on such an inclusive approach. With this in mind, we have also presented our selected case for studying the effects of the Commission’s new strategy for increasing participation in decision-making. As we see it, the chemicals policy overhaul is a good case for this purpose, since it can be seen

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as an early test of the Commission’s ambitious efforts to increase participation. Moreover, in our review of how this policy was developed and decided, we have discovered that the overhaul had a polarising potential. Its purpose was to address market failures arising from the integration of the single market; the danger, however, was that stringent environmental requirements might put trade and the international competitiveness of European industry at risk. As a consequence, it ended up eliciting the mobilisation of a broad range of important societal interests – especially two: defenders of the environment on the one hand and champions of the competitiveness of European industry on the other. Due to the question’s highly technical nature, moreover, many public interests declined to get involved. The REACH case might therefore be taken to illustrate what many see as the elitist nature of associative democracy (Magnette 2003; Lord and Pollak 2010). In order to capture the views of stakeholders involved in this policy process, we have used a survey approach. Many scholars have called for large-scale quantitative studies in order to test different models for increasing societal participation; we believe our study here fits the bill. As the above presentation of our survey makes clear, moreover, our respondents encompass a wide range of actors. We therefore believe that, on the whole, our survey paints a pretty accurate picture of the policy review. However, the degree to which our data enable us to answer the central question of this book remains to be seen – in the chapters to follow.

3 The Structure of Political Contestation

The notion of political representation lies at the heart of liberaldemocratic thinking.1 Scholars use the term “representation” in a range of ways, but few would disagree that democracy requires the existence of a causal link between the preferences of those who govern and the preferences of those who are governed – that is, what is commonly known as political responsiveness (Achen 1978; Przeworski et al. 1999). The great challenge of democratic engineering, of course, is to design political institutions in such a way as to induce the desired degree of political responsiveness. EU is no exception in this regard. From its inception, the EU has relied on three different channels of representation in order to ensure that policy making is responsive to the views of citizens. The territorial channel is the first: it works through the intergovernmental institutions of the Union, such as the European Council and the Council of Ministers. The second is the electoral channel, which works through the European Parliament. The third and final channel is the interest-based one, which operates through interest organisations active at the European level (Bartolini 2005; Mårtensson 2007). There are, it bears stressing, some strong inherent tensions between these three channels, as many observers have pointed out over the years. In a recent book on the history of European integration, for example, Stefano Bartolini has even suggested there is a zero-sum relationship between them: If territorial external representation were to dominate, little room would be left to express conflicts of interest, Weltanschauung, and identity that either transcend the local community or divide it 40

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internally. For the supporters of the pure corporatist state, no further room is left for ideological conflicts cutting across the lines of the (recognized and licensed) system of interests once representation is organized along them. No other principle of representation capable of undermining the corporate negotiated outcome is acceptable. Finally, in a radical majoritarian view of representation – the Rousseau tradition – corporate and territorial interests are perceived as sectional and illegitimate interferences in the formation of the majority’s will based on the principle of one person, one value, one vote. (Bartolini 2005: 250) In line with this view, much recent discussion of the EU’s legitimacy crisis concerns how an appropriate balance might be struck between the territorial, the electoral and the interest-based channel of representation. Some scholars call for strengthening the electoral channel, in the belief that the key to restoring the Union’s legitimacy lies in politicising policy making within it (Hix 2008). By contrast, defenders of confederalism see politicisation as part of the problem, and stress instead on the need to reinvigorate the territorial channel (Moravcsik 2006). Finally, champions of participatory governance argue for a strengthening of the interest-based channel of representation within the EU (Héritier 1999; Commission of the European Communities 2001a; Grote and Gbikpi 2002). As we see it, conflicting views in the normative debate over the Union’s democratic deficit can often be traced to different assumptions about the nature of political cleavages within the EU. For purposes of the present book, the most relevant distinction in this regard is that between those who claim EU politics is essentially driven by territorial/cultural divisions (Hoffmann 1966; Moravcsik 1993, 1998) and those who argue that political conflict within the Union is primarily a matter of trans-territorial socio-economic cleavages (Hix 1999; Tsebelis and Garrett, 2000; Hooghe and Marks, 2001; Hix et al., 2007). Proponents of participatory governance are typically found in the latter camp. This is quite natural; after all, they contest the traditional international-relations model of European integration, according to which political contestation within the Union takes place along a single territorial dimension, with anti-integration forces at one pole and pro-integration forces at the other. Thus, the question of whether or

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not political cleavages within the Union are mainly structured along territorial lines is of vital importance for the prospects of reducing the democratic deficit through a closer involvement of interest organisations in EU decision-making. For this reason, we devote this chapter to investigating the nature of the policy preferences that were at play in the REACH case. In particular, we seek to ascertain whether the different policy views in this area were primarily driven by territorial or by non-territorial concerns. Over the years, much effort has been put into establishing the relative political strength of different actors in EU policy making; by contrast, less attention has been paid to the nature of political cleavages within the Union (cf. Treib 2010). In the last decade, however, this has started to change, and there are now a number of studies dealing with preference structures and conflict patterns within various EU institutions, such as the European Commission (Hooghe 1999, 2001; Hooghe and Marks 2001), the European Parliament (Hix et al. 2006, 2007) and the Council of Ministers (Mattila 2004; Zimmer et al. 2005; Hagemann 2007). In one important respect, our analysis in this chapter departs from that made in most previous studies in the field. We do not, that is, restrict our attention to the structure of preferences within a particular EU institution; rather, we study how policy preferences vary both within and between the different types of institution and organisation which are typically involved in EU decision-making. In so doing, we follow the largely neglected suggestion once made by Simon Hix (1999: 93), to the effect that theories on the nature of political contestation within the Union ought to be tested not just on highlevel EU officials, but also on a multitude of actors “such as public and private interest groups, EU bureaucrats, national and European parliamentarians, and national governments”. In addition, we attempt to add to earlier literature on the topic by exploring the field of environmental politics, an area which has received scant attention in previous studies of the EU policy space. Environmental politics, after all, would seem to offer a suitable testing ground for theories concerned with the nature of political contestation, inasmuch as it is well-known from studies of domestic politics that environmental regulations have the potential to spur political mobilisation along several different dimensions, both territorial and non-territorial. The chapter proceeds as follows. In the first section, we review some influential attempts to theorise the EU policy space. In the

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second section, we describe the nature of the contestation in the case of REACH. In the third, we analyse the determinants of the pattern of contestation observed. In the fourth section, finally, we present our conclusions.

Theorising the EU policy space During the last decade, the content and character of the EU policy space has drawn increased attention from scholars. Points at issue include whether political conflicts in the Union are uni- or multidimensional, whether they follow national or ideological lines and whether they are characterised by continuity or by change. As Hix and his co-authors (Hix et al. 2007) have noted, the ongoing debate on the structure of the EU policy space is closely related to the cleavage theory set out by Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan in their classic article in the late 1960s (Lipset and Rokkan 1967). Before reviewing the contemporary debate on the structure of political contestation within the Union, therefore, we shall briefly review some of the main tenets of the cleavage theory. A key assertion of this theory is that the political cleavages which have been dominant in Western political history can be ordered within a two-dimensional space, of the type seen in Figure 3.1. That is, political conflicts within a polity may either reflect territorial/cultural concerns (the vertical axis) or functional concerns (the horizontal axis). Using the materialistic discourse typical of the time, Lipset and Rokkan characterised the difference between the two conflict dimensions in the following way: In the one case the decisive criterion of alignment is commitment to the locality and its dominant culture: you vote with your community and its leaders irrespective of your economic position. In the other the criterion is commitment to a class and its collective interests: you vote with others in the same positions as yourself whatever their localities, and you are willing to do so even if this brings you into opposition with members of your community. (1967: 13, emphasis in original) Adding further nuance to their argument, Lipset and Rokkan claimed as well that the interaction of these two dimensions yields four ideal–typical patterns of contestation – patterns useful for

Participatory Governance in the EU

Territorial/cultural dimension

44

Intra-elite oppositions

Functional dimension

Interest-specific oppositions

Ideological oppositions

Local/regional oppositions Figure 3.1

Lipset and Rokkan’s two dimensions of political contestation

understanding real-world political conflict. On the bottom half of Figure 3.1, we find strictly local or regional oppositions to the project of centre-formation. In this situation, the conflict is between territorial units of the system: certain regions (typically the more central geographically) support the transfer of political power to the central level; other regions (typically the more peripherally placed) oppose such a development. Then, at the other pole along the territorial/cultural dimension, we find intra-elite oppositions, or what Lipset and Rokkan originally called “oppositions within the national established elite”. In such a case we would find conflicts not between territorial units within the system but over the control, the organization, the goals and the policy options of the system as a whole. These might be nothing more than direct struggles among competing elites for central power, but they might also reflect deeper differences in conceptions of nationhood, over domestic priorities and over external strategies. (1967: 10)

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Likewise, two ideal–typical patterns of conflict can be identified along the functional dimension of contestation. Towards the left along the horizontal axis in Figure 3.1, political conflicts concern the allocation of resources between distinct socio-economic groups: for example, “between producers and buyers, between workers and employers, between borrowers and lenders, between tenants and owners, between contributors and beneficiaries” (1967: 11). Political conflicts of this type are highly situational and issue-specific; in other words, the character of the conflict and the formation of political alliances depend on the type of resource being allocated. But as we move to the right along the functional dimension, political conflicts become ideological, rather than interest-based or group-specific. In the extreme case, this means political battles are no longer fought over the distribution of specific gains and losses, but rather over competing worldviews rooted in functional concerns. Political conflicts that purely follow class lines are the epitome of such a situation. It might be argued that, for a post-modern era, the traditional cleavage theory tends to overemphasise the political importance of materialistic concerns (e.g. Inglehart 1997). Notwithstanding this, we find the simple two-dimensional schema in Figure 3.1 to be a useful device for visualising the main positions in the ongoing debate over the content and character of the EU policy space (see Mair 2007 for a similar view). Traditionally, research on the nature of the EU policy space has been dominated by the so-called international-relations model of European integration. The defining feature of this model is the assumption that political contestation within the Union takes place along a single integration dimension – one divorced from the ideological underpinnings of domestic politics – with anti-integration forces at one pole and pro-integration forces at the other (Marks and Steenbergen 2002: 882–883). In this perspective, the various viewpoints on EU policy are ultimately territorial in origin, in that they reflect the balance preferred by different actors “between centralized EU powers on the one hand and national autonomy on the other” (Pollack 2003: 34). This assumption is shared by realists, intergovernmentalists and neofunctionalists alike. What separates the adherents of these different -isms from each other is rather how they theorise the nature and origin of these territorial cleavages.

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Given the purpose of this book, two attempts to account for the primacy of the integration dimension within EU politics stand out as particularly important. The first is the liberal-intergovernmentalist thesis championed by Andrew Moravcsik (e.g. Moravcsik 1993, 1998). As this influential author sees it, the preferences of national decision-makers on important EU issues are shaped in close interaction with powerful domestic economic interests. Thus, in commercial policy areas – where the net expected gains and losses are significant – we should expect producer interests to impose tight constraints on national decision-makers; in other words, decision-makers from the different member states will try to avoid European policies that impose major costs on their respective national economies. However, in policy areas involving the production of various socio-economic collective goods, policy-makers often need to strike a balance between industrial competiveness and regulatory protection. In these cases, Moravcsik argues, governments seek to minimise adjustment costs by defending the particular balance reached within their respective home countries. In a study of political cleavages at the European constitutional convention, Oliver Treib suggests that such reasoning is applicable to all EU policy-makers who have an attachment of some kind to a particular member state (Treib 2010: 122). Accordingly, policy-makers can be expected to favour (or to oppose) European integration to the extent that the policies pursued in connection therewith are consistent (or in conflict) with existing regulatory standards and practices within their home countries. According to the liberal-intergovernmentalist thesis, then, the attitudes held by public officials towards European integration are first and foremost a function of nationality. In any given EU policy area, the main divide will be between actors from member states whose interests and identity are threatened by integration and actors from member states whose interests and identity are protected by integration (Hix 1999: 73). In terms of the two-dimensional conflict space shown in Figure 3.1, the type of political conflict envisaged in the intergovernmentalist model comes close to the local or regional oppositions identified by Lipset and Rokkan, in which different geographical units confront each other along territorial/cultural lines.

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An alternative rationale for the primacy of the territorial dimension in EU politics is suggested by those who contend it is supranational organisations, such as the Commission or the European Court of Justice, that are the main vehicles of European integration (e.g. Haas 1958; Sandholtz and Stone Sweet 1998). These scholars typically proceed, explicitly or implicitly, on the assumption that Union officials seek to maximise their decisional competency (Pollack 2003: 34). From this assumption it then follows that cleavages on the integration dimension are structured along organisational (institutional) lines, rather than national ones. Giandomenico Majone gives forceful expression to this view: EU policies tend to be the by-product of processes largely unrelated to the stated policy objectives. Even though its specialized services may be sincerely devoted to problem-solving, the Commission as a collegial body will never propose a policy which does not contribute, directly or indirectly, to an expansion of EU, and its own powers . . . Likewise, neither the member states nor the European Parliament will support a proposed solution, however effective, which is unfavourable to their national or institutional interests. Since the organizing principle of the Community is the representation and balancing of interests, each European institution sees itself primarily as the bearer of a particular interest, national or supranational, which it strives to protect and promote. Hence, the main theme of political conflict in the EU is less the formulation and implementation of policy than the defence of the respective prerogatives of Council, Parliament, and the Commission. (Majone 2006: 623–624) Political conflicts of this kind bear an obvious resemblance to the intra-elite oppositions seen in Figure 3.1. Like Moravcsik, Majone maintains that contestation within the Union primarily reflects different views on the desired depth and scope of European integration, and as such is related to the territorial/cultural conflict dimension. According to Majone, however, the main divide over European integration is not between different geographical units, but between different groups of elite actors competing for central power. As compared with the intergovernmentalist view, consequently, Majone’s position is located higher up on the vertical axis in Figure 3.1.

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Nevertheless, while Majone puts the emphasis on organisational affiliation rather than on nationality, he agrees wholeheartedly with Moravcsik that institutional reforms to promote political participation and contestation at the European level will not serve to enhance the legitimacy of the Union in the eyes of its citizens. He writes as follows about those who worry about the democratic deficit: If they are really concerned about the insufficient development of democracy at the European level they should support a drastic reduction of delegated tasks under the Community method. Instead they grasp at pseudo-solutions, such as giving ever increasing powers to the EP. (Majone 2006: 618) It should come as no surprise that both Majone and Moravcsik dismiss proposals for promoting competitive or participatory democracy within the Union. After all, if political conflicts within the EU mainly take place along the territorial/cultural dimension, then democratic representation within the Union will be little improved if either the electoral or the interest-based channel of representation is strengthened. Political conflicts of this type ought instead to be handled within the territorial channel. The policies prescribed by Moravcsik and Majone are simply a logical consequence of their understanding of the structure of political contestation within the EU. In the last decade, however, the international-relations model of the EU policy space has come under attack from researchers who argue that political conflicts in the Union reflect divergent attitudes towards the content of EU policy, rather than towards its scope. This argument comes in a variety of forms. Some scholars predict that the left/right dimension will come to dominate EU politics in the same way as it does at the national level (e.g. Hix et al. 2007). Others contend that conflicts in the Union mainly concern levels of regulation in the single market (Tsebelis and Garrett 2000). Still others suggest that political contestation in the EU largely takes place along the so-called new-politics dimension, which is based on the opposition between libertarian and authoritarian values (Hooghe et al. 2002). The common denominator of all of these arguments, however, is the assertion that political conflict within the Union does not just occur along the vertical axis of Figure 3.1, but also (and perhaps chiefly) along its horizontal axis. In Peter Mair’s understanding, for example, EU politics is not about

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Europe or Europeanization as such, whether specified in terms of institutionalization or penetration . . . [;] rather[, it] takes Europe as given and divides instead along strictly functional conflicts, sometimes interest-specific and sometimes ideological. Conflicts that occur along this dimension take no position on the question of Europe as a polity, but are more concerned with the allocation of resources within whatever version of Europe happens to exist at the time. (2007: 10) Needless to say, such a contention – that political conflict within the Union primarily reflects functional concerns – is hard to reconcile with the argument that the solution to the EU’s legitimacy problem lies in strengthening or fine-tuning the territorial channel of representation. Accordingly, most scholars who stress on the centrality of functional cleavages in EU politics call for strengthening either the electoral or the interest-based channel of representation. Those who believe that the relevant functional cleavages in EU politics are encompassed within existing ideological divides – such as the ubiquitous left/right divide of domestic politics – tend to say it is the electoral channel which ought to be reinforced. Hix, for example, has taken this view in his influential writings on the subject (e.g. Hix 1999, 2008; Hix et al. 2007). By contrast, those who call for strengthening the interest-based channel are usually more sceptical – notwithstanding their typical agreement with Hix and others that political contestation within the Union mainly takes place along the functional axis (cf. Wessels 2004: 197) – of the claim that the relevant functional cleavages at the level of the EU accord with those highlighted by traditional political ideologies. Instead, advocates of participatory governance tend to assume (albeit often only implicitly) that political conflict within the Union is more situational and issue-specific in nature – due to the multitude of cross-cutting functional concerns it encompasses (cf. Hooghe 2000: 434). The assumption here is that political conflict within the Union is interest-specific, rather than ideological (as represented by the leftward portion of the horizontal axis in Figure 3.1). It is therefore the interest-based channel of representation, not the electoral one, that needs to be strengthened. The upshot of this is that there is a close correlation between scholars’ views on the nature of political contestation within the EU and their prescriptions for increasing the Union’s legitimacy. Given the

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purpose of the present book, the most important distinction in this regard is that between those who argue for the primacy of territorial/cultural cleavages on the one hand and those who stress on the importance of functional concerns on the other. The purpose of this chapter is to ascertain the relative importance of territorial and functional conflicts in the REACH case. In so doing, we address a growing literature on the character and dimensionality of the EU policy space (Hix and Lord 1997; Hix 1999; Hooghe and Marks 2001; Marks and Steenbergen 2002, 2004; Hix et al. 2006, 2007; Treib 2010). In the remainder of this chapter, accordingly, we use the survey data at our disposal to map out the structure of conflict observed in REACH. The analysis proceeds in two steps. First, we describe the nature of the contestation that occurred. Second, we analyse the determinants of the pattern of contestation.

Describing the nature of contestation Given the complexity of the REACH proposal, it seems futile to try to capture actors’ views about it with a single question. When choosing our study design, therefore, we decided to focus on seven of the most contentious issues at the proposal’s first reading at the European Parliament (EP) and the Council. These issues were: (i) the OSOR proposal (“One Substance, One Registration”); (ii) the test requirements for low-volume chemicals; (iii) the issue of whether the “burden of proof” should be placed on industry rather than on the public authorities; (iv) the responsibilities of the European Chemicals Agency; (v) the substitution principle; (vi) the precautionary principle; and (vii) the limiting of animal testing (see Chapter 2 for a more detailed description of these issues). Survey respondents were asked to state, on a scale running from 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree), how much they agreed with each of these proposals. A more complete description of these survey items can be found in the Data Appendix. To what extent, however, can these seven items be said to reflect a common underlying dimension? Is a respondent who happens to agree with a particular proposal also more likely to agree with the other six? We can answer this question with the help of exploratory factor analysis. The results from such an analysis are shown in Table 3.1.

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Table 3.1 Factor analysis of items relating to the REACH proposal Item OSOR proposal Test requirements for low-volume chemicals The burden of proof Responsibilities of the European Chemicals Agency The substitution principle The precautionary principle Limiting animal testing Eigenvalue Number of cases

Factor-loadings .50 .14 .52 .14 .76 .82 .32 1.92 457

Notes: The factor analysis was conducted in Stata using the maximum likelihood method. The initial analysis retained three factors; however, since only one of these factors had an eigenvalue larger than one, the model was re-estimated with the number of factors restricted to one. The 457 respondents included in the analysis (out of 651 in all) are the ones who gave answers on all seven items.

The criterion which is most widely applied to determine the number of factors (dimensions) in exploratory factor analysis is the Kaiser criterion, according to which only factors with an eigenvalue larger than one should be retained (Kaiser 1960). The results in the table refer to the single factor meeting this criterion. There is at least some evidence, then, that respondents’ answers on the various items reflect a single underlying dimension. Judging from the wording of the questions, this dimension taps respondents’ overall support for extending the supranational regulation of chemicals, inasmuch as agreeing to the seven statements implies in most cases that one favours a new and more far-reaching form of regulation at the EU level. There is one exception here, however: on the question of whether low-volume chemicals should be partially exempted. This is because a higher score on this question (which indicates fuller agreement) reflects a less proregulatory stance; conversely, respondents who oppose this proposal are more likely to hold the view that test requirements should be equally strict for low-volume chemicals and for high-volume ones. We therefore reversed the coding on answers to this question before carrying out the factor analysis. Although the variation in answers on the seven substantive items is captured reasonably well by a single underlying dimension, it is clear from the factor-loadings in Table 3.1 that not all of the items

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are equally closely related to this underlying factor. Whereas respondents’ support for the substitution and precautionary principles says a lot about their views on the need for the further regulation of chemicals, their support for partially exempting low-volume chemicals and introducing a European Chemical Agency seems much less closely related to their opinions on this matter. To some extent, however, such a pattern is to be expected. Among the various proposals made in connection with REACH, the substitution and precautionary principles are those with the most far-reaching economic and environmental consequences; it is only natural, therefore, that these are the two proposals most closely related to actors’ overall support for extending the supranational regulation of chemicals. The relatively modest factor-loading for the question on low-volume chemicals (0.14) is most likely due to the fact that this question is somewhat ambiguous: it may not have been obvious to all respondents, namely, whether the alternative to a partial exemption for low-volume chemicals was complete exemption or no exemption at all. The equally low factor-loading for the question about whether a new European Chemical Agency should be entrusted with managing the REACH system may be attributed to the fact that this question not only taps respondents’ views on the need for regulation; it also indicates their opinions about which institution should oversee the system. All in all, however, the results from the factor analysis suggest it is reasonable to order actors’ views on REACH along a single dimension, according to their overall support for the further regulation of chemicals. The method most frequently used for locating the position of actors on an underlying dimension is the computation of so-called factor scores. Mathematically, factor scores are simply a weighted average of the (standardised) items loading on a specific factor. The weights are based on the factor-loadings of the items: items that load high on a specific factor are of greater importance for the placement of individuals on that factor than are items with low factor-loadings. In the case at hand – the measurement of respondents’ overall support for extending the regulation of chemicals – that means the greatest weight will be given to views on the substitution and precautionary principles. Admittedly, the predicted score here will be an error-prone measure of the true factor (see, e.g., Steiger 1979). The relevant question, however, is not whether the constructed factor scores differ from the true

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factor scores, but whether they correspond more closely to the scientific concept of interest than any of the observed indicators do. In the case at hand, we believe the answer to this question is yes. In what follows, therefore, we use the factor scores shown in Table 3.1 as our measure of respondents’ attitudes towards extending the regulation of chemicals at the EU level. For ease of interpretation, we have normalised these scores to vary between zero and unity. Respondents who completely agreed with the proposal for a partial exemption of low-volume chemicals, while disagreeing with the other six proposals, get a zero score on this new scale; respondents who held the opposite views on each of these items get a score of unity. As noted above, there is considerable disagreement among EU scholars as to whether political contestation within the Union mainly reflects territorial cleavages or functional ones. It may therefore be interesting to consider the extent to which these different types of cleavage help account for actors’ attitudes towards REACH. In our discussion earlier, we distinguished two groups among scholars who assert the primacy of the territorial/cultural dimension in EU politics: those who, like Moravcsik, argue that political contestation within the Union follows national lines; and those who, like Majone, hold that it follows organisational lines. In an effort to shed some light on the importance of these factors for views on REACH, we have calculated univariate confidence-interval plots showing the extent of support for chemicals regulations (this is the index derived from the factor analysis), by nationality and organisational affiliation, respectively. These are shown in Figures 3.2 and 3.3.2 As Figure 3.2 indicates, there are indeed some discernible differences in how respondents from different countries viewed the need for increased chemicals regulation at the European level. Judging from the figure, respondents from the Nordic countries, together with those from Greece and Portugal, were the most positively disposed to increased regulation; whereas respondents from Austria, Germany and Ireland were the most negative. Overall, Figure 3.2 gives some support for Dieter Pesendorfer’s claim that the fiercest opposition to REACH was mounted by actors from countries with “a large chemical sector, such as France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Ireland” (2006: 101). That said, the differences between respondents from the different countries are not dramatic. In addition, there is a

