Journal
REGULATION & GOVERNANCE
Volume 15, Issue 3, Pages 877-893Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/rego.12323
Keywords
agency; consultation; interest group; regulatory decision-making; survey experiment
Categories
Funding
- Research Foundation-Flanders [G096512N]
- European Research Council [ERC-2013-CoG 616702-iBias]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Consulting with stakeholders, both openly and in a closed manner, has a significant impact on the acceptance of decision-making procedures, especially when different types of stakeholders are involved. However, the consultation arrangement itself does not directly influence the acceptance of regulatory outcomes. Procedural legitimacy plays a crucial role in increasing decision acceptance among individuals who are negatively disposed toward government regulation.
Agencies consult extensively with stakeholders such as industry associations, nongovernmental organizations, and trade unions. One rationale for consultations is that these improve procedural legitimacy and lead to greater acceptance of regulatory outcomes by citizens and the regulated industry. While this presumption of a positive relation between stakeholder consultations and the legitimacy of agencies is widespread, research analyzing this relationship remains scarce. Using a survey experiment, we examine the effect of open and closed consultations on the acceptance of procedures and regulatory outcomes in the field of environmental politics. The results demonstrate that consultation arrangements positively affect the acceptance of decision-making procedures, especially when regulators grant access to different types of stakeholders. However, although the consultation arrangement itself does not directly affect acceptance of the regulatory outcome, procedural legitimacy matters, as it increases decision acceptance among individuals who are negatively disposed toward government regulation.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available