External Expertise in Decision-Making Processes: Institutional Procedures in Comparison

Research shows that both the population as well as the integration of external stakeholders into decision-making processes at the European and the national levels is increasing since decades (Beyer et al. 2018; Eising et al. 2017; Bunea & Baumgartner 2014). Examples are studies about interest groups, think tanks, companies but also scientific expertise since the interests presented to decision-makers are as diverse as the European societies (see Eising et al 2017 for an overview). Especially when it comes to comparative research, a systematic analysis of the institutional procedures of the integration of external stakeholders is still missing. This is quite surprising since institutional factors have been identified as one of the most influential factors on the performance of external stakeholders, next to the organizational and issue related characteristics. Most studies looking at institutional factors only relate to broader typologies like corporatism vs pluralism, type of welfare state regime or varieties of capitalism. This paper aims at closing this gap by developing and systematically comparing indices like advocacy regulations, addressees and main access points, structure of the interest mediation system, transparency and population ecology. The main interest of this paper is, how and in which ways decision-making processes diverge between the countries. The comparison includes Austria, Belgium, Denmark, European Union, Germany, Ireland, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and the United States of America. Results show that institutional characteristics diverge by far and the integration of external stakeholders is only loosely regulated. Even worse is the lack of transparent procedures and possibilities to access the content of the exchange which questions the democratic legitimacy of these decision-making processes including external stakeholders.