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AU GE IR TC IT UK BE NE FR SP CC LU FI PO SW GR DE .2

Figure 3.2

.4

.6 Support for regulations

.8

1

Confidence-interval plot for position on REACH by country

Notes: AU=Austria, GE=Germany, IR=Ireland, TC=Third country, IT=Italy, UK=United Kingdom, BE=Belgium, NE=Netherlands, FR=France, SP=Spain, CC=Candidate country, LU=Luxembourg, FI=Finland, PO=Portugal, SW=Sweden, GR=Greece, DE=Denmark. The dots indicate mean values and the lines are 95 per cent confidence intervals for these estimates.

fair amount of variation within countries, as indicated by the rather large confidence intervals. Turning now to the importance of organisational affiliation, we see that respondents representing industry associations, third-country governments (but note the huge confidence interval in that case) and private businesses were the most negative to increased regulation; whereas respondents representing NGOs and academic and technical institutes were the most positive. This is not, however, the pattern we would have expected on the basis of the theoretical argument advanced by Majone and others. Rather, we would have expected the supranational institutions of the EU, such as the Parliament and the Commission, to be the ones most in favour of increased chemicals regulation. Theories that stress on the primacy of the territorial dimension in EU politics point explicitly to nationality and organisational affiliation as important determinants of attitudes towards integration; by

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IA TCG PB IO EP MSG EC UN OEU APC CO NGO AC .2

.4

.6

.8

1

Support for regulations Figure 3.3 Confidence-interval plot for position on REACH by organisational affiliation Notes: IA=Industry association, TCG=Third-country government, PB=Private business, IO=International organisation, EP=European Parliament, MSG=Member-state governments, EC=European Commission, UN=Trade Union, OEU=Other EU institutions, APC=Applicant-country government, CO=European Council, NGO=Non-governmental organisation, AC=Academic and Technical Institute.

contrast, the significance of functional cleavages is more difficult to capture. The main reason for this is that functional cleavages can be of so many different types. In any case, the traditional method scholars have used to gauge the importance of functional cleavages within the EU has been on the basis of different actors’ placement on the left/right scale (Hix 1999; Hooghe et al. 2002; Hix et al. 2007). For purposes of the present analysis, however, we see at least two significant drawbacks with the left/right measure of functional cleavages. First, it presupposes that the relevant functional cleavages are ideological rather than interest-specific – that is, that the dominant conflict pattern is to the right rather than to the left of the horizontal axis in Figure 3.1. Second, it is well-known from studies of domestic politics that views on environmental questions are usually

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less closely related to the left/right dimension than are, for example, views on welfare issues (Warwick 2002). Rather than using left/right placement, therefore, we have tried to capture the importance of functional cleavages by simply asking respondents which of the following seven functional interests they consider themselves first and foremost to represent: environmental, consumer, animal-welfare, health, worker, business/industrial or general (see the Data Appendix for a more detailed description).3 While such an indicator is far from perfect, we believe it measures functional cleavages in a way which is general enough to capture both interest-specific and more ideological–functional divides. The placement of various interests along the regulatory dimension is illustrated in Figure 3.4. If we disregard the placement of the six respondents who represent animal-welfare interests (due to the enormous imprecision in that case), we see that respondents who represent industrial and environmental interests are located on different

ANI INI COI GEI WOI HEI ENI –.2

0

.2

.4

.6

.8

Support for regulations Figure 3.4 Confidence-interval plot for position on REACH by interest affiliation Notes: ANI=Animal interests, INI=Industrial interests, COI=Consumer interests, GEI= General interests, WOI=Worker interests, HEI=Health interests, ENI=Environmental interests.

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parts of the scale. This could be taken to support Pesendorfer’s (2006) conclusion that the decision-making process on REACH amounted to a battle between two competing advocacy coalitions – one championing industrial interests and the other environmental interests. As should be clear from Figure 3.4, however, such a description conceals as much as it reveals. Admittedly, industrial and environmental interests are situated at different parts of the spectrum, but apart from that the data do not seem to support the thesis of two distinct clusters. On the contrary, the various interests are distributed quite evenly along the regulatory dimension. Moreover, the fact there is no gulf between business and worker representatives on this issue indicates that this is not simply a question of left versus right. On environmental issues of this type, namely, there is some room for an anti-regulation cross-class coalition between capital and labour.

Explaining the nature of contestation Although interesting in its own right, the question of the relative importance of territorial and functional concerns is difficult to settle from the type of confidence-interval plots examined in the previous section. Judging such a thing requires a multivariate analysis, in which the explanatory power of the various factors can be compared. We believe it is important, when conducting such an analysis, to recognise that the dependent variable in question is interpersonal rather than intrapersonal. Ultimately, what the theories discussed above seek to explain is why various actors tend to agree or disagree on important EU issues: that is, how the policy views of various actors relate to each other. For this reason, we apply a dyadic approach to the study of political contestation. That is, we attempt to explain the degree of opinioncongruence between different pairs of individuals. Expressed more formally, we calculate the dependent variable using the following simple formula: yˆ ij = 1 − |yi − yj | where yi and yj are the positions on REACH (represented by the factor scores discussed above) of individuals i and j, respectively. The degree of opinion-congruence is thus measured as 1 minus the absolute difference in the positions on REACH taken by each of the two

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individuals. When two individuals are in perfect agreement on the question of chemicals regulation, this measure takes on a value of 1; by contrast, when they are situated at opposite ends of the REACH scale, it takes on a value of 0.4 In order to assess the relative importance of functional and territorial cleavages, then, we fit the following simple regression equation: yˆ ij = a + b1 DIij + b2 DCij + b3 DOij + εij , where DIij is a dummy variable that takes on a value of 1 if i and j represent the same interest, and 0 otherwise; DCij is a dummy variable that takes on a value of 1 if the individuals have the same nationality, and 0 otherwise; DOij is a dummy variable that takes on a value of 1 if the individuals are affiliated with the same type of organisation, and 0 otherwise; and εij is an error term. Given this set-up, the relative importance of functional interests, of nationality and of organisational affiliation in explaining opinion-congruence can be gauged directly from the regression coefficients associated with the three dummy variables. One problem in studying dyadic data, however, is that the assumption of independence underpinning traditional statistical approaches (like analysis of variance and multiple regression) is typically violated. In particular, it is often the case that two observations (dyads) which share a common individual are positively correlated with one another, even when the effects of the independent variables in the model are accounted for. As is well-known, this type of dyadic dependence can jeopardise research findings by giving rise to incorrect significance tests. There are ways, however, to handle this problem. We attempt here to handle the problem of dyadic dependence by estimating a so-called two-way fixed-effect model, which includes individual specific effects for each of the two individuals of a particular dyad. Put more substantively, the unit-specific effects make possible a de facto control for all of the (omitted) explanatory factors – like sex or age – which are constant for an individual across all dyads.5 With a two-way fixed-effects model, therefore, we can simultaneously handle the problem of dyadic dependence and control for a large number of hard-to-measure variables, which if omitted could bias the results.

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Table 3.2 presents the regression results. The first three columns in the table show the bivariate relationships of interest. The coefficients of the three variables are statistically significant, and all have the expected signs: that is, the degree of opinion-congruence between two actors of a dyad increases when the actors have the same nationality, are affiliated with the same type of organisation and represent the same type of interest. The interest variable has the greatest effect. Judging from the bivariate results, it seems to be more than twice as important if two actors represent the same type of interest than if they have the same nationality or are affiliated with the same type of organisation. Or stated somewhat differently, other things being equal, the expected degree of opinion-congruence between two actors will be about the same when they represent the same interest but have different nationality and organisational affiliation, as when they share both nationality and organisational affiliation but represent different interests. That said, the magnitude of these effects is not especially great. The standard deviation of the dependent variable is about 0.21, which means that the expected degree of opinion-congruence for “sameinterest” dyads is about one-third of a standard deviation higher than it is for “different-interest” dyads. For nationality and organisational affiliation, the corresponding effect is about one-seventh of a standard deviation. Overall, the results of the bivariate regression square well with the conclusions indicated by the confidence-interval plots in the preceding section. Nevertheless, as noted above, assessing the relative importance of functional and of territorial/cultural cleavages requires a multivariate analysis. Model 4 in Table 3.2 displays the results from such an analysis, in which opinion-congruence has been simultaneously regressed on nationality, organisation and interest. As can be seen, not much changes when we move from bivariate to multivariate analysis. The only notable difference is that the effect of organisation falls by a factor of one-third once we control for the impact of nationality and of interest. The impact of the latter two variables, by contrast, is only marginally affected by the change in analysis. The multivariate results support the view, then, that representing the same type of interest is more important for actor agreement on REACH than having the same nationality or belonging to the same

60

Table 3.2 Dyadic analysis of opinion-congruence Variable Nationality

Model 1

Model 2

Model 4

Model 5

Model 6

Model 7

Model 8

Model 9

.073∗ (.001)

.028∗ (.002) .020∗ (.002) .070∗ (.001)

.004 (003) .013∗ (.002) .071∗ (.001)

.019∗ (.005) .041∗ (.003) .097∗ (.003)

.020∗ (.010) .008 (.005) .059∗ (.006)

.060∗ (.010) .005 (.011) .052∗ (.005)

. 009 (.022) .019∗ (.002) .071∗ (.002)

.45 99235 Yes Full

.45 99235 Yes Full

.02 99235 No Full

.34 23436 Yes IGR

.40 4851 Yes EIR

.40 7260 Yes NGR

.36 91378 Yes Full

.030∗ (.002) .032∗ (.002)

Organisation Interest

R2 N Fixed effects Sample

Model 3

.43 99235 Yes Full

.44 99235 Yes Full

∗ indicates statistical significance at the 0.05 level, two-tailed test. IGR=interest-group representatives, EIR=EU-institution representatives, NGR=national-government representatives. N denotes the number of dyads on which the results for each model are based. We investigate all actor pairs for which we have data on all relevant variables. More precisely, if we have data on n individuals, the number of dyads (N) will equal n(n−1)/2.

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kind of organisation. Moreover, the fact that the magnitude of the regression coefficients is rather similar across the bivariate and multivariate analyses indicates that it is only a very small part of the bivariate effects of nationality and organisation that are transmitted through the interest variable. Thus the reason for the weak effect of nationality, for instance, is not that nationality affects opinioncongruence indirectly by increasing the likelihood that the two actors of a dyad will represent the same interest, but rather that nationality in itself can only account for a small part of the variation in attitudes towards REACH. Before jumping to conclusions, however, we need to examine the robustness of these findings. As a first check, we drop the unit-specific effects in order to see how this affects the outcome. The results are shown in the column labelled model 5. The first thing to note is that the magnitude of the interest-variable coefficient does not depend on including the unit-specific effects. However, the impact of both nationality and organisation diminishes when the unit-specific effects are excluded from the model. In fact, in the absence of the unit-specific effects, the effect of nationality on opinion-congruence is no longer statistically significant. It is striking, however, that the coefficient of determination (R2 ) is severely reduced once the unitspecific effects are dropped from the model; this suggests there is some important heterogeneity across individuals that needs to be accounted for. Another caveat worth considering is that the salience of particular political cleavages can vary across different groups of actors. To see whether this is the case, we have separately examined the responses given by representatives of interest groups (model 6), representatives of EU institutions (model 7) and representatives of national governments (model 8). Taken together, the results in models 6–8 serve to buttress our previous findings, and they reveal some notable and interesting differences across the three groups under examination. In each of the three subsamples, the interest variable has a statistically significant effect on opinion-congruence. As might be expected, however, the impact of this variable is greatest among interest-group representatives, and smallest among representatives of national governments. For nationality it is the other way round. Nationality is most important for opinion-congruence among government representatives, and least important among interest-group representatives.

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Organisational belonging, finally, has a statistically significant effect only among interest-group representatives. The way in which the coefficients vary across the different subsamples is interesting. It suggests, namely, that the relative importance of functional and of territorial/cultural cleavages is at least partly endogenous to the weight given to different channels of representation within the EU. If, for example, a greater stress is put on the territorial channel of representation, then representatives of national governments will make up a larger share of decision-makers in the Union, and as a result the salience of territorial political cleavages will increase. On the other hand, if the interest-based channel is strengthened, then interest-group representatives will figure more prominently in EU decision-making, thereby increasing the importance of functional political cleavages in the Union. Before presenting our conclusions, finally, we must consider one last caveat. Admittedly, comparing the importance of various types of political cleavage by means of simple dichotomies – as we have done here – allows only for a rather blunt test of the theories under study. Should we not assume, for example, that the national interests of Danes and Swedes – unlike what is implied by our dichotomous measure of nationality – are more similar than the national interests of, let us say, Danes and Spaniards? In order to safeguard (at least partly) against a failing of this kind, model 9 presents the results from an alternative measure of national interests – one related more directly to Moravcsik’s contention about the pivotal nature of national producer interests. More precisely, we use the turnover of the chemicals industry within a country (as share of GDP) as a proxy for the national interest of a particular respondent. Our underlying assumption here is that, since increased regulation imposes higher costs on industry (at least initially), actors from countries with a large chemicals sector will be less likely to support far-reaching chemicals regulation. Consequently, two actors should be more likely to agree on REACH if the chemicals sector in their respective home countries is similar in prominence. It is necessary, of course, to ensure that the expected effect of this indicator is consistent with the expected effect of the other variables; accordingly, the nationality variable in model 9 refers to the negative absolute difference in the turnover share of the chemicals sector in the home countries of the two actors forming a dyad (see the Data Appendix for a more detailed description).

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It is evident, however, that the (absolute) difference in the size of the chemicals sector has no discernible impact on opinioncongruence. The effect of nationality in model 9 is close to 0, and it lacks statistical significance at the 0.05 level. However, using an alternative measure for national interests does not change the importance of the other two variables (i.e. interest and organisational belonging). In model 9, namely, the coefficients of the latter two variables have values which are close to their values in model 4 – which is the most relevant comparison.

Conclusion As noted in the introduction to this chapter, the EU has historically relied on three different channels of political representation – the territorial, the electoral and the interest-based – to assure that its decision-making is responsive to the policy views of citizens. The relative efficacy of these different channels in transmitting the views of citizens to decision-makers is at the heart of the debate over what has caused the Union’s legitimacy crisis – and what might cure it. In particular, we have argued, the conflicting views about how to improve democratic representation within the Union can be traced to divergent assumptions about the nature of political cleavages in EU politics. On the one hand are those who call for strengthening the territorial channel of representation. These scholars usually proceed on the assumption that political conflicts within the Union are mainly (or even exclusively) of territorial/cultural origin; and that the political contest at Union level concerns the scope rather than the content of EU policy. On the other hand are those who say it is the electoral or the interest-based channel which instead ought to be strengthened. The tendency among these scholars is to stress the importance of functional cleavages in EU politics, and to portray the content of EU policy as the primary object of political contestation at Union level. Obviously, the close correspondence between views here – about the nature of the EU policy space on the one hand, and the best way to enhance the Union’s democratic credentials on the other – is no coincidence. The most important point here, for our present purpose, is that it is hard to see how strengthening the interest-based channel within the EU can make for more responsive governance if

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attitudes towards EU policy mainly follow territorial/cultural lines. As we argued in Chapter 1 of this book, the existence of functional cleavages within EU politics is a prerequisite for the success of participatory governance. The aim of the present chapter has been to ascertain the relative importance of functional and of territorial/cultural concerns in explaining actors’ attitudes towards REACH. In view of the purpose behind this book, two findings stand out as particularly significant. The first is that functional concerns have an impact on respondents’ positions on REACH: that is, if two actors represent the same type of interest, they are more likely to agree on how the new system for chemicals regulation ought to be designed. Overall, our results indicate that the increase in opinion-congruence that results from representing the same type of interest is more than twice as great as that which results either from sharing a nationality or from belonging to the same kind organisation. This finding is plainly inconsistent with the international-relations model of EU politics, according to which political conflicts in the Union primarily reflect territorial/cultural cleavages. Our results lend support, then, to those who say EU politics resembles domestic politics nowadays, in that contestation within it reflects not just territorial but also functional concerns. With that said, it must be acknowledged that the magnitude of the effects found here is not dramatic. On average, the opinioncongruence between a pair of actors is about one-third of a standard deviation higher when the actors represent the same interest than when they represent different interests. An important task for future research will be to determine whether the relative weakness of these statistical effects is due to the somewhat crude measures of functional and territorial cleavages employed here, or whether instead it indicates that opinion-congruence is mainly driven by other factors than the ones we have considered. A second important finding of our analysis is that the relative importance of various types of cleavage seems to vary across actors in a systematic fashion. Whereas functional cleavages dominate among representatives of interest groups, territorial cleavages are most important among representatives of member-state governments. This finding is important, because it suggests the political-cleavage structure within the Union may be endogenous (at least in part) to the

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relative weight assigned to the various channels of representation within it. From the standpoint of the participatory-governance model, this is good news. It has the implication, after all, that the importance of functional cleavages in EU politics can be expected to increase as the interest-based channel is strengthened. Or, stated slightly differently, the proposed transfer of power to the interest-group system in the EU is likely to strengthen the type of political cleavages which are necessary for the success of this mode of governance. The bottom line of this chapter, then, is that the participatorygovernance model cannot be dismissed on the grounds that political conflicts within the Union are primarily driven by territorial/cultural concerns. At the same time, it must be remembered that the existence of functional cleavages within EU politics is necessary but not sufficient, if democratic representation within the Union is to be improved by means of an increased reliance on the interest-based channel. Accordingly, the efficacy of participatory governance hinges on the extent to which the policy process meets the additional democratic criteria identified in Chapter 1. In the chapter that now follows (Chapter 4), we examine how well the REACH process performed with regard to two of these criteria for a democratic process: namely, that all of the actors involved in decision-making enjoy equal and adequate opportunities for participation, and that they all have equal and adequate access to information.

4 Opportunities for Participation and Access to Information: Adequate and Equal?

From the standpoint of modern democracy, Robert Dahl once noted, the policy influence of autonomous interest organisations is at “once a fact, a value, and a source of harm” (1982: 28). It is a fact, because it is impossible to imagine a functioning democratic system in which elected leaders remain unresponsive to the demands raised by various organised interests. It is a value, because the interest-group system serves as an additional channel – alongside the electoral system – for citizens to express their views on important policy matters. And it is a source of harm, since politically influential interest groups can use their powers to distort the public agenda in their own interest. Thus, the involvement of autonomous organisations in political decisionmaking may at once enhance and endanger democracy. This dilemma within pluralist democracy is fundamental to the current debate on participatory governance in the EU. In this chapter, we provide an empirical account of the democracy-enhancing potential of participatory governance in the EU. In particular, we seek to evaluate the initial outcomes which have arisen here – as a result of attempts to further participatory governance within the Union – in terms of two of the criteria set out by Robert Dahl for an ideal democratic process: effective participation and enlightened understanding. Then, in Chapter 5, we assess the record in terms of another of Dahl’s criteria: equality in voting. The criterion of effective participation, as we saw in Chapter 1, requires that all citizens enjoy equal and adequate opportunities for expressing their preferences on important political issues. From the standpoint of the interest-based model of democracy, this criterion 66

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translates into the requirement that all citizens have equal and adequate opportunities to voice their concerns through the associations that take part in policy-making at the European level. As champions of participatory governance see it, a more extensive involvement on the part of organised interests in EU policy-making will serve to promote effective participation, because the organisations in question will provide citizens with an effective channel to voice their concerns on important EU issues. Sceptics of this view, by contrast, deem it unlikely that strengthening the interest-based channel of representation within the Union will result in a better fulfilment of the criterion of effective participation. They point, first of all, to the oft-cited fact that the capacity to organise differs among citizens. Furthermore, a recurrent theme in the interest-group literature is that interest groups possessing ample resources tend to have better access to the policymaking process than do their poorer counterparts. As a result, many fear, it is inevitable that certain citizens and interests will be overrepresented in an interest-group system, whereas others will be underrepresented. A closely related problem concerns the criterion of enlightened understanding, which requires that all citizens enjoy equal and adequate opportunities for arriving at a considered judgement on important political issues. According to the participatory-governance approach, a greater involvement of organised interests in the policymaking process can promote enlightened understanding, as organisations can help make the content of policy decisions more transparent and accessible to their members. This view rests on the assumption that all organisations enjoy equal and adequate access to relevant information. However, if the capacity to get information from political institutions varies widely across organisations, strengthening the interest-based channel of representation within the EU may hamper rather than facilitate fulfilling the criterion of enlightened understanding. In this chapter, we examine whether the European Commission’s new policy of consultation – as implemented in the course of the chemicals policy overhaul – contributed to satisfying the criteria of effective participation and enlightened understanding. Did the participatory measures taken promote widespread participation, or was access restricted in practice to certain groups of stakeholders?

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Were businesses and firms (i.e. economic interests) more inclined to participate than consumers and environmentalists, whose interests are generally considered more diffuse? Moreover, did each group enjoy equal and adequate access to information, or was such access unevenly distributed among different groups of actors? To help the reader see where this chapter is going, we summarise the gist of it here. In the first section, we review the theoretical debate on collective action in the Union. In the second, we discuss how participation and access to information can be empirically examined. In the third, we present the results of our survey. In the fourth section, finally, we summarise our findings and set out our conclusions.

