Suchergebnisse

Consultation of interests is often seen as a source of both input and output legitimacy. However, consultation only strengthens output legitimacy if it leads to improvements in legislative proposals. This detailed study of consultation reports in Denmark – chosen as a most-likely case when it comes to consultation having an effect on the substance of laws – shows a major difference in the amenability of different governmental branches but that, in general, the authorities do not listen much despite a strong tradition of consultation. This risks jeopardising the transfer of knowledge from societal actors to administrations, thus having a detrimental effect on the potential that consultation has to strengthen output legitimacy.

Consultation of interests is often seen as a source of both input and output legitimacy. However, consultation only strengthens output legitimacy if it leads to improvements of proposals. This detailed study of consultation reports in Denmark – chosen as a most-likely case of consultation having an effect on the substance of laws – shows a great difference in the amenability of different governmental branches but that, in general, authorities do not listen much despite a strong consultation tradition. This risks jeopardising transfer of knowledge from societal actors to administrations thus harming consultations' potential for strengthening output legitimacy.

Organised interests play a double role in policymaking: as representatives of societal interests and as policy experts adding to regulatory quality. The former of these 2 roles has been examined over and over again, whereas the latter has almost completely evaded scholarly interest for a number of reasons. One reason is that it demands a focus on output rather than on traditional darlings such as representation, input legitimacy, or influence. Another is that it demands an interdisciplinary approach as regulatory quality—that which the involvement of organised interests seek to furnish—is a concept that includes elements from both law and political science. The question of how to design involvement of organised interests in order to support regulatory quality, however, is a question with both academic and practical relevance. Building on an empirical study, this paper attempts to spur theorising to address this relevant question. The result is 4 assumptions that describe the relationship between involvement of organised interests and regulatory quality.

AbstractBetter regulation is of grave importance to the European Union, as it is seen as a way of obtaining output legitimacy. To achieve this, the European Commission has established a so-called REFIT Stakeholder Platform where stakeholders' proposals for more effective and efficient EU law are discussed. The central premise for this meta-regulatory instrument is depoliticisation of the REFIT program and the whole better regulation agenda. To ensure this, the European Commission plays a crucial gatekeeping role by only granting access for proposals that echo that premise and by securing depoliticised deliberation afterwards. Utilising a novel typology linking regulatory reform proposals to the risk of politicisation, the argument advanced in this article is that only a minority of the proposals to be considered by Platform members have a low risk of depoliticisation. This, it is argued, is due to the Commission not having a sufficiently well-developed understanding of the premises for REFIT it has itself established.