Voice Without Vote? Analyzing the Influence of Consultative Committees
36 Pages Posted: 15 Jul 2012 Last revised: 31 Jul 2012
Date Written: 2012
Abstract
Committees are often integral parts of national and international political systems, be it to increase the efficiency, the expertise or the legitimacy of decision-making. There are consultative and decision-making committees. By their nature, the former have – similar to many NGOs – access to decision-making arenas which enable them to raise their voice, but they lack formal votes. A state of the art review shows that we know a lot about decision-making committees, while there is a gap in our knowledge about consultative committees. This is a pity as consultative committees are common in states and internationally. Hence, this paper analyses the influence of consultative committees. The paper develops a sender-receiver model to inquire to which extent and under which conditions consultative committees can influence policies. In the empirical analysis it draws on the example of the Committee of the Regions and the European Economic and Social Committee, as two prominent consultative committees, and analyses their influence on European policies. Based on a comprehensive survey on the influence of both committees across a variety of policy areas conducted in 2010 and 70 semi-structured interviews, it quantitatively and qualitatively test a series of sender-receiver hypotheses. This reveals that consultative committees are not very influential overall, but that they can exert influence under certain scope conditions, especially if they produce high-quality recommendations quickly, whilst the receivers of their recommendations lack administrative capacities and have flexible preferences.
Keywords: Consultative Committee, European Union, Legislation, Sender-Reciever
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