Collective action in the EU In the political system of the EU, traditional representation via electoral channels is comparatively weak. By contrast, the participation of civil-society organisations in the formulation and implementation of policy is more developed. In the absence of a full-fledged system of representative government via political parties (Mair and Thomassen 2010), the involvement of organised interests can be seen as a way of democratising the Union through institutionalised forms of participation (Kohler-Koch 2010a). According to a pluralist model of democracy, open access to policy-makers enables interest groups to provide checks and balances against powerful state officials and privileged interest groups (Truman 1951). This model assumes that for every group on one side of a policy debate there will be another group presenting the opposite view, so that a countervailing influence is always present. If this is to be accomplished, however, opposing interests must have equal access to the political process. In other words, it is essential not just that participation be open to everyone, but that such openness translate into equal opportunities for all actors to participate (Dahl 1989). The normative yardstick that any political system must meet, then, is that of political equality. In a system of supranational governance, such as the EU, such equal chances of participation as there may be are vested in interested parties and stakeholders at the level of the Union. Hence, the degree to which equality in interest-group participation is effective can be used as a normative yardstick for

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assessing the democratic credentials of the EU as a polity. However, EU institutions have focused heavily on market integration, with the consequence that citizen interests and other diffuse interests are badly underrepresented in the system of governance. Previous research on interest groups in the EU has shown that concentrated economic interests, such as business and producer interests, are represented far better in Brussels than are more diffuse interests, such as those of workers and consumers (Greenwood and Aspinwall 1998; Bouwen 2002; Greenwood 2003; Beyers et al. 2008). Throughout history, numerous explanations have been offered for this alleged bias on the part of the interest-group system. In the mid1960s, for example, Mancur Olson called attention to the difficulty of organising diffuse societal interests due to free-rider problems – an insight which has provided an important impetus for much contemporary thinking on this issue (Olson 1965). Citing Olson’s seminal contribution, many observers have therefore attributed the alleged bias of the interest-group system at the European level to the fact that narrower and more concentrated political interests – producer and business interests especially – can organise more effectively than broader and more diffuse interests, such as consumer, worker and environmental interests (e.g. Coen 1998; Streeck and Schmitter 1991; Schneider and Baltz 2003; Dür and De Bièvre 2007). More recently, however, certain scholars have called this view into question: the role played by diffuse interests in EU policy-making, they claim, should not be underestimated (e.g. Pollack 1997). According to Mark Pollack, for example, diffuse interest groups have multiple points of access to the policy-making process; and they have made use of them to promote policies for protecting the environment, consumers and women. Conversely, the role played by economic interests should not be overstated. In the view of Emiliano Grossman (2004), for instance, economic interest groups are put under “stress” by the EU system: that is, their knowledge of national political systems has become ineffectual by the emergence of European levels of governance. Their established strategies have thus become inappropriate. Some scholars claim, accordingly, that there is in fact no collectiveaction problem at the level of the EU; or, as Grant Jordan puts it “the scale of participation in policy influencing European organisations apparently challenges the academic assumption that much interest

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group participation is irrational” (Jordan 1998: 31). Similarly, Mark Aspinwall and Justin Greenwood (1998: 6) find that “the Europeanlevel actors are organising for the purpose of achieving collective political goals, rather than to take advantage of selective material incentives”. Hence, it is not just concentrated interests that find it worth their while to go to Brussels; diffuse interests – for example, consumer (e.g. Young 1998) and environmental interests (e.g. Webster 1998; Long and Lörinczi 2009) – find it so as well. In a study of consumer groups in the EU, for example, Alasdair Young concludes that “the Olsonian logic of collective action does not bite as deeply at the European level as at the national” (Young 1998: 149). Yet, while the activation of diffuse interests has been observed at the EU level, the representation of interests within the Union may be highly biased all the same; that is, it may serve mainly to reinforce the power of social groups which already wield disproportionate influence. What is the nature of this bias, and how far-reaching is it? The theoretical arguments hitherto set forth have been insufficient to solve this problem, and the empirical evidence so far presented has proven inconclusive. We therefore side with Beyers and colleagues (2008: 1117) when they argue that “research on this issue would be more fruitful if bias were conceived as a complex conceptual and empirical puzzle”. Our ultimate aim here is to establish the current standing of interest-group representation in Brussels. In an effort to do this, we examine the access to decision-makers enjoyed by different interest groups during the recent overhaul of chemicals policy in the Union. To be sure, there is a wide discrepancy among scholars as to whether or not the REACH process met the criteria for democratic decision-making. In the view of some, the process did in fact promote openness, access and broad representation. Veerle Heyvaert, for instance, argues that it would be disingenuous to claim that the process was insufficiently inclusive or accessible; the great pains that the Commission, for one, took broadly to consult and respond to the issues raised indicate otherwise. In fact, we could very plausibly hold up the REACH reform process as a blue print for participatory lawmaking. (Heyvaert 2008: 11)

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Heyvaert does not deny that “[c]ollective action and free rider problems make it a sure bet that public interest representation will be under-resourced compared to private interest groups”, so rendering NGOs incapable of “participat[ing] in decision-making as effectively as commercial interest representatives”. Nevertheless, she claims, it would be unfair, and unproductive, to condemn the REACH framework for lack of inclusiveness. Compared to the old regulatory framework for chemicals control, great improvements have been made in terms of the openness of the debate leading to the adoption of REACH. Moreover, REACH does provide a good level of transparency – a prerequisite for any form of workable participation – and some opportunity for consultation. (Heyvaert 2008: 22) Others hold, however, that for all the high ambitions the REACH process turned out to be “business as usual”: that is, business groups had far better opportunities to participate, and they enjoyed far greater access to decision-makers. Pesendorfer, for example, writes as follows: The “business coalition” used new modes of governance – developed by the Commission – and shifting the locus of decisionmaking as well as traditional forms of lobbying to bring the Commission proposal in line with neo-liberal ideas. Often overestimated within the environmental debate, “new governance” did not result in “better regulation” and in a “sound balance between economic, social and environmental goals”. It reinstalled key players in a veto position and did little to enhance effective participation of the public. (Pesendorfer 2006: 111) Similarly, in a study of the legislative access enjoyed by different organised interest groups, Mitchell Smith (2008: 77) finds that “the legislative procedure within the EP in the case of REACH eroded asymmetry of access to the Environment Committee by environmentalists and created asymmetry in favour of industry in other committees”, thus eliminating the privileged position which organised environmental interests usually enjoy in respect to environmental legislation. Instead, “the rise of competitiveness concerns and the

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granting to EP committees with close industry links shared competence for REACH undermined both asymmetry and differentiation in the instance of chemicals regulation” (Smith 2008: 67). In what follows, we shall try to ascertain which of these descriptions is most accurate. Did the new mode of participatory governance improve democracy, or did it reinforce already established inequalities? Before so doing, however, we should say a word or two about how to measure participation and access to information.

Examining participation and access to information In studying interest intermediation within the EU, some scholars focus on institutional demands for expertise and legitimacy; others zero in on the resources and policy goods supplied by different interest groups (Coen and Richardson 2009). Still others concentrate on the policy process, and seek to ascertain the stages during which the efforts of interest groups will be most effective (Crombez 2002). Our own approach represents a combination: we analyse the interchange between institutions and interest groups (from the perspective of each), and we do so in relation to a particular policy-making process. It is well-established that most EU institutions are quite open to input from interest groups (Mazey and Richardson 2003). The access gained by interest groups is commonly conceptualised as part of an “exchange relationship” with Union institutions (Bouwen 2002, 2004a): Interests seek influence over regulation and enablement, measures for integration, promotion, and funding. Information which helps shape this agenda is traded for influence – European institutions need information from private actors; in turn, these actors are in a position to shape the outcome of the debate. (Aspinwall and Greenwood 1998: 7) As the formal initiator of Community policies, the Commission has long been the primary target of interest-group efforts in the EU. Exerting influence at an early stage is critical, as Greenwood (1997: 8) explains: “If you have not been able to influence the Commission draft proposal you have probably lost the case.” Fortunately for interest groups operating at the European level, the Commission

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has proved to be very responsive to lobbying efforts. It has regarded external expert advice as a way of improving the quality of policy and increasing the legitimacy of the process. (In exchange, interest groups get an opportunity to promote the interests of their members and to influence policy.) In other words, consulting with interest groups helps the Commission to arbitrate between competing priorities and to promote acceptance of its policies (Mazey and Richardson 2001, 2003; Bouwen 2009). Quite understandably, the Commission finds the “exchange relationship” to be a worthwhile one. As Jeremy Richardson and David Coen (2010: 339) put it: “To ignore the views and specialist knowledge of the affected interests would be akin to driving a car with one’s eyes shut!” In addition, however, interest groups adapt to the changing institutional environment in Brussels. As the balance of power shifts between Union institutions, interest groups redirect their efforts accordingly. The treaties of Maastricht and Amsterdam, for example, substantially enhanced the powers of the European Parliament, by introducing the co-decision and conciliation procedures (which furthermore were extended with the Lisbon Treaty). Accordingly, the role of the Parliament in EU policy-making has increased, and the said institution has become a significant lobbying channel for interest groups (Lehmann 2009). So too has the Council of Ministers, even if it is seen as less transparent and accessible than the Commission or the European Parliament (EP) (Hayes-Renshaw 2009). We can accordingly expect interest groups to make early representations to the Commission in an effort to affect legislation. At later stages of the legislative process, however, it becomes increasingly important for them to influence the Parliament and the Council of Ministers (especially under co-decision, which is the procedure that was applied when the new regulatory regime for chemicals was adopted). We shall attempt to establish the degree of access enjoyed by different interest groups to the decision-making process, as well as to the aforementioned institutions. We shall do so, moreover, from the perspective of both institutions and interest groups. When studying democratic representation, one can either focus on whether different ideas and interests are represented equally, or on whether different social and political groups are represented equally (Pitkin 1967; Phillips 1995). According to the former view, a system of representation is adequate to the extent that it reflects the opinions

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and preferences of those affected by the political system. In the latter understanding, by contrast, the role of social and political groups can never be neglected: a system of representation is not adequate unless all groups are represented equally within it. We do not take sides in this debate; the participatory-governance model, namely, is in line with both views. We have sought to address both of these conceptions when designing our questionnaire. Our purpose, then, is to assess whether the criteria of effective participation and enlightened understanding are fulfilled with respect to interests, and with respect to organisations. Furthermore, our investigation is based on survey data (see Chapter 2 for more detail on the survey). This is not, of course, a novel approach within this field (see, e.g., Eising 2004; Kohler-Koch 1997). We attempt in our study, however, to combine quantitative data from a range of different actors (such as persons representing both institutions and interest groups) and to map out their views on one particular law-making process. In designing our questionnaire, we have used several different independent measures for each of the two criteria for democracy. In order, for example, to ascertain the degree to which the criterion of effective participation is fulfilled, we ask whether different interests and actors have equal and adequate opportunities for expressing their preferences to decision-makers. We use two questions in order to capture perceptions about the openness of the process and the accessibility of decision-makers. The first question simply concerns whether, in general terms, “the decision-making process has been open for everyone to participate”. Respondents answered on a scale ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree). The second question bears, more specifically, on perceived access to decision-makers in the three major EU institutions involved: “which institutions/organisations have you had most contacts with during the REACH process?”. Here we adopt the common practice of using the number of contacts as a measure of access to decision-makers (Beyers 2002; Bouwen 2002). On this question too, respondents answered on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 7 (a great deal). Furthermore, in order to assess whether or not the criterion of enlightened understanding is fulfilled, we ask whether different interests and actors enjoy equal and adequate opportunities for arriving at a considered judgement. In order to ascertain this, we ask one

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general question: whether “all relevant viewpoints on REACH have been represented” (the possibility of making a considered judgement would seem to require this). We also ask a more specific question about the accessibility of information in relation to each of the three major EU institutions: that is, whether “the decision-making process has allowed interested parties to scrutinise the activities of the Commission/the Council/the EP”. For all of these questions, respondents answered on a scale from 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree). Taken together, the survey questions should help us form a picture of the general level of participation and of access to information (at least as various interests and actors perceive them).

Results from the survey In the remainder of this chapter, we examine the results from the survey, with an eye to assessing whether participatory governance will help enhance democracy in the Union. We take up each of the two democratic criteria in turn. Effective participation To begin with, we ask whether strengthening the interest-based channel of representation will contribute to a better fulfilment of the criterion of effective participation. Table 4.1 shows how representatives of different types of organisation assess the openness of the REACH process and the accessibility of decision-makers. As can be seen from Table 4.1, the overall level of perceived openness is 4.3 on a scale from 1 to 7. That is, on average the respondents are somewhat more likely to agree than disagree with the statement that the REACH process has been open for everyone to participate. However, since we have no other decision-making process with which to compare our results, it is difficult to say whether this level of perceived openness is high or low; we can conclude, however, that it varies between different types of organisation. Unsurprisingly, for instance, it is respondents representing the European Commission who are most likely (together with representatives of applicant countries) to perceive the decision-making process as having been open for everyone. Persons representing third-country governments, by contrast, are more sceptical of this claim, as are representatives of the Council (although these figures must be viewed with caution, since

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Table 4.1 The openness of the REACH process and the accessibility of decision-makers. Average estimations among organisations Organisation

Openness

Access COM

CofM

EP

European Commission Council of Ministers Industry associations European Parliament Member-state governments NGOs Private businesses Other EU institutions Trade unions International organisations Academic institutes Applicant-country governments Third-country governments Other

5.0 3.6 4.5 4.0 4.3

6.8 6.6 4.6 4.3 5.0

3.4 6.8 3.8 3.7 4.6

3.9 5.3 4.8 6.7 3.4

4.2 4.3 4.4 4.0 4.4

4.3 3.5 4.4 3.6 4.6

3.2 2.0 2.6 2.6 2.0

4.7 2.8 3.9 4.0 1.8

4.3 5.0

4.2 4.3

2.2 5.3

3.6 1.5

3.0

4.5

2.5

2.8

3.5

3.5

2.0

3.2

Total

4.3

4.6

3.4

4.1

N

421

486

475

480

the number of respondents is so low). Representatives of the Parliament, however, also consider the process to have been less open than do representatives of the Commission. Perhaps yet more interesting, however, is the fact that only small differences are found between, on the one hand, representatives of NGOs and trade unions – that is, organisations which are generally viewed as representing diffuse interests – and, on the other, their counterparts in industry associations and private businesses. Admittedly the differences that exist between these types of organisation are in line with prevailing theory, acccording to which diffuse interests should have less access to decision-makers than their more concentrated counterparts. However, the differences are much less pronounced than the theory would lead us to expect. Overall, we thus find no dramatic differences in how different types of organisations rate the openness of the REACH process. It is only in the case of 14

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out of 78 pairwise comparisons (disregarding the Other category) that we can reject the null hypothesis that the average openness scores for the two types of organisations are equal.1 In order to ascertain whether actors think they enjoyed equal and adequate access to decision-makers, we also asked with which institutions they had the most contacts during the REACH process. As previously noted, counting the number of contacts – or more precisely, the perceived number of contacts – is a common way of capturing ease of access. As Table 4.1 shows, there are some notable differences between the three major EU institutions involved in the law-making process. On average, the Commission is the most frequently contacted institution (4.6 on a scale from 1 to 7), followed by the EP (4.1); the Council is the least (3.4). This measure is simply the average score for an institution when all available responses to the question are included. However, representatives for an EU institution may have an interest in portraying their own institution as open to contacts from outside. We have therefore devised an alternative measure too, in which all instances of self-assessment by the EU institution in question are excluded: that is, we have calculated the contact score of the said institution using only responses by persons who do not represent the institution. Using this alternative measure of access does not change the substantive results, however.2 As shown in Table 4.2 we obtain similar results when we focus on interests rather than organisations. On average, representatives of industrial interests – which of course are concentrated – regard the law-making process as having been somewhat more open than do representatives of more diffuse interests, such as environmental, consumer, health and worker interests (animal-rights interests are an exception here). Representatives of general interests – which, by the way, many officials of EU institutions see themselves as representative of – also see the process as having been slightly more open than do representatives of diffuse interests. Once again, however, the differences between different types of interest are rather small. It is only in the case of 6 out of 28 pairwise comparisons (disregarding the Other category) that we can reject the null hypothesis that the average openness scores for the two types of interests are equal.3 The results are similar when it comes to the frequency of contacts between different interests and EU institutions, which indicate

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Table 4.2 The openness of the REACH process and the accessibility of decision-makers. Average estimations among interests Interests

Industrial Interests Environmental Interests Health Interests Animal Interests Consumer Interests Worker Interests General Interests Private Interests Other Total N

Openness

4.6 4.2 3.9 5.3 3.5 3.8 4.7 6.0 3.2 4.3 419

Access COM

CofM

EP

4.5 4.8 4.1 4.8 3.7 4.1 5.1 4.0 4.9

3.7 3.8 2.8 2.7 2.5 2.5 3.9 4.0 3.5

4.3 4.1 3.5 4.5 3.7 3.9 4.3 4.0 4.1

4.6 483

3.4 472

4.1 477

perceived access to decision-makers (see Table 4.2). The Commission is the most frequently contacted institution (4.6), followed by the EP (4.1); the Council is the least (3.4). Interestingly enough, there are no major differences between industrial and environmental interests – although the latter seem to have a slight advantage in the case of the Commission, and the former in the case of the EP. Again, we crosschecked our results by using an alternative access measure, in which all instances of self-assessment by the EU institution in question were excluded. The results obtained when using this alternative measure were very similar to those presented here.4 In light of the theoretical discussion in the introduction to this chapter, two findings stand out here as particularly interesting. First, the results provide no obvious answer to the question of whether or not reforms to increase participation live up to the high expectations placed on them. On the one hand, one could argue that perceived openness is not very high; on average, it falls somewhere in the middle range of the scale. On the other hand, it is not excessively low either. Second, and even more importantly, we find no dramatic differences in the perceived degree of openness between different categories of stakeholders. Our results are, it is true, consistent with theoretical expectation: that is, concentrated interests perceive the REACH process to be somewhat more open than diffuse

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interests do. However, the observed differences between the former and the latter – in our case, between industry on the one hand and NGOs on the other – are very small. Enlightened understanding We investigate the second criterion for a democratic decisional process – enlightened understanding – by first asking whether all relevant viewpoints were represented during the policy debate. As seen in Table 4.3, the average score for responses to this question is 4.4 (slightly above midpoint on the scale, which runs from 1 to 7). That is, on average the respondents are somewhat more likely to agree than to disagree with the statement that all relevant viewpoints were represented in the REACH process. Once again, without any natural benchmark for comparison it is somewhat difficult to judge the magnitude of this figure; but it seems neither alarmingly low nor amazingly high.

Table 4.3 The representation of relevant viewpoints in the REACH process and accessibility of information. Average estimations among organisations Organisation

All relevant viewpoints

Access to information

COM European Commission Council of Ministers Industry Associations European Parliament Member-state governments NGOs Private businesses Other EU institutions Trade unions International organisations Academic institutes Applicant-country governments Third-country governments Other Total N

5.2 5.2 4.1 4.5 4.7 3.7 4.2 4.6 3.9 3.7 4.6 6.0 2.8 4.0 4.4 424

5.3 5.2 4.3 4.1 4.5 4.2 3.7 4.1 3.9 4.5 4.6 5.0 3.0 3.9 4.3 411

CofM 4.0 5.2 3.7 3.2 4.3 3.6 3.4 3.3 3.4 3.0 4.0 4.5 2.8 3.6 3.8 397

EP 5.0 5.6 4.6 5.3 4.7 4.6 3.9 4.7 4.4 4.5 4.6 5.0 3.5 4.1 4.6 406

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In addition, officials from major EU institutions are more likely, unsurprisingly, to take the view that all relevant viewpoints were expressed in the process. By contrast, both industry associations and private businesses on the one hand, and NGOs and trade unions on the other, are less likely to view the process in such a light. Representatives for organised interests appear to be less satisfied than are EU officials with the degree of openness and transparency achieved. As between concentrated and diffuse interests, on the other hand, the differences that we find (e.g. between industry associations and NGOs) are not statistically significant (using a standard t-test for unpaired data and a 0.05 significance level). Overall, we thus find no dramatic differences in how different types of organisations rate the degree of enlightened understanding of the REACH process. It is only in the case of 13 out of 78 pairwise comparisons (disregarding the Other category) that we can reject the null hypothesis that the average “enlightment scores” for the two types of organisations are equal. We also ask respondents how much they were able to scrutinise the activities of the three major EU institutions involved in the lawmaking process (see Table 4.3). As expected, respondents consider the EP on average to have been the most open to public scrutiny (4.6), followed by the Commission (4.3) and the Council (3.8). These figures are in line with what has been found in previous research (e.g. Coen and Richardson 2009). Moreover, when we employ an alternative measure in which all instances of self-assessment on the part of EU institutions are excluded, we find similar results.5 Furthermore, there are no significant differences in this regard as between industry associations and NGOs. Private businesses and trade unions, on the other hand, take a slightly less favourable view of the degree of transparency which has been achieved. As is evident from Table 4.4, a similar pattern arises when interests rather than organisations are asked to comment on the claim that all relevant viewpoints on REACH have been represented. The average score is once again 4.4 on the scale from 1 to 7; however, diffuse interests like worker, consumer and health interests are less likely to agree to this proposition than are, for example, general interests. Industrial and environmental interests are closer to general interests in their assessment of the policy debate. More importantly, however, there are no statistically significant differences between industrial

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Table 4.4 The representation of relevant viewpoints in the REACH process and accessibility of information. Average estimations among interests Interests

Industrial interests Environmental interests Health interests Animal interests Consumer interests Worker interests General interests Private interests Other Total N

All relevant viewpoints

4.4 4.5 4.2 4.5 3.7 4.1 5.0 6.0 2.9 4.4 422

Access to information

COM

CofM

4.3 4.5 4.2 4.7 3.9 4.1 4.7 6.0 3.1

3.8 3.9 3.8 3.7 3.1 3.3 4.1 6.0 3.1

4.3 409

3.8 395

EP 4.6 4.9 4.2 4.3 3.6 4.4 5.0 6.0 3.8 4.6 404

and environmental interests in this regard. This indicates that the two main opponents in the debate over REACH take a similar view of the extent to which all relevant viewpoints came to expression in the policy debate. Moreover, it is only in the case of 4 out of 28 pairwise comparisons (disregarding the Other category) that we can reject the null hypothesis that the average enlightment scores for the two types of interests are equal. Similarly, when we consider the openness of EU institutions as perceived by interests rather than organisations (see Table 4.4), we find that the EP is considered the most open (4.6), followed by the Commission (4.3) and the Council (3.8).6 Nor do any significant differences appear between industrial and environmental interests; they assess the transparency of EU bodies in a similar way. However, other diffuse interests – for example, worker, consumer and health interests – view the opportunities for scrutinising Union institutions in a slightly less favourable light, as compared with environmental interests. Summarising the results of our study on access to information, we find – as in the case of our study on participation – that respondents feel in general that it has been possible to scrutinise the activities of Union institutions (but more so in the case of the EP and the

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Commission than in that of the Council). Furthermore, there are no significant differences between the two main interests which confronted each other in the debate over REACH.

Conclusion Like many before us, we have taken Dahl’s criteria for an ideal democratic process as our standard for evaluation. If participatory governance is to contribute to more democratic EU decision-making, then “each citizen [must] have adequate and equal opportunities for expressing his or her preferences”, as well as “adequate and equal opportunities for arriving at his or her considered judgment as to the most desirable outcome” (Dahl 1982: 6). It may not be feasible, granted, for all citizens in the EU to enjoy equal chances to participate directly in European governance; but all intermediaries, at least, ought to have equal chances to do so. If the participatory arrangements promoted by the Commission do not meet this basic criterion, then it cannot be said they have improved the democratic quality of EU policy-making. In this chapter, accordingly, we have examined the extent to which the recent chemicals policy overhaul met these demands. In sum, the results of our inquiry into participation and access to information are no major cause for concern; on the other hand, they are not particularly reassuring either. As noted in the theoretical discussion at the beginning of this chapter, there is a debate among scholars as to whether the REACH process should be seen “as a blue print for participatory lawmaking” (Heyvaert 2008: 11), or instead as an approach that “did little to enhance effective participation of the public” (Pesendorfer 2006: 111). The results reviewed in this chapter provide no basis for drawing any firm conclusions in favour of either interpretation. To judge from our results the debate ultimately boils down to whether one sees the glass as half full or half empty. What we can say, however, is that there are no major differences in the assessment of the process made by the main opponents in the policy debate: that is, by industrial and environmental interests. The small differences between them that we nonetheless observe are, however, in accordance with theoretical expectation: that is, concentrated interests seem to have an advantage, albeit a small one, over more diffuse interests. Nevertheless, the small size of the

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differences between concentrated and diffuse interests suggests that the participatory arrangements promoted by the Commission did indeed have a mobilising effect for many so-called diffuse interests, and that they encouraged a broad public debate on the reform of chemicals policy. Moreover, we found some interesting differences in how respondents assessed the accessibility and openness of the different institutions. The Commission is the most frequently contacted EU institution, which lends credibility to the view that the introduction of participatory-governance arrangements may serve to strengthen the Commission vis-à-vis other EU bodies, such as the Parliament and the Council. However, when it comes to public scrutiny and access to information, the EP is regarded as the most open institution. The Council, finally, is seen as considerably less accessible and open to public scrutiny than the other two EU bodies. To exaggerate slightly, organised interests look primarily to the Commission for access; they turn to the EP for information. Overall, we thus find that the respondents perceived the REACH process as fairly open and transparent. But this does not mean the involved parties all had exactly equal opportunities to participate, or that all were able to scrutinise the activities of the EU institutions equally well. The difficult question to answer is whether the observed variation is sufficiently large as to jeopardise the democratic quality of the decision-making process. Before jumping to conclusions, however, we should investigate whether the REACH process met the criterion of equality in voting. That is the topic of our next chapter.

