IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/eeupol/v25y2024i1p130-150.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does policy context matter for citizen engagement in policymaking? Evidence from the European Commission's public consultation regime

Author

Listed:
  • Idunn Nørbech

Abstract

The European Commission has shown efforts to strengthen citizens’ participation in its policy formulation processes through public consultation opportunities. However, we currently lack a systematic analysis of the factors that drive citizens’ participation in the formulation stages of supranational policymaking. This study provides important insights into this research gap and considers whether and how policy context matters for the levels of citizen engagement in the European Commission's open consultation opportunities based on the associated costs and benefits of participation. The analysis shows an increase in citizen activity for public consultation opportunities associated with initiatives in the pre-formulation stage of policymaking and for public consultation opportunities associated with less complex consultation documents.

Suggested Citation

  • Idunn Nørbech, 2024. "Does policy context matter for citizen engagement in policymaking? Evidence from the European Commission's public consultation regime," European Union Politics, , vol. 25(1), pages 130-150, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:25:y:2024:i:1:p:130-150
    DOI: 10.1177/14651165231208995
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14651165231208995
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/14651165231208995?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Coglianese, Cary, 2006. "Citizen Participation in Rulemaking: Past, Present, and Future," Working Paper Series rwp06-027, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    2. Adam W. Chalmers, 2020. "Unity and conflict: Explaining financial industry lobbying success in European Union public consultations," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 14(3), pages 391-408, July.
    3. Christine Quittkat, 2011. "The European Commission's Online Consultations: A Success Story?," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(3), pages 653-674, May.
    4. Maria Paola Ferretti & Matteo Lener, 2008. "Lay Public or Experts? e‐Participation in Authorization for GMO Products in the European Union," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 25(6), pages 507-525, December.
    5. Rauh, Christian, 2022. "Clear messages to the European public? The language of European Commission press releases 1985–2020," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue Latest Ar, pages 1-19.
    6. Maiken Røed & Vibeke Wøien Hansen, 2018. "Explaining Participation Bias in the European Commission's Online Consultations: The Struggle for Policy Gain without too Much Pain," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(6), pages 1446-1461, September.
    7. Messer, Anne & Berkhout, Joost & Lowery, David, 2011. "The Density of the EU Interest System: A Test of the ESA Model," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 41(1), pages 161-190, January.
    8. Frederik Stevens & Iskander De Bruycker, 2020. "Influence, affluence and media salience: Economic resources and lobbying influence in the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 21(4), pages 728-750, December.
    9. Adriana Bunea, 2014. "Explaining Interest Groups' Articulation of Policy Preferences in the European Commission's Open Consultations: An Analysis of the Environmental Policy Area," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(6), pages 1224-1241, November.
    10. Gerber, Alan S. & Green, Donald P. & Larimer, Christopher W., 2008. "Social Pressure and Voter Turnout: Evidence from a Large-Scale Field Experiment," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 102(1), pages 33-48, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Adriana Bunea, 2015. "Sharing ties and preferences: Stakeholders’ position alignments in the European Commission’s open consultations," European Union Politics, , vol. 16(2), pages 281-299, June.
    2. Matti Van Hecke & Peter Bursens & Jan Beyers, 2016. "You'll Never Lobby Alone. Explaining the Participation of Sub-national Authorities in the European Commission's Open Consultations," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(6), pages 1433-1448, November.
    3. Bert Fraussen & Adrià Albareda & Caelesta Braun, 2020. "Conceptualizing consultation approaches: identifying combinations of consultation tools and analyzing their implications for stakeholder diversity," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 53(3), pages 473-493, September.
    4. Cantoni, Enrico & Gazzè, Ludovica & Schafer, Jerome, 2021. "Turnout in concurrent elections: Evidence from two quasi-experiments in Italy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    5. Francisco Jiménez Alcarria & Jorge Tuñón Navarro, 2024. "Stakeholders and impact (engagement) in EU digital communication strategies during the COVID-19 vaccination campaign," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-11, December.
    6. León, Gianmarco, 2017. "Turnout, political preferences and information: Experimental evidence from Peru," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 56-71.
    7. Mitchell Hoffman & Gianmarco Leon, 2011. "Social Networks and Voting," Working Papers 11-08, NET Institute, revised Nov 2011.
    8. Alan Gerber & Mitchell Hoffman & John Morgan & Collin Raymond, 2020. "One in a Million: Field Experiments on Perceived Closeness of the Election and Voter Turnout," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 287-325, July.
    9. Alberto Chong & Gianmarco León‐Ciliotta & Vivian Roza & Martín Valdivia & Gabriela Vega, 2019. "Urbanization Patterns, Information Diffusion, and Female Voting in Rural Paraguay," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 63(2), pages 323-341, April.
    10. Bamieh, Omar & Cintolesi, Andrea, 2021. "Intergenerational transmission in regulated professions and the role of familism," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 857-879.
    11. Anya Savikhin & Roman Sheremeta, 2010. "Visibility of Contributions and Cost of Information: An Experiment on Public Goods," Working Papers 10-22, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    12. Yoichi Hizen & Kengo Kurosaka, 2021. "Monetary Costs Versus Opportunity Costs in a Voting Experiment," Working Papers SDES-2021-1, Kochi University of Technology, School of Economics and Management, revised Feb 2021.
    13. Patricia Funk, 2012. "How accurate are surveyed preferences for public policies? Evidence from a unique institutional setup," Economics Working Papers 1334, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Nov 2013.
    14. Donald P. Green & Shang E. Ha & John G. Bullock, 2010. "Enough Already about “Black Box†Experiments: Studying Mediation Is More Difficult than Most Scholars Suppose," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 628(1), pages 200-208, March.
    15. Fosco, Constanza & Laruelle, Annick & Sánchez, Angel, 2009. "Turnout Intention and Social Networks," IKERLANAK info:eu-repo/grantAgreeme, Universidad del País Vasco - Departamento de Fundamentos del Análisis Económico I.
    16. Hoffman, Mitchell & León, Gianmarco & Lombardi, María, 2017. "Compulsory voting, turnout, and government spending: Evidence from Austria," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 103-115.
    17. Hillman, Arye L. & Metsuyanim, Kfir & Potrafke, Niklas, 2015. "Democracy with group identity," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PB), pages 274-287.
    18. Valentina A. Bali & Lindon J. Robison & Richard Winder, 2020. "What Motivates People to Vote? The Role of Selfishness, Duty, and Social Motives When Voting," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(4), pages 21582440209, October.
    19. Roberta Rocca & Katharina Lawall & Manos Tsakiris & Laura Cram, 2024. "Communicating Europe: a computational analysis of the evolution of the European Commission’s communication on Twitter," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 7(2), pages 1223-1274, October.
    20. Bhanot, Syon P., 2017. "Rank and response: A field experiment on peer information and water use behavior," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 155-172.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:25:y:2024:i:1:p:130-150. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.