Who benefits from stakeholder consultations? Fire alarms or procedural politicking?

Abstract

Stakeholder consultations have become increasingly common. By allowing societal interests to provide input on regulatory proposals, stakeholder consultations are meant to bolster the input legitimacy of regulatory decisions. Yet, despite a wealth of scholarship on stakeholder participation in EU regulatory processes, it is still unclear how stakeholder consultations affect the traditional democratic oversight of regulatory agencies. Following seminal principal-agent arguments, stakeholder consultations could serve as 'fire alarms', alerting political principals to undertake oversight actions. Conversely, more recent arguments regarding bureaucratic reputation-building and 'procedural politicking' suggest that consultations may serve to build stakeholder coalitions and discourage oversight. We test these two competing theories, alongside a novel argument that the effect of stakeholder consultations on democratic oversight is conditional on the actual opinions and reactions of concerned stakeholders. We do so by looking at consultations by the European Supervisory Authorities as well as hearings of these agencies by the European Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. Our analysis unpacks how stakeholder consultations affect the accountability relationships between regulatory agencies and their political principals. Do stakeholder consultations function as fire alarms for legislative oversight or on the contrary, serve to insulate agencies against it?