5 Chances to Influence Policy: Equal and Effective?

As we discussed in the previous chapter, whereas advocates of the participatory-governance approach to policy making within the EU stress the democratic potential of increased participation on the part of interest groups (Héritier 1999; Commission of the European Communities 2001a; De Schutter 2002; Hey et al. 2007), critics of this approach warn that strengthening the interest-based channel within the Union will mainly serve – due to the alleged bias of the interestgroup system in favour of actors well-endowed with resources – to give further advantages to already privileged groups (Grande 2000; Michalowitz 2004; Pesendorfer 2006). Viewed from the latter perspective, a major problem with current demands for increased interest-group participation in EU decisionmaking is that they stand in opposition to the basic democratic requirement of voting equality among citizens. The problem is by no means a new one. The question of whether and how interest-group representation can be combined with voting equality was a central question both in the pluralist debate of the 1950s (Truman 1951; Schattschneider 1960; Dahl 1961) and in the corporatist debate of the 1970s (Schmitter 1974; Anderson 1977; Lembruch 1977). In principle, there are two different solutions to the problem of how to reconcile interest-group representation with the requirement of voting equality. Either the political system can be designed in such a way that no independent interest group has any political influence, or it can be designed so as to ensure that the influence of all interest groups is proportional to the number of their members or adherents (Dahl 1982: 84). In practice, however, the choice is more accurately 84

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described as between taking steps to limit the political influence of interest groups and taking steps to increase their representativeness. Unsurprisingly, advocates of the participatory-governance approach tend to support the second option. Olivier De Schutter, for example, offers a forceful defence of the “participatory turn” in EU politics: As to the risk that the deeper involvement of the organisations of the civil society might lead to the dominance of uncontrolled private-interest groups, what it calls for is, rather than the maintenance of the status quo, a deeper structuration of the civil society . . . It is thus that Europe can hope to find its civil society: not by sacralising the civil society as it exerts influence at present, nor by instrumentalising it – but by granting it certain participatory rights, and thereby encouraging the organisations of the civil society to reframe the interests they speak for in the light of the European project. (2002: 217) According to other scholars, however, this strategy of reducing the bias of the interest-group system by political means remains more a hope than a reality: a substantial gap, namely, “separates the existing reality of inequality-reinforcing associations and a hoped-for politics of equality-enhancing association” (Fung 2003: 524). As Christopher Lord and Johannes Pollak note, the democratic potential of the participatory-governance strategy (which they call the “informal mode of representation”) hinges on the size of this gap. If the interest-based channel within the EU is strengthened, namely, the result “may [be to] pose a threat to the core democratic principle – that all citizens should be equally represented – to the extent that it does not lead to ‘egalitarian pluralism’ but to elitist politics” (2010: 127). By the norms of egalitarian pluralism, in other words, a political decision is democratically legitimate “only if it emerges from a process of representation and bargaining in which all interests have substantively equal chances of being heard and influencing the outcome” (Cohen and Rogers 1995: 28). Or, in the slightly different words of Beate Kohler-Koch: “Representation is democratic when the represented have an equal and effective chance of making an impact on the process of representation” (2010a: 107). The aim of this chapter is to examine whether and to what extent the REACH process accorded with the model of egalitarian

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pluralism, and thus furnished different actors with equal and effective opportunities for influencing policy; or whether, instead, the process qualified as a case of elitist politics. The chapter is organised as follows. In the first section, we briefly review the theoretical debate on the sources of the alleged bias of the interest-group system. In the second section, we tackle the thorny issue of how to measure influence. In the third section, we examine the empirical evidence. In the fourth section, finally, we set out our conclusions.

Why we should expect some interests to be more influential than others As discussed in detail in Chapter 4, citing Mancur Olson’s seminal contribution, many observers have attributed the alleged bias of the interest-group system at the European level to the fact that narrower and more concentrated political interests – producer and business interests especially – can organise more effectively than can broader and more diffuse interests, such as consumer, worker and environmental interests (e.g. Streeck and Schmitter 1991; Coen 1998; Schneider and Baltz 2003; Dür and De Bièvre 2007). Andreas Dür and Dirk De Bièvre point out in their study of EU trade policy that the implications of this line of reasoning are even greater than they might first appear: Even if diffuse interests manage to get organised, the underlying factors that make it difficult for these interests to influence political outcomes should persist. The act of getting organised does not exempt the groups from the need to constantly go back to their constituencies and ask for resources needed for political activity. Since the potential supporters of the groups still can only expect diffuse benefits from trade policy decisions, there will continually be collective action problems, leading to an undersupply of resources. (Dür and De Bièvre 2007: 82) Thus, even if such diffuse interests manage to organise politically, they will not exert much influence on policy, due to a lack of the resources necessary for effective political action. The importance of the uneven distribution of politically relevant resources among different actors has also been underlined by Pieter Bouwen in a series of studies on corporate lobbying at the EU level

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(e.g. 2002, 2004a, 2004b). The thrust of Bouwen’s argument is that the EU decision-making process constitutes an exchange network in which public and private actors are interdependent, because they require resources from one another. In return, that is, for access to the agenda-setting and decision-making processes, Union institutions expect certain goods from private actors, such as expert knowledge and information about the preferences of domestic and European constituencies (what Bouwen calls “access goods”). Accordingly, the ability of different interest groups to influence EU policy can be expected to stand in direct proportion to the amount of access goods they control. In particular, we may expect groups representing concentrated political interests to be better equipped with the relevant access goods: the more diffuse an interest is, namely, the lesser is the likelihood that those sharing it will find it worthwhile to invest the time and money necessary for acquiring such goods. Accordingly, many critics of the participatory-governance model worry that transferring power to the interest-group system within the EU would serve mainly to strengthen already powerful actors that represent concentrated interests equipped with an abundance of access goods. Thus, rather than offsetting existing power inequalities in the Union, a reinforcement of the interest-based channel may add to such inequalities – by giving greater leeway to special-interests politics at the EU level. Other commentators, however, raise the very opposite problem – that a closer involvement of various interest organisations in EU policy making might lead to a situation in which such organisations become co-opted by EU institutions (see, e.g., Eising 2007: 387). In particular, the fact that many civil-society organisations active at the European level rely on the European Commission for funding may impinge on their independence. Or, as Christine Mahoney and Michael Joseph Beckstrand succinctly put it in a recent study of the Union’s grant-awards system: Civil society groups, especially more confrontational groups, may be co-opted by their government funders, toning down their critique of government institutions or altering their positions on issues so that they can continue to receive funding. (Mahoney and Beckstrand 2009: 6; see also Greenwood 2007c: 117; Ruzza 2006: 169)

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The provision of financial support for organised civil society within the EU can thus be seen as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, EU funding can lessen the collective-action problem arising in connection with political mobilisation: that is, the Commission’s financial support can help groups advocating diffuse societal interests to organise themselves and to survive. On the other hand, if interest groups become dependent on the Union for their financing, their integrity risks being compromised (or at least called into doubt). This is why well-known transnational NGOs like Greenpeace and Amnesty International have decided to refuse any financial support from the Commission (Greenwood 2007c: 117). The close links between the Commission and various interest groups have also been a matter of controversy within official EU circles. The European Parliament in particular has been critical of attempts on the part of the Commission to strengthen its relations with civil-society organisations. Many of the proposals launched by the Commission in its White Paper on European Governance, for instance, met with fierce opposition in the Parliament. As Bouwen has shown in a recent study of the issue, one important reason for the negative reactions of the Parliament to many of these ideas was that it felt threatened by the proposals to extend the Commission’s consultation activities with interested parties, since they could lead to a reallocation of power between the Parliament and the Commission, thereby modifying the institutional status quo. (Bouwen 2007: 278) An important side effect of efforts to strengthen the interest-based channel within the EU, then, may be to empower the Commission vis-à-vis other EU bodies, such as the Parliament and the Council of Ministers. Consequently, if the proposed reforms are to help lessen the Union’s democratic deficit, they must be implemented in such a way as to make it possible to steer clear of the twin dangers of specialinterest politics and interest-group co-optation. This requirement follows from the democratic criterion of voting equality discussed in Chapter 1 of this book: that is, the idea that, in a fully democratic system, every member of the polity must be ensured an equal and effective opportunity to influence decisions.

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Let us turn our attention now to the new supranational system for the regulation of chemicals within the Union which the Parliament and the Council adopted in December 2006: the REACH system. There are varying views about the extent to which the decision-making process leading to the adoption of this new regulatory framework offered equal and effective opportunities for the interests concerned to influence the legislative design. According to some commentators, the process proved rather successful in this regard. Christian Hey and his co-authors, for example, have argued that the new participatory mode of governance helped to level the playing field – at least to an extent – between environmental and industrial interests. The authors ascribe particular importance to the various consultative and cooperative arenas in which representatives of diverse interests were able to come together and to seek out common ground: One may argue that without the establishment of those cooperative arenas, REACH would not have had the chance to survive the fierce attacks of the industry advocacy coalitions that originally opposed the reform as a whole. (Hey et al. 2007: 1871; see also Selin 2007) Other scholars, however, are much less impressed with the achievements of the REACH experiment. In sharp opposition to the view expressed by Hey and colleagues in the quote above, Dieter Pesendorfer contends that it was exactly the introduction of the new participatory-governance instruments that assured the privileged position of business actors in policymaking. Purely technical consultations in particular were “productive” in the sense that industry had the possibility to hide its demands behind the screen of a technical debate about workability, efficiency, and feasibility, which is understood only by a small number of experts. (2006: 108) Returning to a distinction mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, it bears noting that, whereas Hey and his co-authors describe the REACH process as according (at least in part) with the ideal of egalitarian pluralism – in which all interests have equal and effective

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chances to influence the outcome – Pesendorfer describes the same decision-making process as a clear-cut case of elitist politics, in which the final outcome was unduly influenced by a small set of resourcerich actors. Both Hey and colleagues and Pesendorfer back their respective conclusions with empirical evidence; however, given the difficulties involved in studying influence, their contrasting conclusions are not that surprising. That said, their conflicting findings are nonetheless rather disturbing, inasmuch as the prospects for improving EU democracy through participatory governance ultimately hinge on the relative accuracy of the two views. In this chapter, we use our survey data to shed new empirical light on the question of the extent to which the REACH process accorded with the principle of egalitarian pluralism. Before turning to the empirical analysis, however, let us first consider the problem of how influence is to be defined and measured.

How to study influence Like its twin brother, the concept of power, the concept of influence is notorious for its elusiveness.1 Most people have an intuitive understanding of what influence is; however, trying to define the thing formally – or, even worse, trying to measure it – is to open up a Pandora’s box. Many of the difficulties associated with the study of influence can be attributed to two factors. The first is that influence is ultimately a relational concept. That is, for an actor to be influential, he or she must be able to assert influence over someone or something. Following the seminal work of Robert Dahl, many political scientists see influence as an asymmetric dyadic relation between actors. Viewed from this perspective, actor A has influence over actor B to the extent that A can get B to do something he or she otherwise would not do (Dahl 1957: 203). As William Riker (1964) has pointed out, this definition of influence is other-oriented, in that the ultimate object of influence is the behaviour of other actors. In ego-oriented definitions, by contrast, influence is conceived in relation to a particular outcome, such as a parliamentary decision on a new piece of legislation. Actors then qualify as influential to the extent they are able to ensure that the outcome accords with their interests. Defined in this way, influence is not a dyadic relation between actors, but “a causal

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relation between the preferences of an actor regarding an outcome and the outcome itself” (Nagel 1975: 29). One difficulty with defining influence, then, relates to the problem of what constitutes the ultimate object of influence: is it the behaviour of other actors, or the final outcome? A second difficulty, however, dogs ego- and other-oriented definitions alike. It is rooted in the fact that both approaches define influence in terms of a counterfactual comparison. This is most easily seen in the case of Dahl’s dyadic definition of influence. Here the influence of A over B is explicitly linked to the fact that B would have behaved differently had it not been for A. The problem of course is that, while we may be able to observe B’s behaviour in a given situation, we cannot observe how B would have behaved had the situation been different. It is thus only by resorting to counterfactual reasoning that we can answer the question of whether A has influence over B. The difficulty applies equally, albeit less explicitly, in relation to ego-oriented definitions of influence. The only difference is that, in the latter case, the point at issue is how the outcome would have looked if A’s preferences had been different. At any given time, namely, A’s preferences are simply what they are; again, therefore, answering the question requires counterfactual reasoning. As we see it, much of the confusion surrounding the study of influence can be traced to the fact that influence is a relational and counterfactual concept. Depending on how we conceive the nature of the relation, and depending on how we approach counterfactual comparisons, we can come to a variety of conclusions. Moreover, the relative pros and cons of the different approaches will likely vary according to the purpose of any given study. As noted earlier, our purpose in this chapter is to ascertain the extent to which the REACH process accorded with the egalitarianpluralist principle that “all interests have substantively equal chances of being heard and influencing the outcome” (Cohen and Rogers 1995: 28, our italics). In view of this, it seems natural to follow the egooriented approach to defining and measuring influence, according to which it is the political outcome, rather than the behaviour of other actors, which constitutes the main object of influence. This is not to say, however, that it is unimportant whether certain actors possess the ability to induce others to do their bidding. From the egooriented standpoint, however, such an ability is just one of the means

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by which an actor can try to influence the outcome. In a sense, then, the ego-oriented approach may be said to contain the other-oriented approach within itself. Where the thorny issue of counterfactual analysis is concerned, four broad approaches to measuring influence may be distinguished.2 As Dür (2008) points out, the process-tracing approach has been the dominant method in previous research on interest-group influence in the EU. With this method, the analyst seeks to uncover causal relationships by scrutinising the chain of events leading up to the outcome (George and Bennet 2005, ch. 10). Showing that a given actor is influential, then, boils down to providing a detailed account of how and why the preferences or actions of that actor helped to shape the final outcome. With the process-tracing approach, it is the researcher who supplies the counterfactual yardstick against which the influence of an actor is assessed. Thus, making the case that an actor is influential requires more than the researcher merely describing the chain of events by which the preferences or actions of the said actor were linked to the final outcome. He or she must also demonstrate the likelihood that, if the preferences or actions of the actor had been different, the chain of events and the outcome would have been different as well. A second approach to measuring influence is the so-called preference-attainment method. At its simplest, it amounts to comparing the ideal position of an actor with the ultimate outcome. The further away from an actor’s ideal result the outcome lies, the less influential the actor is perceived to be. Put boldly, the underlying logic goes something like this: because politics is conflictual, only very influential actors will get what they want in it; thus, the very fact that certain actors get what they want is testimony to their political influence. It is the presumption of political conflict, then, that provides the necessary basis for the counterfactual analysis. Remove this presumption, and there is little to support the (often implicit) counterfactual conclusion that the outcome would have been further from the actor’s ideal result had the actor been less influential. Thirdly, researchers may seek to gauge the distribution of influence simply by asking the actors themselves to assess the influence which they and others wield. James March (1955) calls this the “attributed influence” approach. This avoids the problem of counterfactual comparison by leaving the responsibility for such a comparison to the

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actors themselves. A concrete example may help to clarify this point. For actor A to be able to assess the influence wielded by actor B, A must try to imagine how the outcome would have looked had it not been for B. In so doing, A implicitly provides the counterfactual yardstick against which the influence exerted by B can be assessed. Fourthly and finally, some scholars have suggested that we take a step back and study the bases of influence rather than its exercise (Korpi 1985; Coleman 1994). The underlying idea here, in what is widely known as the power-resources approach, is that the influence wielded by actors is rooted in their control of valued resources (e.g. wealth, information, technical expertise and so on).3 At first sight, moreover, it may seem we can avoid the problem of counterfactual analysis by taking this approach, because the yardstick against which the influence of actors is evaluated – the amount of power resources they possess – is factual rather than counterfactual. However, unless we view the holding of power resources as a sufficient rather than merely necessary condition for the exercise of influence, we cannot dispense with the need for counterfactual reasoning. To the extent, namely, that the possession of power resources does not guarantee that actors achieve the outcomes they desire, researchers seeking to measure influence by reference to such resources must be able to argue that “had [a given] actor been less endowed with power resources, his or her chances to affect the outcome would have been smaller”. Thus, scholars who take the power-resources approach try to handle the counterfactual problem by invoking the assumption of a strong (although not deterministic) causal relationship between actors’ power resources and their ability to achieve the outcome they desire. Each of these methods for measuring influence has both advantages and drawbacks. The process-tracing approach, for instance, provides good opportunities for studying not only whether but also how various actors are able to influence the outcome. But the method is very time-consuming. As a consequence, it is often necessary to focus the analysis on a rather small set of actors, which reduces the ability of the analyst to gauge the overall distribution of influence among the full range of actors involved (a great deal can be learned, however, about the influence of the particular actors studied). As we saw above, moreover, it is the researcher who provides the yardstick against which the influence of actors is judged; thus it is often

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difficult, when this method is used, to ensure the intersubjective verifiability of the findings (Dür 2008: 564). A great strength of the preference-attainment method is that it offers a clear and fairly objective scale for evaluating the influence wielded by different actors. Since correlation does not imply causation, however, it is necessary to control for other factors (aside from influence) that may help to explain any given correspondence between preferences and outcomes. This is often very difficult to do. As compared with the other two methods, the great advantage of the attributed-influence and power-resources approaches is their relative simplicity of use. It is often easier and less time-consuming to ask the actors themselves to assess their own and others’ influence, or to measure actors’ influence by their possession of readily observable power resources, than it is to try to uncover the chain of events leading to a particular outcome, or to try to separate out the impact of influence from that of other factors which may account for a correspondence between preferences and outcomes. Yet, both strategies have distinct drawbacks. An obvious risk with the attributed-influence method is that actors may, for strategic reasons, provide a biased assessment of the influence which they and others wield. As for the power-resources approach, it bears noting that the importance of different resources is likely to vary according to circumstances; choosing which resources to measure, accordingly, is often a tricky matter. The upshot of this discussion is that there is no optimal way to measure influence. All approaches have strengths and weaknesses that researchers need to be aware of. We are accordingly inclined to agree with Dür (2008: 565) that methodological triangulation – that is, the simultaneous use of multiple methods – is often the best way to proceed, at any rate if the necessary time and resources are available. Previous empirical studies on REACH have relied exclusively on the process-tracing approach for measuring the influence of actors (e.g. Pesendorfer 2006; Hey et al. 2007; Selin 2007). The conflicting findings of these studies may accordingly be due, at least in part, to differences in the benchmarks used for assessing influence. The studies done by Pesendorfer (2006) and Selin (2007) are a case in point. Pesendorfer wants to understand why the REACH system did not end up constituting a “paradigmatic shift in chemicals policymaking” (2006: 111), as the Commission had initially promised; by

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contrast, Selin seeks to explain “how it was possible for a relatively small group of green policy advocates . . . to secure the adoption of a new REACH regulation in the face of strong resistance from major European interests” (Selin 2007: 87). Given the very different starting points of the two studies, it is not surprising that Pesendorfer stresses the influence of business interests, while Selin sooner sees the impact of environmental interests. The aim of the empirical analysis below is to extend and complement the findings of these earlier studies, but with the help of an alternative research design. We rely, namely, on the attributedinfluence method to gauge the distribution of influence. In so doing, we make use of survey responses to two different questions. First, respondents were asked to describe how much influence various types of interests had over the REACH proposal, on a scale running from 1 (none at all) to 7 (a great deal). Second, respondents were asked to rate how much influence various types of organisations and institutions had over the proposal (also on a scale from 1 to 7). However, in view of the difficulty of measuring influence, we shall cross-check the findings of the attributed-influence analysis against an alternative measure of influence. More precisely, we shall investigate the frequency of contacts between different actors during the preparation of the REACH legislation. Respondents were namely asked to rate, on a scale from 1 to 7, how much contact they had with various organisations and institutions when the REACH proposal was being prepared. As Torsten Svensson and PerOla Öberg (2005: 1077) point out, the frequency of contacts may be interpreted as the activation of power resources; in other words, the reason why some actors have denser contact networks than others is that they control important power resources, such as information or technical expertise. This measure of influence is thus closely connected to the power-resources approach. With these methods for measuring influence in hand, let us now turn to the empirical analysis.

Empirical results A much-discussed question in connection with representative democracy is whether political equality among individuals is best achieved through the equal representation of groups, or through the equal representation of political ideas (cf. Phillips 1995). Both of

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these views are consistent with the argument that participatory governance helps to improve democratic representation in the Union. In the case of the first, participatory governance is seen as a way to ensure political influence for certain organised groups – for example, citizen interest groups of various types – who otherwise would have no access to the decision-making process. In the case of the second, the emphasis is rather on participatory governance as a way to achieve a better representation of a range of political ideas. One difficulty for the empirically oriented researcher, however, is that the group- and idea-centred views of political representation identify different units of analysis. Whereas the first involves studying the distribution of influence among different types of organised groups, the second entails studying the distribution of influence among different types of societal interests. We propose to overcome this problem by studying the distribution of influence both among different types of organisations and among different types of interests (beginning with the former). Table 5.1 shows how

Table 5.1 The influence of organisations Organisation

AI-1

AI-2

AI-3

PR

European Commission Council of Ministers Industry associations European Parliament Member-state governments NGOs Private businesses Other EU institutions Trade unions International organisations Academic institutes Applicant-country governments Third-country governments

.84 .79 .75 .75 .68 .61 .53 .47 .47 .41 .40 .36 .33

.84 .87 .64 .74 .71 .49 .48 .44 .57 .48 .40 .54 .13

.84 .79 .77 .75 .68 .62 .54 .47 .46 .41 .40 .36 .33

.56 .40 .59 .46 .55 .47 .33 .28 .29 .26 .30 .18 .17

Notes: The number of observations (N) used when calculating the mean varies across both rows and columns in the table. For the AI-1 column, N ranges from 389 (other EU institutions) to 496 (the Commission and industry associations). For the A2-column, N ranges from 4 (applicant- and third-country governments) to 120 (member-state governments). For the A3-column, N ranges from 361 (private businesses) to 478 (the Council of Ministers).

