Benchmarking participation in practice against composition of EU agency advisory committees: less diverse in practice than on paper?

Public agencies can stack the decks for engaging with a diverse set of societal actors via advisory committees, thus gain needed information, legitimacy, and support, while reducing the risks of capture. Extant research has examined advisory committees’ composition but has not systematically considered whether participation in practice might be less diverse than suggested by the membership list. European Union (EU) advisory committees give rise to competing expectations regarding a composition-participation gap. This paper examines participation in practice in the context of advisory committees of the EU energy agency ACER, benchmarking novel data on participation in practice against composition to identify to what extent and why there is a gap between holding and using memberships. It theorizes that the context and characteristics of organized interests rather than their formal membership shape participation in practice, as assessed against groups’ share of membership.