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respondents ranked the influence of different types of organisations and institutions on the REACH process. The three columns labelled AI-1, AI-2 and AI-3 all use the attributed-influence method for measuring the influence of different actors. However, in order to deal with the problem that respondents may have an incentive to over- or underestimate the influence of their own organisation or institution, we calculate attributed influence in three different ways. The AI-1 measure is simply the average influence score for an organisation when all responses to the question of how much influence the said organisation had over REACH are counted (in order to ease interpretation, the response scale is normalised to run from 0 (none at all) to 1 (a great deal)). The AI-2 measure is based strictly on self-assessment: that is, when calculating the influence score of an organisation here, we only include answers given by respondents who represented the organisation in question. The AI-3 measure, finally, is obtained by excluding all instances of selfassessment: that is, in this case, the influence score of an organisation is calculated solely on the basis of replies given by respondents who did not represent the organisation in question. Some notable differences arise between the three measures of attributed influence. In particular, both industry associations and NGOs see themselves as less influential than others consider them to be, as can be seen from the fact that both score higher on the AI-3 measure than on the AI-2 measure. The opposite goes for representatives of the Council and of member-state governments. Both view themselves, namely, as more influential than others consider them to be. Overall, however, the three measures of attributed influence correlate rather highly with one another; and they paint a similar picture of the distribution of influence. To simplify matters, therefore, we focus on the AI-1 measure, in the hope that any bias due to strategic over- or underestimation of influence will average out across the sample as a whole. Figure 5.1 provides a graphical representation of the point estimates of the AI-1 column in Table 5.1, together with the 95-per cent confidence intervals for these estimates. As is to be expected, survey respondents are not in complete agreement on how to judge the influence of the various actors. However, the variation between categories is considerably greater than that within them, as can be seen from the fact that rather few overlapping confidence intervals are to

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EC CO IA EP MSG NGO PB OEU UN IO AC APC TCG .3

.4

.5

.6

.7

.8

.9

Attributed influence (Al-1) Figure 5.1

Confidence-interval plot for the influence of various organisations

Notes: EC=The Commission, CO=The Council, IA=Industry associations, EP=The Parliament, MSG=Member-state Governments, NGO=Non-governmental organisations, PB=Private businesses, OEU=Other EU institutions, UN=Trade Unions, IO=International Organisations, AC=Academic Institute, APC=Applicant-country governments, TCG=Third-country governments.

be found in the figure. More precisely, it is only in the case of 4 out of 78 possible pairs that we cannot reject the null hypothesis that the means for the 2 types of groups are equal (using a standard t-test for unpaired data and a 0.05 significance level).4 In the case of the remaining 74 pairs, the average influence scores for the 2 groups are indeed statistically distinguishable. Against the background of the discussion in the theoretical part of this chapter, two results in Figure 5.1 stand out as particularly interesting. First, the rather large difference in estimated influence between industry associations and NGOs may be interpreted as supporting the view that organisations which represent concentrated interests (as industry associations do) tend to be more influential than those which represent more diffuse interests.5 This is not to say, however, that NGOs lacked influence in the case of REACH. It is difficult to say what should be counted as a high or a low

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influence score; nevertheless, the average NGO score of 0.61 is situated on the upper half of the influence scale, indicating that many respondents believed NGOs to be fairly influential. Moreover, about 10 per cent of respondents assigned the highest influence ranking (“a great deal”) to NGOs, while another 22 per cent gave them the second highest score. For industry associations, on the other hand, the corresponding figures were 26 and 33 per cent, respectively. In addition, the fact that the Commission was seen as the most influential actor in the REACH process may be thought to lend credibility to the view that introducing the participatory-governance model within the EU would serve to strengthen the Commission vis-à-vis other EU bodies, such as the Council and the Parliament. Such a result seems all the more likely given that 40 per cent of respondents assigned the maximum influence score to the Commission, while the corresponding figures for the Council and the Parliament were 30 and 20 per cent, respectively. As can be seen from the last column of Table 5.1 (labelled PR), our alternative indicator of influence – which measures the activation of power resources (i.e. contact frequencies) rather than attributed influence – paints a similar picture of the distribution of influence.6 The most noteworthy difference vis-à-vis the previous analysis is that it is industry associations, and not the Commission, which score highest on this measure. That is, industry associations have the densest contact network among the organisations surveyed. More importantly, however, both of the main findings from the previous discussion remain valid even when we consider this alternative indicator of influence. First, industry associations prove more influential than NGOs in regard to the activation of power resources too. That said, NGOs appear to be rather well-connected with the other actors in the system, as can be seen from the fact that they now receive a higher ranking than both the Council and the Parliament. Second, although it is surpassed by industry associations on this measure, the Commission continues to outrank the other EU bodies. Thus, as compared with the Council and the Parliament, the Commission maintained closer contacts with the actors involved in the REACH process. Again, this finding is well in line with the view that the introduction of new participatory modes of governance could put the Commission in a privileged position vis-à-vis the other major institutions of the Union.

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The above analysis concerns the distribution of influence among different actors. However, as previously noted, many scholars view ideas rather than groups as the ultimate subject of political equality in a representative democracy. Viewed from this perspective, the quality of democratic representation hinges on the fairness (or lack thereof) with which different political ideas and interests are represented. In accordance with this view of democratic representation, all respondents were asked to estimate how much influence various types of interests had on REACH. The results are presented in Table 5.2. The three measures of attributed influence are calculated in the same way as before. In this case, unfortunately, we cannot crosscheck our findings by using the alternative measure of influence; we lack data, namely, on the frequency of contacts between different interests. Once again, there are some notable differences between the different measures of attributed influence. Most importantly, representatives of both industrial and environmental interests tend to downplay their own influence, while representatives of consumer interests tend to see themselves as relatively more important than others see them. Furthermore, were we solely to rely on respondents’ self-assessment, we would have to judge the outcome of the governance experiment rather favourably. In this case, namely, all

Table 5.2 The influence of interests Interests

AI-1

AI-2

AI-3

Industrial interests Environmental interests Health interests Animal interests Consumer interests Worker interests General interests Private interests

.74 .71 .65 .62 .55 .55 .52 .45

.67 .63 .63 .64 .64 .54 .61 .67

.77 .74 .66 .62 .54 .55 .51 .44

Notes: The number of observations (N) used when calculating the mean varies across both rows and columns in the table. For the AI-1 column, N ranges from 396 (private interests) to 510 (industrial interests). For the A2-column, N ranges from 2 (private interests) to 152 (industrial interests). For the A3-column, N ranges from 345 (general interests) to 495 (animal interests).

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influence scores are situated on the upper half of the scale, indicating that all interests see themselves as having had at least some influence on the outcome. The scores are also distributed rather equally. However, our preferred measure of influence – the A1-1 measure – yields a slightly different picture, as can be seen from the confidenceinterval plot in Figure 5.2. As indicated by the somewhat larger confidence intervals, as compared with those in Figure 5.1, the variation within categories is somewhat more pronounced when interests rather than organisations are the unit of analysis. Nevertheless, it is only in the case of 4 out of 28 pairwise comparisons that we cannot reject the null hypothesis that the average influence scores for the 2 types of interests are equal (using a standard t-test for unpaired data and a 0.05 significance level). There are thus clear indications that some interests had more influence over the REACH proposal than others. The fact that industrial

INI ENI HEI ANI COI WOI GEI PRI .4

.5

.6

.7

.8

Attributed influence (Al-1) Figure 5.2

Confidence-interval plot for the influence of various interests

Notes: INI=Industrial interests, ENI=Environmental interests, HEI=Health interests, ANI=Animal interests, COI=Consumer interests, WOI=Worker interests, GEI=General interests, PRI=Private interests.

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interests seem to have prevailed over consumer, health and general interests is also fully consistent with the theoretical hypothesis that concentrated interests will gain the upper hand in participatory policy making. At the same time, it bears noting that the estimated difference in influence between industrial and environmental interests is small (and indeed not statistically significant at the 0.05 level). Both of these interests are considered rather influential by most respondents. One-third of respondents assign the highest influence score to industrial interests, and another 28 per cent assign the second highest score to them. The corresponding figures for environmental interests are 22 and 31 per cent, respectively. These results may be taken to suggest that industrial interests had a small edge over environmental interests in the REACH process; it would appear, however, that the data do not support Pesendorfer’s contention that the design of the policy-making process only served to assure “the privileged position of business actors in policy-making” (2006: 108). The overall results of the empirical analysis seem instead to be more in line with those presented by Henrik Selin (2007). In particular, the puzzling fact that environmental interests are considered almost as influential as industrial interests – notwithstanding the fact that industry associations are regarded as substantially more influential than NGOs defending environmental interests – squares nicely with Selin’s main argument. According to Selin, namely, the reason why a small alliance of green policy advocates was able to secure the adoption of REACH in the face of strong opposition lay in the fact that the coalition included supporters from a variety of organisations and institutions. The very fact, that is, that a commitment to environmental interests was spread across a large number of actors helped to secure the influence of the pro-REACH coalition. These results indicate, we believe, that the chemicals overhaul paid more than just lip-service to the stated ambition of “opening up the policy-making process to get more people and organizations involved in shaping and delivering EU policy”. Most of the parties involved in the process seem to have had at least some opportunity to influence the REACH proposal (see Figures 5.1 and 5.2, for example). So, while Dür and De Bièvre (2007) describe the participatory and consultative regime that applies in respect of EU trade policy as a case of “inclusion

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without influence”, we would suggest the label “inclusion with some influence” for the REACH process. This is not to say, however, that the REACH process provided all concerned parties with equal opportunities to influence the final decision. After all, even among the rather small subset of organisations and interests surveyed here, a notable variation in influence opportunities can be observed. The difficult question, of course, is whether this variation is great enough to undermine the democratic credentials of the participatory-governance approach. One popular way to summarise the overall concentration of power within a social network is to measure the sum of the differences between the influence score of the most influential actor and that of all the others, and then to divide this sum by the maximum possible sum of differences (Scott 1991/2000: 90). The resulting measure ranges from 0 (influence is distributed perfectly equally among all actors) to 1 (a single actor wields maximal influence, while all others lack influence altogether). If we do this calculation for the influence scores presented in Figures 5.1 and 5.2 (i.e. the AI-1 measures), we get a value of 0.30 and of 0.16, respectively.7 In both cases, then, the index value is quite a bit closer to “perfect equality” than to “perfect inequality”. Nevertheless, the meaning of these figures – whether they are to be interpreted as evidence of power concentration or of power equality – clearly depends on the yardstick being used. To complicate things still further, we will need – if we are to gauge the effect of the participatory-governance model on the distribution of influence – to compare these figures with the numbers that would have turned up had the REACH process instead been handled according to the standard Community method. Given our research design, therefore, any judgement about the degree of power concentration must be somewhat impressionistic. That said, we would like nonetheless to make two remarks about the distribution of influence based on the analysis above. First, while the distribution of influence is unequal enough to conflict with the principle of egalitarian pluralism, we do not think the degree of inequality is so great as to warrant describing REACH as a case of elitist or special-interest politics. Second, we find it interesting that the distribution of influence among interests is more equal than the distribution of influence among organisations. To the extent that this

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finding can be shown to apply in other contexts as well, scholars of participatory governance will need to take the question of how political equality among individuals can best be achieved – through the equal representation of groups or the equal representation of ideas – more seriously than they have done hitherto.

Conclusion One key criticism made of the participatory-governance approach is that strengthening the interest-based channel within the EU may have the effect of jeopardising the basic democratic criterion of voting equality. Given the inherent bias of the interest-group system, the argument goes, it is unlikely that a policy process built on interest-group participation could meet the democratic requirement that all concerned parties enjoy equal and effective opportunities to influence the outcome of the process. In this chapter, we have tried to ascertain whether and to what extent the REACH process actually provided all participants with such opportunities, or whether the process is more accurately described as having been one of elitist or special-interest politics. Unfortunately, however, our findings are less unambiguous than we would have wished. Part of the problem is that patterns of influence, almost by definition, are very difficult to study. Another part of the problem is that, due to the single-case character of our study, we lack a natural yardstick against which the results can be judged. That said, we believe the empirical analysis presented in this chapter has turned up some interesting and potentially important information about the distribution of influence in the REACH process. In accordance with the hypothesis that concentrated political interests will enjoy an advantage, industry associations were found to be considerably more influential than NGOs. Contrary to what might have been expected, however, the favoured position of industry associations vis-à-vis NGOs did not mean that industrial interests were allowed to dominate the policy-making process. Instead, according to respondents to the survey, environmental interests had about as much influence over REACH as industrial interests had. We have found, furthermore, that the Commission wielded greater influence than both the Council and the Parliament. This may be taken to

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substantiate the supposition that introducing a new participatorygovernance regime would serve to strengthen the position of the Commission in the EU system. As to the question of whether REACH was an instance of egalitarian pluralism or of elitist politics, our unsurprising answer is that it was something in between. Our results indicate, namely, that the participatory-governance model holds out an important promise, and that it contains a critical pitfall as well. On the positive side, the indications are that strengthening the interest-based channel within the EU could increase the opportunities for non-governmental actors to influence EU policy; after all, most organisations and interests testified to having had at least some degree of influence over the outcome of the process. Viewed from this perspective, participatory governance could help improve democratic representation in the Union by increasing many actors’ effective chance of making an impact on policy. On the negative side, however, the results may also be interpreted as supporting the supposition that strengthening the interest-based channel will lead to increased political inequality: some interest groups, namely, have been shown to stand a better chance of influencing policy than others. Consequently, a greater reliance on the participatory-governance model within the EU is likely to have conflicting effects on the two elements of democratic representation. Whether the increased opportunities to affect policy will make up for the likely increase in inequality obviously depends on the magnitude of the two effects, as well as on the relative weight attached to the goals of guaranteeing equal chances versus ensuring effective ones. In this chapter, we have taken but a small first step towards answering these questions; much more research is needed.

6 Input and Output Legitimacy: Synergy or Trade-off?

Up to now our focus has been on the democratic credentials of the participatory-governance model.1 However, as we saw in Chapter 1 of the book, those who argue for strengthening the interest-based channel of representation within the Union often see interest-group participation as a way to enhance not only democracy, but also the quality of policy itself. The following excerpt from the White Paper on European Governance provides a good case in point. Reforming governance addresses the question of how the EU uses the powers given by its citizens. It is about how things could and should be done. The goal is to open up policy-making to make it more inclusive and accountable. A better use of powers should connect the EU more closely to its citizens and lead to more effective policies. (Commission of the European Communities 2001a: 8, our italics) Translated into EU parlance, the idea promoted by the Commission and others is that a closer involvement of interest-group representatives in the preparation and implementation of EU policy can be “expected to contribute both to input and output legitimacy” (Kohler-Koch 2010a: 106). Not everyone subscribes, however, to this optimistic win-win view of the relationship between input and output legitimacy. On the contrary, it is often argued that the ongoing attempts to get more people and organisations involved in EU policy making may come at the cost of less effective policies (e.g. Katz and Wessels 1999: 6; Höreth 2001: 11; Lord and Pollak 2010: 127). That is, many researchers see 106

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attempts to “enhance input legitimacy as likely to interfere with output legitimacy” (Greenwood 2007a: 339). Is the relationship between input and output legitimacy one of synergy, or is it a trade-off ? This question is of vital importance for the prospects of remedying the legitimacy problems of the Union through a greater involvement of organised stakeholders in EU decision-making. If the relationship between input and output legitimacy is one of synergy, then reforms aimed at increasing participation and deliberation on important EU issues will also serve to enhance the output legitimacy of the Union. However, if the relationship is in fact a trade-off, then any gains on the input side may be offset by corresponding losses on the output side. The relationship between input and output legitimacy has been the subject of much theoretical discussion, but it has received scant attention at an empirical level. In this chapter, we attempt to remedy this situation, by empirically assessing the relationship between input and output legitimacy in the case of REACH. More precisely, we use the survey data at our disposal to examine whether the respondents who considered the process to be open and inclusive were more or less likely to view the resulting outcome as efficient. The rest of the chapter proceeds as follows. In the first section, we review the earlier treatment in the theoretical literature of the relationship between input and output legitimacy. In the second, we discuss the survey material that we use, and address issues of measurement when studying input and output legitimacy. In the third, we present our empirical results. In the last section, finally, we set forth our conclusions.

Two opposed views on the input–output relationship The recent constitutional stalemate and the continuous rise in public discontent with the European project are commonly interpreted as symptoms of an underlying legitimacy crisis that has pervaded the EU ever since the enactment of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. But there is no corresponding agreement on the exact causes of the crisis, or on the cures for it. Part of the reason for this is probably to be sought in the elusiveness of the concept of legitimacy. Legitimacy is often described as the bedrock of a well-functioning political system, yet clear definitions of the concept are hard to come by.

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On an abstract level, legitimacy can be said to refer to the acceptability of a social or political order. For an institution to be legitimate, it has to rest on the passive support (at a minimum) of the people whom its policies affect. This acceptance has both a normative and a sociological meaning. To be normatively legitimate, the right of an institution to make publicly binding decisions has to be justified by some objective means (e.g. as when its practices are shown to meet an agreed-upon set of standards). In a sociological sense, an institution is legitimate when it is accepted as appropriate and worthy of being obeyed by those affected by its policies. Since Fritz Scharpf’s seminal contribution, it has been common among students of legitimacy to differentiate between input and output legitimacy (Scharpf 1999). According to a common (although not universally accepted) definition, “input legitimacy” is concerned with the participatory quality of the decision-making process which results in rules and laws, whereas output legitimacy refers to the perceived efficiency of these rules and laws (Risse 2006: 185). In an attempt to clarify the meaning of input legitimacy further, Christoph Meyer has suggested that the input legitimacy of representative political systems, such as the EU, basically derives from three different sources (1999: 619): • authorisation of power-holders: access to time-limited power is granted on the basis of a free and equal electoral process; • responsiveness in the exercise of power: power-holders need to involve the public in their deliberations, and to take conflicting interests into account when making decisions; • accountability of power-holders: power-holders need to justify their actions publicly, and to step down from power in cases of gross misconduct or mismanagement. Advocates of participatory governance typically stress the second item in this list. They portray a closer involvement on the part of stakeholders in EU decision-making as a way to meet the requirement of responsive decision-making, on account of the institutionalised arena that it provides for public deliberation and participation at Union level. That said, stakeholder participation in EU decision-making is also often defended by reference to the notion of accountability. The

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section from the White Paper on European Governance cited above – in which the Commission declares that the purpose of the proposed governance reforms is to make decision-making more inclusive and accountable – provides a good case in point. However, accountability in this context often concerns what has been termed social accountability: that is, the idea that public decision-makers should be “obliged to account for their performance to the public at large or [to] civil interest groups, charities, and associations of clients” (Bovens 2007: 112). Typically, however, representatives of civil society are only able to hold decision-makers accountable in a rather indirect fashion. Interest-group representatives can help to raise public awareness of potential wrongdoing by EU decision-makers, by sounding the alarm or blowing the whistle on EU officials; they usually lack, however, the ability to impose formal sanctions on those who wield power. Social accountability is thus a rather weak type of accountability, in which the stress is on giving reasons rather than imposing sanctions (Hüller and Kohler-Koch 2008; Persson 2009). However, the argument goes, while such a weak form of accountability may not increase the level of democratic control in any strict sense, a larger element of social accountability can nonetheless work to the benefit of democracy: after all, the participation of interest groups in EU decision-making helps empower “citizens or the[ir] elected representatives to evaluate executive behaviour, to pass a judgement and to impose consequences” (Kohler-Koch 2010b: 1119). Proponents of participatory governance maintain, then, that strengthening the interest-based channel of representation within the EU can help enhance the Union’s input legitimacy, by bolstering responsiveness as well as social accountability. For interest groups to play this role, however, it is imperative that decisionmaking be structured in a way that promotes broad, meaningful, and effective participation and deliberation. More precisely, Jens Steffek and Patrizia Nanz suggest, the ability of interest groups to fill the role of democracy-enhancing intermediaries hinges on the extent to which the decision-making process brings about free, informed and inclusive deliberation: Free means that interested participants should be allowed to listen, to speak, and to amend the agenda. Informed signifies that participants should have equal access to all the available information

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pertaining to the issues at stake. Inclusive means that concerns and arguments of all those affected by the decision should be present in the debate. (Steffek and Nanz 2008: 9) The requirements listed by Steffek and Nanz closely resemble the democratic criteria examined in Chapters 4 and 5 of this book. As noted above, however, according to the Commission and others, strengthening the interest-based channel of representation within the EU may be expected to enhance not just the input legitimacy of the EU, but its output legitimacy as well. That is, in line with the associative-democracy model, interest-group representatives are seen both as instruments for improving the efficiency of policy making and as tools for effective participation and deliberation (see Chapter 1 for a discussion of the associative model of democracy). The question then becomes why a closer involvement on the part of interest-group representatives should have such a positive impact on the outcome of policy making. James Fearon (1998: 56–57), writing more generally about the virtues of public deliberation and participation, identifies two mechanisms by which they can help increase popular support for political decisions (i.e. output legitimacy). First, deliberation and participation can bolster support for political outcomes by fostering greater consensus among actors, by lessening bounded rationality, by promoting more public-spirited proposals and by encouraging the disclosure of private information. Second, it seems a reasonable hypothesis that, for psychological reasons, the mere fact that actors have a say on a matter makes them more likely to support the political outcome, even when they oppose the collective choice ultimately made. Viewed from this perspective, the new governance strategy launched by the Commission through its White Paper on European Governance holds the promise of increasing the input as well as the output legitimacy of the EU. Not all commentators, however, view the proposed governance reforms in the same positive light. In particular, it is often suggested that the ongoing attempts to get more people and organisations involved in EU policy making may come at the cost of less effective policies. Christopher Lord and Johannes Pollak, for instance, remark as follows in a discussion of the risks involved: “While competition is the nuts and bolts of politics, the existence of an

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almost unmanageable number of potential representatives can lead to duplication and thus to efficiency losses” (2010: 127). Similar arguments – that increased stakeholder participation and deliberation may impinge on policy making efficiency by making the decisionmaking process more complicated and time-consuming – have also been made by a number of other scholars (e.g. Majone 1996; Dahl 1999; Katz and Wessels 1999; Schulz and König 2000; Höreth 2001). Likewise, a number of students of international bargaining have pointed to the potential trade-off between increased openness and transparency on the one hand, and efficient policy making on the other. David Stasavage, for instance, has argued that transparency can be expected to affect bargaining efficiency negatively, since opendoor bargaining could encourage policy-makers to adopt “overly aggressive bargaining positions that increase risks of breakdown in negotiations” (Stasavage 2004: 695; see also Finel and Lord 1999; Naurin 2004). Many scholars appear, then, to share the view of Ellen Immergut that “the conditions for effective/efficient policies pose problems for the democratic/participatory aspects of associative democracy” (1995: 204). In its most extreme version, this line of argument suggests a zero-sum (or even a negative-sum) relationship between input and output legitimacy where international organisations are concerned. Thus, any legitimacy gains from increased participation and deliberation on the input side may be altogether offset, at any rate ultimately, by a corresponding loss in legitimacy on the output side. Or, as Höreth (1999: 258) concludes with regard to the Union’s legitimacy problem: “the multidimensional problem of legitimacy may be reshuffled to a degree, but it cannot be reduced in total”. The underlying question here – whether the relationship between input and output legitimacy is one of synergy, or whether it is a trade-off instead – is obviously of great importance for the contemporary debate on the prospects for increasing the Union’s legitimacy through stakeholder participation and deliberation. Both sides in the debate are able to offer sound theoretical arguments in favour of their position; it does not seem particularly likely, therefore, that the issue will ever be settled on theoretical grounds alone. In what remains of this chapter, accordingly, we will examine the relationship between input and output legitimacy from an empirical standpoint, with the help of our survey data from the case of REACH.

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Measuring input and output legitimacy Legitimacy is a very complex concept, and it is difficult to measure (Weatherford 1992). To make our task achievable, therefore, we invoke two simplifying restrictions. First, we focus on legitimacy in a sociological rather than a normative sense. Understood in this way, as Ian Hurd (2007: 33) points out, the term “legitimacy” “says nothing about actual rightness or goodness; rather, it refers only to actors’ internal perceptions of rightness and goodness”. Given that our interest is in legitimacy as a psychological phenomenon, and not as a normative one, it also seems natural to approach the matter from an individual-level rather than a systemlevel perspective. That is, we conceptualise legitimacy in this study – in line with most previous research on this topic – as a matter of individual values, expectations and attitudes. This is not to say, however, that we consider formal system properties to be unimportant. We believe, however, that legitimacy at the system level is mediated by individual perceptions and attitudes. To the extent, then, that there is a trade-off between input and output legitimacy within a particular political order, this trade-off should be visible at the level of individual perceptions. For example, if introducing more open and transparent decision-making tends to reduce the decision-making efficiency of an organisation, then we can expect individuals’ perceptions of the relative openness of the decision-making structure to covary with their perceptions of its relative efficiency. Moreover, we study legitimacy in connection with a specific political process (the REACH process). Our focus is thus on legitimacy as an attribute of a policy process, rather than as an attribute of a regime or political system. While such an approach is somewhat unconventional, we think it can be justified on the grounds that the legitimacy of a regime or system ultimately derives from the way politics within it is structured and implemented in specific policy areas. Furthermore, studying a single policy area has an important advantage: it helps make survey questions more concrete, and brings them closer to the daily lives of respondents. As pointed out earlier, input legitimacy is often defined by reference to the participatory quality of the decision-making process (Risse 2006: 185). In this chapter, following the suggestion of Steffek and Nanz, we judge the perceived quality of the decision-making

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process on REACH by the extent to which, in the estimation of various actors, it furnished the requisites for free, informed and inclusive deliberation. We capture perceptions on the input legitimacy of the REACH process by means of the five survey items examined in Chapter 4. These relate to informational openness, representativeness and inclusiveness as perceived by respondents to the survey. To recap, respondents were asked to state the extent to which they agreed with the proposition that the decision-process on REACH (i) had been open for everyone to participate; (ii) had ensured the representation of all relevant viewpoints; and had allowed the interested parties to scrutinise the activities of (iii) the Commission, (iv) the Council and (v) the European Parliament (complete questions are presented in the Data Appendix). For each of the five questions, respondents were asked to answer on a scale from 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree). In order to get an overall measure of perceived input legitimacy, we combined these 5 items into a simple additive index, scaled to range from 1 to 7. The reliability coefficient of the index (Cronbach’s alpha) is as high as 0.83, indicating that survey responses on the five items are highly correlated with one another.2 Whereas input legitimacy relates to the participatory quality of the decision-making process, output legitimacy bears on the quality or efficiency of the outcome. The survey questions at our disposal which came closest to this definition of output legitimacy concerned the extent to which respondents agreed with the proposition that REACH has “been able to promote improved protection of environment and health while also maintaining competitiveness of the European industry”. As with the other questions, respondents were asked to answer on a scale ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree). Granted, this question is solely concerned with two specific aspects of the REACH proposal: its consequences for protection of health and the environment, and its consequences for industrial competitiveness. However, these two aspects have served as guiding principles for the entire policy process (Commission of the European Communities 2001b). Accordingly, we believe that a question of this type – about whether REACH was able to promote better protection for health and the environment without reducing economic competitiveness – provides a reasonable measure of actors’ views on the EU’s output

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legitimacy (i.e. its problem-solving capacity) in this area. That said, two caveats should be noted with respect to this measure. First, actors can of course be wrong. Thus, even if all actors were fully agreed (which they were not) that the REACH proposal was able to promote better protection for health and the environment without damaging industrial competitiveness, it could be the case even so that the proposal ended up being harmful on one or both fronts. To an extent, however, this problem is mitigated by the fact that we are interested here in legitimacy in a sociological rather than a normative sense; accordingly, what actors perceived about the outcome is actually more important here than what the outcome “really” was in a more objective sense. Second, the fact that a proposal is regarded positively by stakeholders is no guarantee that individual citizens will take the same view. Given that the Union’s legitimacy crisis is first and foremost a matter of weak and falling support for EU policy making among citizens, some readers may find this feature of our study problematic. We agree, in fact, that systematic studies are needed of how stakeholder participation and deliberation affect citizens’ attitudes towards the EU; however, the purpose of the present study is more limited. Our main purpose is to evaluate the results hitherto produced by the participatory-governance model championed by the Commission and others. The said model assumes, namely, that interest groups represent the interests and opinions of their members. It is important to know, therefore, how representatives of these groups judge the quality of the decision-making process and the resulting outcome. Before proceeding to the empirical analysis, however, we should address one final issue. Thus far, and in line with most other studies on this topic, we have proceeded on the assumption that both the quality of decision-making procedures and the efficiency of outcomes are important determinants of overall legitimacy. Ultimately, however, the degree to which this is actually true is an empirical question. To assess whether the quality of the decision-making process contributed to the perceived legitimacy of REACH, we asked respondents how important, on a scale from 1 (not important at all) to 7 (very important), it was for the legitimacy of REACH that the decisionmaking process be open for everyone to participate. Similarly, we

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asked how important it was that the workings of the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament respectively be transparent to interested parties (see Data Appendix for the complete questions).3 If we combine the answers to these four items into a simple additive index from 1 to 7, the resulting mean is 5.6; and the median is as high as 6. Furthermore, in order to gauge the importance of output efficiency for legitimacy, we asked respondents how important, on a scale from 1 to 7, it was for the legitimacy of REACH that it ensure “improved protection of environment and health while also maintaining competitiveness of the European industry”. Here the sample mean is 6.1, whereas the median is 7; in other words, more than half the respondents saw it as very important for the legitimacy of REACH that an efficient outcome be reached. There is strong support, then, for the assumption that both the quality of decision-making procedures and the efficiency of outcomes contribute to overall legitimacy. Let us now proceed, therefore, to the main empirical analysis.

Taking stock of the evidence Table 6.1 presents estimates of the impact of input legitimacy on output legitimacy. The first model shows a simple bivariate regression with output legitimacy as the dependent variable, and our composite indicator of input legitimacy as the independent variable. The results constitute clear evidence of a positive relationship between input and output legitimacy. Respondents who viewed the decision-making process on REACH as open, representative and inclusive were considerably more likely to view the proposed regulations as a solution that improves protection for health and the environment without damaging industrial competiveness. This effect is both statistically significant and substantively strong. A one-unit increase in input legitimacy raises output legitimacy by as much as 0.8 units; that is, according to these results, there is almost a one-to-one relationship between the two types of legitimacy. Input legitimacy also accounts for almost one-third of the overall variance in output legitimacy in the sample. Before jumping to conclusions, however, we need to consider this relationship in more detail. For one thing, since output legitimacy is by definition interest-based (Scharpf 1999: 12), it seems prudent to

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Table 6.1 Determinants of output legitimacy

Constant Input legitimacy

Model 1

Model 2

Model 3

Model 4

Model 5

Model 6

Model 7

0.51∗ (0.27) 0.82∗∗ (0.06)

1.61∗∗ (0.39) 0.75∗∗ (0.07) –1.09∗∗ (0.26)

0.66∗∗ (0.33) 0.26∗∗ (0.09) –0.59∗∗ (0.22) 0.67∗∗ (0.07)

–0.08 (0.39) 0.23∗∗ (0.08) –0.56∗∗ (0.22) 0.66∗∗ (0.07) 0.15∗∗ (0.05) 0.04 (0.04) No No No

–0.27 (0.67) 0.26∗∗ (0.08) –0.40 (0.25) 0.63∗∗ (0.07) 0.12∗∗ (0.06) 0.05 (0.04) Yes Yes Yes

1.69 (0.95) 0.25∗∗ (0.11) –0.60 (0.37) 0.69∗∗ (0.10) 0.07 (0.07) –0.02 (0.06) Yes Yes Yes

0.89 (0.57) 0.17∗∗ (0.08) –0.13 (0.26) 0.36∗∗ (0.10) 0.02 (0.06) –0.01 (0.05) No No No

335 0.61

333 0.67

164 0.70

127 0.30

Policy position Consensus Organisational power Involvement Country dummies Organisation dummies Interest dummies Observations Adjusted-R2

No No No

No No No

No No No

372 0.32

345 0.34

343 0.59

Note: Robust standard errors are in parentheses. ∗ p < 0.1, ∗∗ p < 0.05.

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control for the policy positions of respondents. If we do not do this, we run the risk of attributing an effect to input legitimacy which actually arises from the fact that those whose policy interests were better served by REACH viewed it as more efficient, and the decisionmaking process that led to its adoption as more open and transparent. In model 2, therefore, we include the policy positions of respondents as an additional explanatory variable, and test the effect of input legitimacy on output legitimacy net any self-interest effect. We measure policy position as the average of a respondent’s distance from the issue median on seven of the most contentious issues regarding the REACH proposal, such as whether the precautionary and substitution principles should be incorporated into European chemicals regulation (see Data Appendix for a complete description of these issues and a more detailed account of the measure). Admittedly, the likelihood of an exact correspondence between the final proposal and the median position on each of these seven issues is very low. However, given the salience assigned to median voter preferences in spatial voting models (Downs 1957), this measure should serve as a good proxy for how well various respondents’ interests were served by the REACH proposal. Obviously, the expectation here is that respondents with policy preferences closer to the median are better served by the final proposal than respondents with preferences further away from the median position, impelling the former to take a more positive view of the outcome of the process. As can be seen from model 2, this expectation finds clear support in the data: the coefficient of policy position is statistically significant and enters with a negative sign. Furthermore, introducing policy preferences only marginally affects the impact of input legitimacy on output legitimacy. The coefficient of the former variable is still statistically significant and large in magnitude. Besides isolating the causal effect, another strategy for strengthening a causal argument is to provide evidence in favour of the posited causal mechanism: that is, the theoretical link between cause and effect. As the reader may recall, we discussed two mechanisms earlier by which increased input legitimacy might be thought to improve output legitimacy. First, we suggested that an increase in participation and deliberation may increase public support for policies by fostering consensus among actors. We furthermore suggested that

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actors, for psychological reasons, are more likely to support the final decision if they have had their say. Unfortunately it is not possible, given the data at our disposal, to test the mechanism involved in the second case; however, we can examine the extent to which the impact of input legitimacy on output legitimacy is channelled through the development of greater consensus. In model 3, therefore, we include an additional variable called Consensus, which measures the extent to which respondents agree with the proposition that the decision-making process on REACH “has been able to promote agreement between the industry and other interests in society” (1 = totally disagree, 7 = totally agree). The results show considerable support for the posited causal mechanism. The coefficient of consensus is both statistically significant and large in magnitude. A one-unit increase in perceived consensus is estimated to increase output legitimacy by as much as 0.7 units. At the same time, the direct effect of input legitimacy, although still statistically significant, drops by roughly two-thirds when degree of consensus is controlled for. This means the lion’s share of the impact of input legitimacy on output legitimacy is mediated by the fostering of greater consensus among actors. The remaining direct effect of input legitimacy on output legitimacy may be due to a psychological mechanism of the type suggested by Fearon; alternatively, it may point to the epistemic benefits which, according to many advocates of deliberative democracy (e.g. Habermas 1996), arise from openness and deliberation. It is important to note, however, that while the direct effect of input legitimacy on output legitimacy drops once perceived consensus is controlled for, the total effect (i.e. the indirect plus the direct effect) of the input-legitimacy variable is still 0.75. Furthermore, the explanatory power of the model is greatly enhanced by including perceived consensus among the independent variables. The three variables in model 3 jointly account, in fact, for as much as 60 per cent of the total variation in output legitimacy. In models 4 and 5, we investigate the robustness of these findings further. In model 4, we employ two additional control variables. One of these is Organisational power, which captures how respondents assess the influence on REACH exercised by the organisation that they represent. Here too, the scale runs from 1 (none at all) to 7 (a great deal).4 The idea is that actors who perceive their own

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organisation as more powerful in the process are more likely to view the outcome positively, since it is more likely to be in line with the viewpoint of their organisation; furthermore, they are more likely to regard the process as open, representative and inclusive, since more powerful actors enjoy better access to decision-making and relevant information. The variable Involvement, for its part, measures respondents’ overall involvement in the REACH process, also on a scale from 1 (none at all) to 7 (intensively involved). The idea here is that actors who are involved more heavily in the process are more inclined to regard the outcome as legitimate, since they have better opportunities to affect it; and also more disposed to view the process as open and inclusive, since they enjoy more of an “insider” status. Of these two new variables, it is only Organisational power which has a statistically significant effect on output legitimacy. The effect is in the expected direction, in that respondents who view their own organisation as influential are more likely to view REACH as efficient. More relevant to the present study, however, is the fact that including the two additional controls does not materially affect the impact of the other variables in the model. In model 5, we control as well for respondents’ nationality, their organisational belonging (Commission, Industry Association, NGO, etc.) and the type of interest they represent (environmental, industrial, consumer, etc.). Since all of these variables are categorical, we do this by including a full set of country, organisation and interest dummies in the model. Although the coefficients of these dummy variables (which are not reported for reasons of space) are jointly significant, they do not alter our previous conclusions with regard to the relationship between input and output legitimacy. These findings notwithstanding, the critical reader may wonder whether the results are not unduly driven by certain groups included in our sample. For instance, it might be feared that the reason we find a positive relationship between input and output legitimacy is that our sample not only includes non-governmental stakeholders, but also EU officials and politicians – who, it might be thought, are particularly prone to view both the policy process and the outcome favourably. In model 6, therefore, we drop all members of governmental institutions from our sample; that is, the only actors now included are those affiliated with NGOs, trade unions, international organisations, business and industry associations and academic and

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technical institutes. Yet, as can be seen from model 6, the results remain more or less unchanged – notwithstanding the fact that more than half the sample has now been dropped. This suggests that the positive relationship between input and output legitimacy is as strong among non-governmental stakeholders as it is among EU officials and political representatives. Alternatively, one might fear that the nature of the relationship between input and output legitimacy depends on how disappointed actors are with the resulting outcome. For instance, in a recent experimental study of procedural-fairness theory, Peter Esaiasson has called attention to a group he terms “extra disappointed losers” (Esaiasson 2005). This group consists of individuals who hold strong a priori preferences for outcomes which are not realised. According to Esaiasson, this group of extra-disappointed losers ought, for psychological reasons, to remain highly critical of the final outcome, regardless of how they assess the procedural quality of the decision-making process. This suggests a hard test for our previous findings: investigating whether the positive effect of input on output legitimacy is also to be found in the subsample of extra-disappointed losers. Accordingly, we restrict our attention in model 7 to a subgroup in our data that we classify as composed of extra-disappointed losers. The complete details for this classification are provided in the Data Appendix; simply put, however, we measure a respondent’s degree of disappointment by the difference between how important he/she thinks an efficient outcome is for the legitimacy of REACH, and his/her rating of the efficiency of the resulting outcome. The group of extra-disappointed losers then refers to respondents with a disappointment score above the 66th percentile of this variable. And among this group too, evidently, the effect of input legitimacy on output legitimacy is discernible and statistically significant (although the magnitude of the effect, as expected, is somewhat lower than among other respondents). All in all, then, we find little evidence for any trade-off between input and output legitimacy in our data. On the contrary, our results suggest a positive relationship between these two types of legitimacy. After all, actors who perceived the process as more open, inclusive and representative were also inclined to regard the resulting outcome as more efficient. It bears noting, moreover, that to the extent our results might be thought applicable to the citizen level and to

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other policy areas, they supply empirical ammunition for those who seek to lessen the Union’s legitimacy crisis by increasing its input legitimacy. Before concluding this section, finally, we must address a potential caveat to the conclusion above. The critical reader may suspect that our results amount to ex post facto rationalisation; after all, could it not be that actors who perceived the outcome as more efficient also rated the process more favourably? This objection cannot simply be dismissed on the basis of the cross-sectional analysis we have carried out. We do believe, however, that at least three things speak against such an interpretation of our findings. First, previous psychological research indicates that people usually separate their assessment of the desirability of outcomes from their judgement about the justice of the procedure used to determine those outcomes. For instance, in two experimental studies conducted by Tom Tyler, the mean rating of procedural fairness given by respondents did not change according to whether or not they knew the outcome of the process (1996). Second, controlling for respondents’ policy options should reduce the likelihood of the type of ex post facto rationalisation discussed here. As noted above, moreover, input legitimacy has an effect even when account is taken of respondents’ basic views towards a certain type of chemicals regulation. Third, we also find strong support in the data for one of our proposed causal mechanisms – whereby input legitimacy leads to increased consensus – lending additional credibility to our suggested causal story.

Conclusion At the outset of this chapter, we noted that proponents of participatory governance often claim that strengthening the interestbased channel of representation within the EU can help enhance not just the input legitimacy of the Union, but its output legitimacy too. Critics warn, however, that such a strategy may not in fact end up enhancing the legitimacy of the Union overall, because the effect of improving input legitimacy may be to undermine output legitimacy (due to the less efficient decision-making thought to result thereby). From the latter perspective, therefore, reforms aimed at increasing the Union’s input legitimacy serve at best to reshuffle the legitimacy problem.

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The purpose of this chapter has been to examine these opposed claims empirically, within the context of the political process that led to the adoption of REACH. In so doing, we have found evidence for a rather strong positive relationship between input and output legitimacy among involved stakeholders. That is, stakeholders who held the quality of the decision-making process in higher regard were also more likely to view the resulting outcome as efficient. Thus, our results contradict the view that there is an inevitable trade-off between input and output legitimacy. Bearing the usual caveats in mind, we find the empirical results presented in this chapter to be cautiously encouraging. At least among organised stakeholders, there seems to be a correlation between perception of the process as open and support for the resulting outcome. If representatives of these organisations accurately reflect the views of their members (and the usual assumption in the participatorygovernance model is that they do), then reforms aimed at increasing social accountability for power-holders and responsiveness in the exercise of power can also be expected to help enhance the Union’s problem-solving capacity. This is not to say, however, that the type of stakeholder participation and deliberation practised in the case of REACH is without problems. In the subsequent (and concluding) chapter of this book, we will discuss some of these problems as well as some of the advantages of the participatory-governance approach in an effort to evaluate its overall contribution to EU policy making.

7 Participatory Governance: The Way Forward?

This book is at once conventional and unconventional. As the reader has doubtlessly noticed by now, it does not purport to offer any bold new conjectures or alternative definitions or novel theoretical perspectives. For readers who are familiar with the pluralist debate of the 1950s and the corporatist debate of the 1970s, the promises and pitfalls of the governance model examined here – that of participatory governance – are largely old news. We would like to think, however, that this book’s lack of theoretical novelty is a testament to the familiarity of the participatorygovernance model, rather than to any limited cognitive abilities on the part of its authors (although the latter possibility, of course, cannot be ruled out). Boldly put, it seems there is little new about the new mode of governance championed by the Commission and others. In our view, the type of governance arrangements currently discussed by EU scholars under the umbrella of participatory governance is instead best characterised either as a form of inclusive corporatism, or as a form of restrictive interest-group pluralism. In other words, the participatory-governance model, with its focus on stakeholder participation and deliberation, can be seen as an attempt to strike a balance between the principles of representation that underlie corporatism and pluralism, respectively. Whereas the corporatist mode of interest mediation is based on the principle of representational monopoly, in which certain interest groups gain exclusive access to decision-making by being recognised or licensed by the state, pluralism is based on the notion of free competition among interest groups: that is, no interest group is granted 123

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any particular privileges by the state, and all are free to compete for power (e.g. Schmitter 1974). The participatory-governance model, with its emphasis on the role of stakeholders and concerned interests, can be seen as occupying a middle ground between the principles of representational monopoly and representational competitiveness. Admittedly, the interest groups in this model are less exclusive than the corresponding groups in a corporatist system. Nevertheless, the very use of these terms – “stakeholders” and “concerned interests” – signals that interest groups who do not hold a stake in a particular issue or are not closely concerned with a given policy are not to be granted access to the relevant arenas for participation and deliberation. Understood in this way, participatory governance – as currently conceived within the EU – may be described as a type of representational oligopoly. As we see it, then, the difference between participatory governance and more traditional modes of interest intermediation – such as corporatism or pluralism – is a matter of degree rather than of kind. This is not to say, however, that we regard the ongoing attempts to strengthen the interest-based channel of representation within the EU as unimportant. Quite the contrary, we believe it is critical – in view of the rising public discontent with the Union in many of its member states – to try to ascertain whether a closer involvement of organised stakeholders in EU policy making will really “connect the EU more closely to its citizens and lead to more effective policies”, as the Commission claims (2001a: 8). According to the Commission, introducing new arenas for interestgroup participation and deliberation at the European level is a viable method for improving democratic representation and problemsolving capacity within the Union. In this book, we have subjected this claim to empirical examination. It is this empirical focus which makes this book unconventional (although not unique). As Mark Pollack notes, namely, “the analytical and normative elaboration of the governance approach has frequently outpaced the empirical work needed to assess the plausibility of its claims” (2005: 390). By examining the effects of the Commission’s new approach to governance during the chemicals policy overhaul, we have sought to narrow this gap between theoretical claims and empirical evidence. In this concluding chapter, we bring together the findings of previous chapters in an effort to settle the balance sheet of the

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participatory-governance approach to EU policy making. In view of the empirical findings presented in this book, do the ongoing efforts to strengthen the interest-based channel of representation within the Union – through stakeholder participation and deliberation – serve to enhance or to endanger democracy and efficiency? Before discussing the implications of our findings for future policy and research, let us briefly summarise the main results.

The lessons learned Proponents of participatory governance – the Commission not least – argue that introducing new fora for interest-group participation and deliberation at the EU level will help create a more democratic and effective Union. In Chapter 1 of this book, we argued that at least six conditions must obtain if interest groups are to play the role of democracy- and efficiency-enhancing intermediaries: (1) The organisations involved in EU policy making accurately represent the views of their members. (2) Political cleavages in the Union are functional rather than territorial. (3) All interests enjoy equal and adequate representation in EU policy-making fora. (4) All interests have equal and adequate access to relevant information. (5) All interests have an equal and adequate influence on policy. (6) The broad access to information and to policy-making fora does not interfere with decision-making efficiency. Leaving the first condition aside for the moment, the second condition in the list above furnished the focus in Chapter 3 of the book. More precisely, we investigated the relative importance of territorialcultural and of functional concerns in explaining actors’ attitudes towards REACH. Overall, the results indicated that functional concerns were more important for views on REACH. The estimated increase in opinion-congruence from sharing a particular interest was about twice that of sharing either nationality or organisational affiliation. Accordingly, the participatory-governance model ought not to be dismissed (as it sometimes is) on the grounds that political

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conflicts within the Union are primarily driven by territorial–cultural concerns. Moreover, as our analysis in Chapter 3 showed, the relative importance of various types of cleavage varied across actors in a systematic fashion. Whereas functional cleavages dominated among interestgroup representatives, territorial cleavages were most important among representatives of member-state governments. This finding is important, because it indicates that the structure of political cleavages within the Union may – at least in part – be endogenous to the relative weight assigned to the various representative channels. In Chapter 4, we examined the situation with regard to opportunities for participation and access to information. According to the conventional wisdom, interest-group systems have an inherent bias in favour of actors endowed with ample resources. It might therefore be expected that opportunities to participate and access to information will vary widely across interest groups of different types. Yet we find, somewhat to our surprise, that both opportunities to participate and access to information were distributed quite evenly among the various actors. Most respondents regarded the REACH process as fairly open for participation, and the Union institutions as fairly open for scrutiny. (The results show as well, however, that there was considerable room for improvement in both areas.) While widespread opportunities for participation and broad access to information are important prerequisites for democratic representation, the existence of such conditions is no guarantee that all actors will have an equal and adequate influence on policy (see condition (5) in the list above). In Chapter 5, therefore, we focused on the distribution of policy influence. In this case, our conclusions varied according to whether organisations or interests were taken as the relevant unit of analysis. At the level of organisations, we found that industry associations wielded considerably greater influence than did NGOs – a finding that squares well with the theory that concentrated interests enjoy a privileged position. Contrary to what might be expected, however, the favored position of industry associations vis-à-vis NGOs does not mean that industrial interests were allowed to dominate the policy-making process. Instead, in the view of our respondents, environmental interests exerted about as much influence over the REACH process as industrial interests did. Moreover, the overall level of influence was found to be rather satisfactory: that

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is, most of the parties involved reported having had at least some opportunity to influence the proposal. Another interesting finding in Chapter 5 was that respondents saw the Commission as the most influential actor in the process. There is thus reason to believe that reforms aimed at strengthening the interest-based channel of representation within the Union may serve to empower the Commission in relation to other EU bodies, such as the Parliament or the Council. Judging, then, from the results of the empirical analyses presented in Chapters 3–5, we have reason to be cautiously optimistic about the prospects for improving democratic representation in the EU by means of a greater reliance on participatory governance. At the very least, the worst fears of critics of this approach do not appear to have been realised (not in the case of REACH, at any rate). The question, however, is how the introduction of new opportunities for participation and deliberation affects the quality of policy. According to many scholars, there is an inevitable trade-off between input legitimacy and output legitimacy. Others argue, by contrast, that the two types of legitimacy are mutually reinforcing. The question of whether the relationship between input and output legitimacy is one of synergy, or whether it is a trade-off instead, is of vital importance for the prospects for enhancing the EU’s legitimacy through a greater involvement on the part of organised stakeholders in Union decision-making. If the relationship between input and output legitimacy is one of synergy, then reforms aimed at increasing participation and deliberation on important EU issues will also serve to increase the output legitimacy of the Union. However, if the relationship is instead a trade-off, then any gains on the input side may be offset by corresponding losses on the output side. In Chapter 6, we attempted to assess the veracity of these claims empirically. More precisely, we used the survey data at our disposal to examine whether the respondents who considered the REACH process to be open and inclusive were more or less likely to view the resulting outcome as efficient. We found clear evidence for a positive relationship between input and output legitimacy in this case. Respondents who held the quality of the decision-making process in higher regard were more likely to view the resulting outcome as efficient. Contrary to the claims of certain critics of participatory governance, then, it seems to be possible – at least under certain

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conditions – to promote broad participation and access to information without undermining the Union’s problem-solving capacity. This is what we have found. The difficult question, of course, is what to make of these results. What are the implications of these findings for future research in this area, and most importantly for future policy?

Implications for future research This book is an early attempt to evaluate the governance reforms launched by the Commission in its White Paper on European Governance. In the preceding section, we briefly summarised the main findings of our investigation. However, as is often the case with early contributions in a field, the value of our study lies not only in the things learned, but also in the identification of important things not learned. The most significant omission of this book, without a doubt, is that we have not been able to ascertain the accuracy with which the organisations involved in EU policy making represented the views of their members (see condition (1) in the list above). This is indeed unfortunate, because the democratic credentials of the type of elite participation and deliberation advocated by the Commission and others presuppose both that organisational representatives are responsive to the views of their members and that EU officials are responsive to the views of organisational representatives (see paths e and f in Figure 1.1). Judging from the evidence presented in this book, the REACH process did reasonably well – although far from perfectly – in regard to the latter requirement. However, if the views advocated by the organisations involved in REACH did not reflect those of their members, then little was achieved in terms of connecting the EU more closely to its citizens. Except for the studies by Alex Warleigh (2001, 2003) little systematic research has been done on the internal life of the interest groups involved in EU policy making. In his study of NGOs active at the European level in the development area, Warleigh found “little evidence of structures which allowed supporters either to make a regular input into the making of NGO policy, or to hold officers or the NGO to account for it afterwards” (2003: 29). Thus a problem with responsiveness (or its lack) would seem to bedevil the organisational

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level. Yet it may be that representatives of NGOs, notwithstanding the deficiencies in the formal structure of their organisations, are able to reflect the views of their members accurately. For instance, to the extent such organisations mobilise on the basis of rather specific and well-defined functional interests, their representatives and their members may hold similar views simply because they share common objectives. One important avenue for future research, then, would be to analyse how closely the views of the organisations involved in EU decision-making match those of their members. The better the match, the more likely it is that strengthening the interest-based channel within the EU will improve democratic representation. In addition, we believe it would be fruitful to extend and deepen the present analysis by undertaking comparative analyses of different policy areas. Although, we think that much can be learned from studying the policy process leading to the adoption of REACH, we are the first to admit that similar studies of other policy processes are needed. Generally speaking, single case studies of the type conducted here suffer from two key weaknesses. First, when studying a single case it is always unclear to what extent the findings are generalisable to other policy areas than that under study. In this case, it might, for instance, be feared that the REACH process, for some reason, was particularly well- (or ill-) suited for the participatory governance approach. A second weakness of single case studies is that we lack a natural yardstick for comparison. In particular, since we do not know what the REACH process would have looked like, had the participatory governance approach not been adopted, it is difficult to quantify the magnitude of the impact of the new governance strategy on democracy and efficiency. Admittedly, all our conclusions regarding the level of openness, transparency and inclusiveness in the REACH process are therefore somewhat tentative. A way to reduce this problem would be to compare our results with those from other single case studies on related topics. There are, for instance, some recent studies on the Commission’s online consultations (e.g. Hüller 2010; Primova 2011) and on the convention method employed in preparing the Treaty establishing the European Constitution (Risse and Kleine 2007; Karlsson 2010) that could prove useful in this regard. Overall, the findings of these studies

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square rather well with the results presented here. On the positive side, most studies seem to find that the introduction of new participatory instruments have made the decision-making process more transparent and broadened the spectrum of perspectives considered in the process. On the negative side, the studies typically stress the fact that the new instruments for participation are not accompanied by any formal means to hold decision-makers accountable, and that participation at times is both rather limited and unequally distributed. A difficulty with comparing our results with those of other single case studies, however, is that most of these studies build on qualitative rather than quantitative assessments. An alternative, and perhaps better, approach to check the robustness of our findings would, therefore, be to extend our analysis to two or more policy areas that provide differential opportunities for effective stakeholder participation and deliberation. A comparative study of this type would make it possible to study not just actors’ perceptions of policy processes and outcomes, but also more objective indicators of the nature of such processes and outcomes. Alternatively, one could compare policy areas where the opportunities for effective stakeholder participation and deliberation are similar, but where the structure of political contestation differs. Such a study would enable one to ascertain the extent to which the efficacy of the participatory-governance model depends on the nature of the contestation in question. In line with the discussion in Chapter 3, one might hypothesise that participatory governance will work best in policy areas dominated by cross-cutting functional cleavages, and that it will do less well in policy areas in which territorial or ideological conflicts are prevalent. Finally, and for reasons that will be developed more fully in the next section, we believe it is important to study how the other channels of representation are affected when the interest-based channel is strengthened. To the extent that the three channels are communicating vessels, as some commentators would have us believe (e.g. Bartolini 2005), any potential gains made through the interest-based channel will be offset by losses in the other two. If this is accurate, then providing better opportunities for stakeholder participation and deliberation will not help to rectify the Union’s democratic deficit; rather, it will merely change the location of the said deficit.

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Consequently, the overall effect of strengthening the interest-based channel depends not just on how the interest-based channel functions, but also on how increased opportunities for stakeholder participation and deliberation affect the territorial and electoral channels. Our focus in this book has been solely on the interest-based channel; however, future research should pay more attention to how the different channels interact with one another.

Implications for future policy Our main reason for writing this book, however, was not to identify interesting avenues for future research; rather, it was to try to answer the question of whether participatory governance offers a viable method for remedying the EU’s legitimacy crisis. So then, does it? Taken together, the results presented in this book paint a rather positive picture of the governance experiment conducted in the REACH case. Overall, the REACH process proved to be reasonably open and inclusive, and most of the relevant actors had at least some opportunity to make their voice heard and to influence the outcome. Moreover, contrary to the fears expressed by critics of this approach, we find no dramatic inequality among actors in the distribution of influence or in access to information. Our findings thus run counter to Pesendorfer’s view that the new mode of governance employed in the REACH case served mainly to reinstall “key players in a veto position and did little to enhance effective participation of the public” (2006: 111). Our interpretation is instead that the opportunities for stakeholder participation and deliberation were helpful for levelling the playing field between different groups and interests, and that they therefore contributed to a better and more balanced regulation of chemicals within the EU. This does not mean, however, that we see participatory governance as a panacea for the legitimacy problems of the Union. We do not. Rather, we think that the results presented in this book call for a more nuanced and less polarised discussion on the relative pros and cons of the participatory-governance model. Increasing the opportunities for stakeholder participation and deliberation, if done carefully, can help to strengthen the link between EU institutions and citizens. In a situation where many EU citizens experience a feeling of distance

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from politics in the Union, strengthening the interest-based channel of representation may provide citizens with an alternative – and in some ways a more direct – way to have their say in EU politics. To many citizens, it may seem easier to affect EU policies by joining an interest group active at the European level than by putting pressure on MEPs or on national governments. Thus, reinforcing the interest-based channel may provide citizens with a better means for affecting EU policy – which should mean, other things being equal, that democratic representation is improved. It has often been said, moreover, that an advantage of the interest-based channel is that it allows for the fact that some people feel more intensely about certain issues than do others (e.g. Lewin 1994). Jordan Grant and William Maloney contrast the interest-group and electoral channels as follows: The first sort of democratic virtue bestowed on groups lies in their provision of a responsive and direct form of “particularised” linkage – groups are key democratic transmission belts. In this light, the breadth of support, on which successful parties rely, can be interpreted as a democratic weakness: strategically (in pursuit of vote maximization) parties cannot afford to reflect the narrow, and intensely held, concerns of individuals. In contrast, interest groups excel at capturing the intensity of interest of a fragmented public. (2007: 7) To the extent we think the intensity of citizens’ preferences should be reflected in the decisions reached, we have reason to look favourably on the participatory-governance model. Indeed, it seems the very reason for providing stakeholders with a special status in their collaboration with EU institutions is to take the intensity of preferences into account when Union policies are formulated and implemented. In our view, many critics of the Commission’s new governance strategy have downplayed the potential contribution to democratic representation of stakeholder participation and deliberation, and exaggerated the risks entailed in a closer involvement of organised civil society in EU decision-making. Admittedly, it is unlikely that the participatory-governance model will provide all interest groups with substantively equal chances of making their voice heard and of influencing political outcomes. Dismissing the model on these

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grounds, however, is to commit the Nirvana fallacy: comparing an existing reality with an unobtainable ideal. The fact that political power is always, to some extent, unequally distributed is one of the few general laws of political science. The relevant question, therefore, is not whether participatory governance provides a complete level playing field between different groups and interests, but whether the bias in favour of resource-rich actors is sufficiently great as to nullify the democratic benefits associated with stakeholder participation and deliberation. On the one hand, our results imply that participatory governance can help improve democratic representation in the EU, by increasing many actors’ effective chance of making an impact on policy. On the other hand, the results suggest that strengthening the interest-based channel may have the effect of increasing political inequality, since some interest groups have been shown to stand a somewhat better chance of influencing policy than others. Consequently, a greater reliance on participatory governance within the Union can be expected to have contradictory effects on the two elements of democratic representation. Whether the increased opportunities to affect policy will make up for the likely increase in political inequality depends on the magnitude of the two effects, as well as on the relative weight attached to providing effective chances to influence policy as compared with providing equal ones. When evaluating participatory governance, then, we cannot focus solely – as many critics of the approach tend to do – on whether political power is distributed equally among actors. On the other hand, as we see it, many advocates of the participatory-governance model – not least the Commission – underestimate the importance of mechanisms for accountability. The right to hold decision-makers to account for their actions is a central aspect of democratic representation. We are well-advised to pay it close heed. Where accountability is concerned, the experience with the participatory-governance experiment was somewhat mixed. New participatory and deliberative arrangements permeated the chemicals policy overhaul; and, as we have seen, these arrangements do indeed seem to have enhanced the transparency, inclusiveness and responsiveness of the process. These qualities are all necessary – albeit insufficient – conditions for accountability. The policy making

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process in the REACH case was unusually transparent, and the policy enacted was the subject of a broader public debate than most Union policies have been. A wide range of societal groups took part, and some individual citizens as well. To this extent the REACH process may be said to have met the requirement of social accountability: the decision-making process was reasonably transparent, inclusive and open for public scrutiny. However, the new governance arrangements include no formal mechanisms for holding policy-makers accountable. It remains the case, then, that those wielding power can only be held accountable through the traditional representative channels of the Union: that is, the Council and the Parliament. Moreover, the introduction of the new arrangements may have the effect of diffusing responsibility for policy – with stakeholders and interest groups engaging more deeply in policy making, even as European citizens lack any formal way to hold them to account. The danger of diffused responsibility is that it may tempt decision-makers to play a blame-and-shame game, wherein they try to evade responsibility for policy mistakes by blaming others. An outcome of this kind, needless to say, is unlikely to help solve the Union’s legitimacy problem. To some extent, therefore, it is an illusion to believe that involving stakeholders and civil society can contribute to better accountability within the EU. Admittedly, the involvement of stakeholders in public policy making furnishes them with opportunities to influence policy. They may help to scrutinise Union activities and to trigger Europewide debates, thus contributing over the long term to the emergence of a European public sphere. However, they cannot impose any formal sanctions on Union bodies: the only punishment they can impose is through “whistle-blowing” and “naming and shaming”. Nor are stakeholders and interest groups themselves accountable in any direct way to citizens (unless one happens to be a member of such an organisation). In the same way as in national political systems, then, the involvement of stakeholders in EU policy making may help to ensure that policy-makers are more in touch with the wishes of those who are affected by their actions. Yet this may in turn create other democratic problems. After all, who is scrutinising the scrutinisers? Accordingly, institutionalised forms of stakeholder participation and deliberation should not be seen as an alternative to the territorial

Participatory Governance: The Way Forward? 135

and electoral channels of representation within the Union. Rather, they should be seen as an important complement to these other channels. Yet we must be careful, as the Union’s formal framework for decision-making is complemented with new arenas for stakeholder participation and deliberation, to consider any potential dangers with this type of compound representation (Lord and Pollak 2010). In particular, strengthening the interest-based channel within the EU could have detrimental effects on the functioning of the territorial and electoral channels of representation. For instance, a greater reliance on participatory and deliberative arrangements could have the effect over the long run of undermining already existing aspects of representative democracy in the Union. Fewer people will be expected, perhaps, to engage in political parties and representative institutions when they have other organisations at their disposal. If citizens are engaged more and more in single-issue movements and special-interest organisations, we risk a situation in which it will be hard to find people who are willing to take responsibility for weighing different interests against one another. In the end, someone has to take responsibility for the totality of policies pursued – not just the constituent parts thereof. This is a major challenge for democracy, in the EU and elsewhere. The danger, then, is that the existing embryo of representative democracy in the Union may be put at a disadvantage when participatory and deliberative arrangements are on the rise. As long, however, as the participatory-governance model is used with care, we believe it can provide – as the case of REACH shows – an important means for helping connect the Union more closely to its citizens. Participatory governance may not be the solution to the EU’s legitimacy crisis, but a proper use of it can help reduce the breadth and depth of the crisis. In our view, the ongoing attempts to involve stakeholders and interest groups in EU decision-making offer a promising way forward. The main alternative would be to institute a more closed and secretive decision-making process unresponsive to the demands of European citizens – surely not an approach likely to enhance the legitimacy of the Union.

Data Appendix: Variables Used in this Study

Institutional/organisational affiliation. The respondents were asked the following question: “What is your current institutional/organisational affiliation: (i) European Commission, (ii) Council of the European Union, (iii) European Parliament, (iv) Other EU institution/Authority, (v) Industry Association/Private Business, (vi) Trade Union, (vii) NGO, (viii) Academic and Technical Institute, (ix) International Organisation, (x) Member-state Government/Public Authority, (xi) Applicant Country Government/Public Authority, (xii) Third Country Government/Public Authority, (xiii) Other?” Nationality. The respondents were asked the following question: “What is your nationality?” The respondents could choose among multiple alternatives. Involvement. The respondents were asked the following question: “How would you consider your overall involvement in the REACH process? Please mark your opinion on a scale ranging from 1 = none at all, to 7 = intensively involved.” Interest. The respondents were asked the following question: “Which of the following interests would you primarily consider yourself to be a representative of: (i) Environmental interests, (ii) Consumer interests, (iii) Animalwelfare interests, (iv) Health interests, (v) Workers interests, (vi) Industry/ Business interests, (vii) Private interests, (viii) General interests, (ix) Other interests.” Policy position. The respondents were asked the following question: “What is your position on the following propositions regarding REACH? Please mark your position on a scale ranging from 1 = totally disagree, to 7 = totally agree?” • • • • •

“Adoption of the OSOR proposal (One Substance, One Registration) will improve the REACH system.” “Test requirements for low-volume chemicals (1–10 tonnes produced or imported per year) should be lighter than for higher volumes.” “The ‘burden of proof’ should be on industry instead of on public authorities for the testing and risk assessment of chemicals.” “The European Chemicals Agency should have full responsibility for the management of the REACH system.” “When a safer chemical or technology is available at a reasonable cost, chemical producers and users should be required to adopt safer alternatives.” 136

Data Appendix 137

• •

“The precautionary principle should be a guiding principle of REACH, that is, decision-making must be based on precautions in order to prevent damage to human health and the environment.” “Limiting animal testing should be one of the guiding principles of REACH.”

The policy position of a respondent is then calculated as the average of a respondent’s distance from the issue median on each of these seven items. Or mathematically:   7  1 PPi =  (xij − xmj )2 , 7 j=1 where PPi is the policy position of the ith respondent and xij is the placement of this respondent on the jth issue and xmj is the sample median on this issue. Participation. The respondents were asked the following question: “How would you characterise the decision-making process on REACH in relation to the following proposition? Please mark your opinion on a scale ranging from 1 = totally disagree, to 7 = totally agree: The decision-making process has been open for everyone to participate.” As an alternative measure of access to decision-makers, the respondents were asked the following question: “Which of the following institutions/organisations have you had most contacts with during the REACH process? Please mark your opinion on a scale ranging from 1 = none at all, to 7 = a great deal: (i) European Commission, (ii) Council of the European Union, (iii) European Parliament.” Information. The respondents were asked the following question: “How would you characterise the decision-making process on REACH in relation to the following proposition? Please mark your opinion on a scale ranging from 1 = totally disagree, to 7 = totally agree: All relevant viewpoints on REACH have been represented.” As alternative measures of access to information, the respondents were asked to what extent they agreed with the following statements (1 = totally disagree, to 7 = totally agree): (i) “The decision-making process has allowed interested parties to scrutinise the activities of the Commission”, (ii) “The decision-making process has allowed interested parties to scrutinise the activities of the Council”, (iii) “The decision-making process has allowed interested parties to scrutinise the activities of the European Parliament”. Influence. The respondents were asked the following question: “According to your opinion, how much influence have the following institutions/ organisations had on REACH so far? Please mark your opinion on a scale ranging from 1 = none at all, to 7 = a great deal: (i) European Commission, (ii) Council of the European Union, (iii) European Parliament, (iv) Other EU institution/Authority, (v) Industry Association/Private Business, (vi) Trade Union, (vii) NGO, (viii) Academic and Technical Institute, (ix) International Organisation, (x) Member-state Government/Public

138 Data Appendix

Authority, (xi) Applicant Country Government/Public Authority, (xii) Third Country Government/Public Authority, (xiii) Other.” As an alternative measure of influence, the respondents were asked the following question: “Which of the following institutions/organisations have you had most contacts with during the REACH process? Please mark your opinion on a scale ranging from 1 = none at all, to 7 = a great deal: (i) European Commission, (ii) Council of the European Union, (iii) European Parliament, (iv) Other EU institution/Authority, (v) Industry Association/Private Business, (vi) Trade Union, (vii) NGO, (viii) Academic and Technical Institute, (ix) International Organisation, (x) Member-state Government/Public Authority, (xi) Applicant Country Government/Public Authority, (xii) Third Country Government/Public Authority, (xiii) Other.” Input legitimacy. This variable represents an additive index (scaled from 1–7) based on the answers to 5 survey items. The respondents were asked to state to what extent they agreed with each of the following five statements (1 = totally disagree, to 7 = totally agree). • • • • •

“The decision-making process has been open for everyone to participate.” “The decision-making process has allowed interested parties to scrutinise the activities of the Commission.” “The decision-making process has allowed interested parties to scrutinise the activities of the Council.” “The decision-making process has allowed interested parties to scrutinise the activities of the European Parliament.” “All relevant viewpoints on REACH have been represented.”

Output legitimacy. The respondents were asked to what extent they agreed with the following statement (1 = totally disagree, to 7 = totally agree): “The decision-making process [on REACH] has been able to promote improved protection of the environment and health while also maintaining the competitiveness of European industry.” Consensus. The respondents were asked to what extent they agreed with the following statement (1 = totally disagree, to 7 = totally agree): “The decisionmaking process has been able to promote agreement between industry and other interests in society.” Organisational power. This variable measures the influence of an organisation by only using the survey responses provided by the respondents who represent this organisation. The measure is based on the same question as the influence variable above, that is, how much influence the respondents’ institution or organisation has had, measured on a scale from 1 (none at all) to 7 (a great deal). Extra-disappointed losers. In order to make this classification, we first calculated the disappointment of a respondent by subtracting their score on the output legitimacy variable from their score on the variable measuring the importance they attach to an efficient outcome for the legitimacy of REACH (i.e. the score on the last question under the heading Importance of input

Data Appendix 139

and output). A respondent is then classified as an extra-disappointed loser if his disappointment score, so calculated, is above the 66th percentile in the distribution of disappointment scores. Turnover share. Overall turnover in the chemical industry (domestic + export sales) as a percentage of GDP. Sources: European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC, 2005) and IMF, World Economic Outlook Database, September 2006.

Notes 1

Participatory Governance: Promises and Pitfalls

1. In the original draft of the Constitutional Treaty, each of the two articles was presented under its own sub-heading: “representative democracy” and “participatory democracy”, respectively. The sub-headings were removed by the subsequent Intergovernmental Conference; however, the substantive content of each of the articles remained intact. 2. The dashed arrows pointing in the opposite direction illustrate the fact that democracy always presupposes an element of two-way communication. 3. For the sake of completeness, we should also mention that there are those who instead argue for strengthening the direct connection between EU citizens and EU institutions. This can be done by introducing various direct democratic elements at the European level (e.g. Abromeit 1998; Grande 2000), or by establishing procedures for directly deliberative democracy within the EU (e.g. Cohen and Sabel 1997).

2 Assessing Participatory Governance – A Survey Approach 1. For further information on the survey, see Lindgren and Persson (2008, 2010).

3

The Structure of Political Contestation

1. Parts of this chapter have previously appeared in an article published in European Union Politics (Lindgren and Persson 2008). 2. 95 per cent-confidence intervals are used for the plots. 3. Private interests were also among the alternatives; however, since only two respondents chose this category, we decided to exclude it from Figure 3.4. 4. This is because, as previously discussed, we have normalised the factor scores to vary between 0 and 1. 5. It is important to note, however, that these unit-specific effects do not capture the importance of sex or age differences between the two respondents of a dyad.

4 Opportunities for Participation and Access to Information: Adequate and Equal? 1. Note that the number of distinct pairs one can construct in a group of N people is N(N–1)/2; therefore, we can construct 78 (13×12/2) pairs from our 13 types of organisations. 140

Notes

141

2. When all instances of self-assessment are excluded from the calculation, the average contact score falls only slightly for the Commission (to 4.4) and for the EP (to 3.8); but not for the Council (which stays steady at 3.4). This may indicate, as suspected, that representatives of the Commission and the EP seek to portray their own institution as open to contacts from outside; alternatively, it may mean they actually do have many contacts with persons in their own institution. The number of respondents is reduced in this new measure to 449 (Commission), 470 (Council) and 426 (EP). 3. Note that the number of distinct pairs one can construct in a group of N people is N(N–1)/2; therefore, we can construct 78 (13×12/2) pairs from our 13 types of organisations. 4. The average score falls slightly for the Commission and for the EP (to 4.4 and 3.8, respectively), while it stays unchanged for the Council (3.4). The number of respondents is reduced in this new measure to 447 (Commission), 467 (Council) and 424 (EP). 5. The average score for the EP and for the Commission drops only slightly (to 4.5 and 4.2, respectively); while for the Council it remains unchanged (at 3.8). The number of respondents is reduced in this new measure to 380 (Commission), 392 (Council) and 365 (EP). 6. If we exclude instances of self-assessment, the average score drops slightly for the EP (4.5) and for the Commission (4.2); it remains unchanged for the Council (3.8). The number of respondents is reduced in this new measure to 378 (Commission), 390 (Council) and 364 (EP).

5

Chances to Influence Policy: Equal and Effective?

1. Following Dahl (1957), we use the terms “power” and “influence” interchangeably here. 2. See Dür (2008) for a slightly different and more extensive discussion on different ways of measuring influence. 3. In an early contribution on this topic, Walter Korpi defined power resources as all “attributes (capacities or means) of actors (individuals or collectives) which enable them to reward or to punish other actors” (1985: 33). 4. Note that the number of distinct pairs one can construct in a group of N people is N(N−1)/2; therefore, we can construct 78 (13×12/2) pairs from our 13 types of organisations. 5. It bears noting that the magnitude of this difference remains the same if we use actors’ self-assessment in Table 5.1 as the basis for comparison. 6. To ease interpretation, we have normalised the original seven-point scale for the question of how much contact respondents have had with various types of organisations: now it ranges from 0 (none at all) to 1 (a great deal). See the Data Appendix for further details on this measure. 7. More formally, and using the fact that the influence measure ranges from n  (I ∗ − Ii )/(n − 1), where I ∗ is the highest 0 to 1, the index is calculated as i=1

observed influence score and n is the number of actors. The index value is thus akin to a standard deviation around the observed maximum.

142 Notes

6

Input and Output Legitimacy: Synergy or Trade-off?

1. Parts of this chapter have previously appeared in an article published in Journal of European Public Policy (Lindgren and Persson 2010). 2. It should be pointed out, however, that results substantially identical to those presented here can be obtained if, instead of using an additive index, one uses the factor scores from a factor analysis, or replaces the composite measure with any of the five individual issue items. 3. Unfortunately, we did not include any questions on the importance of all relevant viewpoints being represented in the process. 4. This is the AI-2 measure in Table 5.1, in Chapter 5.

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Index Note: Bold locators refer to tables and figures cited in the text academic and technical institutes, see institutes, academic and technical access criteria for evaluation, 19, 125 measure of, 73–8, 137 access goods, 87 accountability, 15, 108, 133–4 conditions for, 133 democratic, 13 mechanisms for, 133 of power-holders, 108 social, 109, 122, 134 weak form of, 109 additive index, 113, 115, 138, 142 advocacy coalition, 57, 89 agenda-setting, 87 alliance, of green policy advocates, 102 Amnesty International, 88 Amsterdam Treaty, 73 animal testing, limiting of, 38, 50, 51, 137 applicant countries, 30, 36, 75 see also candidate countries; governments arenas consultative and cooperative, 2, 89 institutionalised, 108 for participation and deliberation, 124, 135 Aspinwall, Mark, 70 associations citizens, 6 civil-society/societal, 7, 9, 35 consumer, 29 equality-enhancing, 85

industry/business, 30, 35, 37, 54, 55, 76, 79, 80, 96, 97, 98, 99, 102, 104, 119, 126, 136–8 inequality-reinforcing, 85 producer, 26 secondary, 8 transnational interest, 24 associative democracy, see democracy, model or theory of, 8, 9, 14, 16, 18, 19, 23, 39, 110–11 Austria, 29, 35, 36, 53, 54 authorisation, of power-holders, 108 authorities EU, 37 government, 28 public, 34–5, 37, 38, 50, 136 bargaining, 85, 111 Bartolini, Stefano, 40 Beckstrand, Michael Joseph, 87 Belgium, 35, 36, 54 Beyers, Jan, 70 Bièvre, Dirk De, 86, 102 Blair, Tony, 30 Bouwen, Pieter, 86–8 Brussels, 9, 69, 70, 73 Bulgaria, 36, 37 businesses, private, 30, 35, 37, 54, 68, 76, 79, 80, 96, 98 see also interests; associations candidate countries, 35, 54 see also applicant countries; governments causal mechanisms, 110, 117–8, 121 CEFIC (European Chemical Industry Council), 30, 139 chancellor, 30

154

Index

checks and balances, 68 chemicals industry, 29, 30–1, 62 of low-volume, 38, 50, 51, 52–3, 136 old and new, 28 policy overhaul/reform, 2, 21–4, 27–30, 33, 38, 67, 70, 82–3, 94, 102, 124, 133 regulation of, 1, 28, 51–4, 58, 62, 64, 71–2, 89, 117, 121, 131 regulatory regime or framework for, 29, 31, 73 sector, 29, 62–3 Chirac, Jacques, 30 civil society associations/organisations, 5, 7–9, 10, 13, 25, 35, 68, 85, 87–87 democratic virtue of, 7 involvement of or participation by, 3–9, 22, 25, 68, 85, 132, 134 organised, 7–8, 10, 14, 24–6, 88, 132 pluralistic understanding of, 8 representation/representatives, 5–6, 7–8, 10, 109 representativeness of, 25–6 cleavages functional, 49, 53, 55–6, 58, 62–5, 126, 130 non-territorial, 16 organisational/institutional, 47 political, 15–16, 19, 41–3, 46, 61–5, 125–6 socio-economic, 41 territorial/cultural, 45, 50, 53, 58–9, 62, 64, 126 which structure the conflict over chemicals policy, 21, 126 coalition, 30, 32, 102 advocacy, 57, 89 business, 2, 30, 32, 71 cross-class, 57 green/environmental, 29, 30 pro-REACH, 32, 102

155

co-decision procedure, 31, 73 Coen, David, 73 Cohen, Joshua, 8–9 collective action, 25, 68, 70, 86, 88 commissioners college of, 31 enterprise, 30–1 environment, 29, 31 committees advisory, 6 parliamentary, 29, 31, 71–2 Competitiveness Council, 31 compound representation, 135 conciliation procedure, 73 confederalism, 41 confidence-interval plots, 53, 54–6, 57, 59, 98, 101 conflict dimensions, see cleavages consensus, variable, 116, 118, 138 constitutional convention, 33, 46 constitutional treaty, 140 consultations institutionalised, 6 internet/online, 1, 6, 30, 129 public, 15 technical, 89 consumers, see under associations; interests contestation, political, 16, 40–5, 48–50, 53, 57, 63, 130, 140 coordination, open method of, 33 corporatism, 25, 123–4 inclusive, 9, 20, 123 neo-, 20 Council of Ministers/Council of the European Union conflict patterns within, 42 final adoption of the REACH-proposal, 31, 89 first reading of the REACH-proposal, 29, 31, 50

156 Index

Council of Ministers/Council of the European Union – continued frequency of contacts with, 77–8, 137–8, 141 influence of, 99, 104, 127 powers of, 83, 88, 99, 127 representation via, 13, 40, 134 representatives of, 34–5, 75, 97, 136 scrutinise the activities of, 75, 80–3, 113, 137–8 transparency and openness of, 73, 81, 115 Croatia, 36, 37 Cronbach’s alpha, 113 Cyprus, 36 Czech Republic, 36 Dahl, Robert, 10–12, 14, 16, 18, 66, 82, 90–1, 141 deliberation inclusive, 109, 113 public, 8, 108, 110 democracy, 3, 4, 8, 11, 12, 14, 22, 25, 34, 35, 40, 48, 66, 72, 74, 75, 106, 109, 125, 129, 135, 140 associative, 8–9, 14, 16, 18, 19, 23, 39, 110, 111 competitive, 12, 16 definition of, 10–12 deliberative, 7, 11, 118, 140 electoral, 11 European/EU, 24, 33, 38, 90 liberal, 9 models of, 11 participatory, 6, 11, 48, 140 pluralist, 66, 68 representative, 6, 95, 100, 135, 140 transnational, 8 democratic deficit, 4, 10, 12, 13, 16, 18, 25, 41, 42, 48, 88, 130 Denmark, 29, 36, 54 De Schutter, Olivier, 85 DG Enterprise, 29, 30 DG Environment, 29, 30

dyadic analysis/approach, 57–8, 60 Dür, Andreas, 86, 92, 94, 102, 141 efficiency, 14, 18, 19, 33, 38, 89, 108, 112, 125, 129 bargaining, 111 decision-making, 2, 19, 112, 125 of government, 8 losses, 111 output/outcome, 113, 114, 115, 120 of policy-making, 9, 110, 111 efficiency-enhancing intermediaries, 19, 125 eigenvalue, 51 Eising, Rainer, 24 elitist politics, 85, 86, 90, 103, 104, 105 enlightened understanding, 11, 14, 17, 66, 67, 74, 79, 80 enlightment scores, 80, 81 enterprise, see DG Enterprise; commissioners environment, see DG Environment; commissioners Environment Committee, see committees Esaiasson, Peter, 120 Estonia, 36 European Chemicals Agency, 32, 38, 50, 51, 136 European Commission conflict patterns within, 42 consultations initiated by, 15, 21, 30 frequency of contacts with, 77, 78, 83 governance strategy of, 1, 32, 34, 71, 82, 83, 106, 114, 123, 124, 125, 128, 133 influence of, 99, 104, 127 openness and transparency of, 73, 76, 80–2 power of, 88, 99, 105, 127

Index

proposal for chemicals policy, 2, 28, 30, 31, 71 scrutinise the activities of, 75, 113 European Community (EC), 25 European Council, 13, 40, 55 European Parliament (EP) committees of, 71–2 conflict patterns within, 42 election of, 31 electoral channel through, 40 final adoption of the REACH-proposal, 31, 89 first reading of the REACH-proposal, 31, 50 frequency of contacts with, 77–8, 141, 99 influence of, 99, 104, 127 legislative procedure within, 71 powers of, 48, 73, 88, 99, 127 scrutinise the activities of, 75, 80–1, 83 transparency and openness of, 73, 76, 81, 115 European Union (EU) democracy, 3, 4, 10, 12, 14, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 33, 38, 68–9, 75, 82, 90, 125, 135 frequency of contacts with, 83 input and/or output legitimacy of, 107–8, 110, 121, 127 institutions, 6, 15, 32, 34, 38, 40, 54, 69, 72–5, 77, 87, 99, 126, 132 legitimacy crisis of, 4, 16, 19, 21, 28, 41, 63, 107, 114, 121, 131, 135 openness and transparency of, 6, 72, 80–1, 83, 134 participatory governance in, 2, 20, 23, 24, 25, 66, 84, 99, 102, 104–5, 107–9, 122–5, 133 policy space of, 42, 43, 45, 48 political cleavages and/or contestation within, 15, 16, 19, 41–3, 45, 47–50, 53–5, 62–5, 125–6

157

problem-solving capacity of, 3, 4, 5, 124 regulation of chemicals, 1, 21, 28, 30, 33, 53, 70, 89, 131 representation within, 4, 7, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16, 19, 23, 25, 26, 27, 40, 41, 48, 62–3, 65, 67–8, 70, 96, 105–6, 109–10, 121, 125, 127, 129, 132–3, 134–5 exploratory factor analysis, 50–1 extra-disappointed losers, 120, 138–9 factor-loadings, 51, 52 Fearon, James, 110, 118 Finland, 36, 54 fixed-effect model, 58 France, 30, 36, 53, 54 functional cleavages, see cleavages functional interests, see interests Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), 33 Germany, 30, 36, 53, 54 governance arrangements, 7, 25, 83, 123, 134 European/EU, 5, 25, 33, 69, 82, 106 experiment, 100, 131, 133 global, 8 good, 15 inclusive and/or responsive, 2, 63 model or approach of, 3, 7, 8–10, 12–20, 23, 65, 67, 74, 84–5, 87, 99, 103–6, 114, 122–5, 129–33, 135 modes of, 2, 32, 65, 71, 89, 99, 131 neo-corporatist, 20 participatory, 1–5, 9, 16, 17, 19–20, 22–8, 33–4, 41, 49, 64–7, 72, 75, 82, 83, 89–90, 96, 104–5, 108–9, 121, 123–5, 127, 130–1, 133, 135, 140 reforms, 22, 106, 109, 128

158 Index

governance – continued strategy, 22, 33–4, 85, 110, 129, 132 supranational, 68 system or regime of, 22, 69 governments applicant-country, 37, 55, 76, 79, 96, 98, 136, 138 member-state, 12, 34, 37, 55, 76, 79, 96, 97, 98, 126, 136, 137, 138 representatives of, 60, 61 third-country, 37, 54, 55, 75, 76, 79, 96, 98, 136, 138 Great Britain, 30 see also UK (United Kingdom) Greece, 35, 36, 53, 54 Greenpeace, 88 Greenwood, Justin, 26, 70, 72 Greven, Michael, 7 Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 62, 139 Grossman, Emiliano, 69 Habermas, Jürgen, 7–8 hazardous chemicals or substances, 28, 32 health interests, see interests Helsinki, 32 Heyvaert, Veerle, 70–1 Hix, Simon, 12, 42–3, 49 Höreth, Marcus, 111 Hungary, 36 Hurd, Ian, 112 Immergut, Ellen, 18, 111 implementation, of policies, 2, 5, 6, 14, 25, 47, 68, 106 inclusion, criteria of, 11, 103 industrial interests, see interests industry associations, see associations influence criteria for evaluation, 19, 125 measure of, 90–103, 137–8, 141

information, criteria of, 19, 21, 67, 109, 125 input legitimacy, 5, 6, 9, 13, 18, 19, 21, 106–13, 115–22, 127–8, 137–8, 142 institutes, academic and technical, 37, 54, 55, 76, 79, 96, 98, 119–20, 136–8 institutions, see European Union (EU) interests animal/animal-rights/animalwelfare, 37, 56, 77, 78, 81, 100–1, 136 collective, 13, 43 concentrated, 70, 78, 82–3, 86–7, 98, 102, 104, 126 consumer, 37, 56, 78, 80, 81, 86, 100, 101, 102, 136 diffuse, 68–70, 76–83, 86, 98 environmental, 37, 56–7, 69–71, 78, 80–2, 86, 89, 95, 100, 101, 102, 104, 126, 136 functional, 56, 58, 129 general, 37, 56, 77, 78, 80, 81, 100–1, 102, 136 health, 37, 56, 78, 80, 81, 100–1, 102, 136 industrial/business/economic, 26, 31, 46, 56–7, 68–9, 77, 78, 80, 81, 86, 89, 95, 100–2, 104, 118, 126, 136, 138 national/member-state, 46–7, 62–3 organised, 9, 14, 16–19, 25, 63, 67–8, 80, 83 private, 26, 37, 38, 78, 81, 100–1, 136, 140 producer, 46, 62, 69 public, 26, 33, 38–9 societal, 9, 39, 69, 88, 96 territorial, 41 worker, 37, 56, 77, 78, 80, 81, 86, 100–1, 136

Index

interest-based channel, of representation, 13, 15–8, 20, 41, 48–9, 62–3, 65, 67, 75, 85, 87–8, 104–6, 109–10, 124–5, 127, 129, 130–3, 135 interest groups as democracy-enhancing intermediaries, 8, 19, 35, 84, 109, 125 representation of, 3, 15, 61, 62, 64, 70, 84, 109–10 system, 17, 65–7, 69, 84–7, 104, 126 see also interests intergovernmental conference, 140 intergovernmentalism, 24–5 internet consultation, see consultations Ireland, 36, 53, 54 Italy, 30, 36, 53, 54 Jordan, Grant, 69, 132 Josling, Timothy, 14 Kaiser criterion, 51 Kohler-Koch, Beate, 7, 9, 10, 25, 85 Korpi, Walter, 141 Latvia, 36 legitimacy crisis, see European Union (EU) democratic, 2, 6, 10, 21, 25 input, see input legitimacy output, see output legitimacy problems, 9, 19, 49, 107, 111, 121, 131, 134 Likkanen, Erkki, 31 Lipset, Seymour Martin, 43, 44, 46 Lisbon Treaty, 6, 73 Lithuania, 36 lobbying, 2, 26, 30, 32, 71, 73, 86 Lord, Cristopher, 85, 110 Luxembourg, 36, 54

159

Maastricht Treaty, 28, 73, 107 Macedonia, former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, 36, 37 Magnette, Paul, 6 Mahoney, Christine, 87 Mair, Peter, 48 Majone, Giandomenico, 47–8, 53–4 Maloney, William, 132 Malta, 36 member-state governments, see governments MEPs (Members of European Parliament), 29, 30–2, 35, 132 methodological triangulation, 94 Meyer, Christoph, 108 Moravcsik, Andrew, 13, 46–8, 53, 62 multivariate analysis, 57, 59, 61 Nanz, Patrizia, 8, 13–14, 109–10, 112 neofunctionalism, 24–5 neo-liberal ideas, 2, 32, 71 Netherlands, 29, 35, 36, 54 NGOs (Non Governmental Organisations), 15, 26, 29–31, 35, 37, 54, 55, 71, 76, 79–80, 88, 96, 97–9, 102, 104, 119, 126, 128–9, 136–8 Nirvana fallacy, 133 norms of egalitarian pluralism, 85 Öberg, PerOla, 95 oligopoly, 124 Olson, Mancur, 69 organised civil society, 7, 10, 14, 24–6, 88, 132 see also civil society OSOR (One Substance, One Registration) proposal, 32, 35, 50, 51, 136 output legitimacy, 5–6, 9, 14, 18–19, 21, 106–122, 127, 138–9, 142 pan-European parties, 13 parliament, see European Parliament (EP) parliamentarisation, 4, 21

160 Index

parliamentary committees, see committees participation, effective, 2, 9–11, 14, 16–17, 23, 27, 66–7, 71, 74–5, 82, 109–10, 131 participatory-governance approach, 2, 8–10, 12–20, 23, 67, 84–5, 103–4, 122, 125 arrangements/instruments, 7, 25, 83, 89 model, 7, 10, 65, 74, 87, 99, 103, 105–6, 114, 123, 125, 130–3, 135 strategy, 1, 85 parties, political, 9, 12, 35, 68, 135 Pesendorfer, Dieter, 71, 89, 90, 94–5 pluralism, 20, 25, 123–4 egalitarian, 85–6, 89, 90, 103, 105 elite, 20 pluralist debate, 84, 123 Poland, 35, 36 policy, see chemicals, policy overhaul/reform policy-making access to, 17–18, 69, 72, 125 efficiency, 9, 110–11 EU, 19, 41–2, 69, 73, 82 inclusive, 106 international, 8 new forms of, 1, 6, 9, 106, 134 participatory, 4, 27, 84, 102, 122, 125 process on REACH, 1, 22, 33, 133–4 representation in, 8, 19, 40, 125 societal involvement in, 4–7, 9, 16–17, 25, 67, 87, 102, 104, 106, 110, 124, 126, 128, 134 politicisation, 41 Pollack, Mark, 3, 69, 124 Pollak, Johannes, 85, 110 Portugal, 35, 36, 53, 54

power, 44, 47, 70, 108–9, 122, 124, 134 balance of, 73 concentration or distribution of, 21, 38, 103 concept of, 90, 141 explanatory, 57, 118 organisational, 116, 118–9, 138 political, 44, 133 transfer/reallocation of, 65, 87–8 power-resources approach, 93–5, 99 precautionary principle, 28, 29, 32, 38, 50, 51, 52, 117, 137 private interests, see interests problem-solving capacity, of the EU, 3–5, 8, 114, 122, 128 procedural-fairness theory, 120 process-tracing approach, 92–4 Prodi, Romano, 30 producer interests, see interests public authorities, see authorities public consultations, see consultations public interests, see interests public sphere, European, 4, 7–8, 134 questionnaire, 74 ratification, of the Lisbon Treaty, 6 REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) attitudes towards, 51, 52–3, 54, 55, 56, 57–9, 61–2, 64, 75, 80–1, 114–15, 125–6, 136–8 process, 2, 3, 4, 20, 23, 27, 31, 33–4, 38–9, 42–3, 50, 57, 65, 70–2, 74–80, 81, 82–3, 85, 89–91, 97–9, 102–5, 107, 111–15, 118–19, 122, 126–9, 131, 134–8 proposal, 1, 2, 31–5, 50, 52, 95, 100–2, 113–14, 117 system for regulation of chemicals, 1, 22, 28, 30–1, 33, 52, 89, 94–5, 136

Index

reforms, governance, see governance regime, 2, 27, 112 consultative, 102 participatory-governance, 22, 105 regulatory, 2, 73 regression bivariate, 59, 115 coefficients, 58, 61 equation, 58 multiple, 58 regulation, of chemicals, see chemicals reliability coefficient, 113 representation of civil society, 7, 25 compound, 135 concept of, 8, 40 criteria for evaluation, 19, 125 democratic, 10, 12, 15, 48, 63, 65, 73, 85, 96, 100, 105, 123–4, 126–7, 129, 132–3 electoral, 15, 41, 68, 135 interest-based, 15–17, 19, 20–1, 41, 47–8, 67, 70–1, 73–5, 84, 95, 104, 106, 109–10, 113, 121, 124–5, 127, 130, 132 political, 7–8, 10, 15, 23, 40, 63, 96 of relevant viewpoints on REACH, 79, 81 territorial, 12, 15–16, 40, 49, 62–3, 134–5 representational oligopoly, 124 responsiveness, 109, 128, 133 in the exercise of power, 108, 122 political, 40 Richardson, Jeremy, 73 Riker, William, 90 risk assessment, 28, 136 Rogers, Joel, 8–9 Rokkan, Stein, 43–4, 46 Romania, 36, 37 Saurugger, Sabine, 9, 26 Schattschneider, Elmer E., 17

161

Schmitter, Philippe, 5, 26 Schröder, Gerhard, 30 Selin, Henrik, 28, 95, 102 Slovakia, 36 Slovenia, 36 Smith, Mitchell, 32, 71 societal interests, see interests Spain, 35, 36, 54 spatial voting models, 117 special-interests politics, 87, 103–4 stakeholders, 4–5, 22–5, 27–30, 34, 38–9, 67–8, 78, 107–8, 114, 119–20, 122, 124, 127, 132, 134–5 Stasavage, David, 111 Steffek, Jens, 8, 13, 14, 109, 110, 112 substitution principle, 32, 38, 50, 51, 52, 117 supranational institutions/ organisations, 24, 47, 54 survey, 3, 20, 21–3, 34–5, 36, 37, 39, 50, 68, 74–5, 90, 95, 97, 104, 107, 111–13, 127, 138, 140 sustainable development, 29 Svensson, Torsten, 95 Sweden, 29, 35, 36, 54 synergetic relationship, between input and output legitimacy, 18–19, 106–7, 111, 127, 142 territorial cleavages, see cleavages territorial interests, see interests test requirements, 32, 38, 50–1, 136 theories of associative democracy, 8, 126 of liberal democracy, 9 of political contestation/cleavages, 42–3, 45, 54, 57, 62 of procedural fairness, 120 third-country governments, see governments trade unions, 37, 76, 79, 80, 96, 98, 119 transmission belts, 13–14, 132 transnational democracy, see democracy

162 Index

Treib, Oliver, 46 Turkey, 36, 37 Tyler, Tom, 121 UK (United Kingdom), 30, 53, 54 see also Great Britain Verweij, Marco, 14 veto position, 2, 71, 131 voting equality, 11, 18, 84, 88, 104 Wallström, Margot, 31 Walzer, Michael, 17

Warleigh, Alex, 15, 128 White Paper on European Governance, 1, 3, 5–6, 15, 27, 88, 106, 109–10, 128 on Strategy for a future chemicals policy, 29 worker interests, see interests zero-sum relationship, between channels of representation, 15, 40, 111