IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/eeupol/v15y2014i4p595-613.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

In over their heads: Public consultation, administrative capacity and legislative duration in the European Union

Author

Listed:
  • Adam William Chalmers

Abstract

What effect do online public consultations have on legislative duration in the European Union? While scholars are divided on whether consultations speed things up or slow things down, they agree that consultations affect how decision-makers think about legislative proposals. I argue that this is only part of the story: the impact of consultations on legislation duration is also a function of the administrative capacity of decision-makers and their staff to process consultation submissions. I test this argument using a unique data set of over 750 legislative proposals in the period 2009–2013. I find that consultations tend to have a negative impact on the time it takes to pass legislation. However, this negative effect is less pronounced when decision-makers have sufficient administrative capacity to process submissions.

Suggested Citation

  • Adam William Chalmers, 2014. "In over their heads: Public consultation, administrative capacity and legislative duration in the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 15(4), pages 595-613, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:15:y:2014:i:4:p:595-613
    DOI: 10.1177/1465116514529849
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1465116514529849
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1465116514529849?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dãœr, Andreas & De Biãˆvre, Dirk, 2007. "Inclusion without Influence? NGOs in European Trade Policy," Journal of Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 27(1), pages 79-101, May.
    2. Raya Kardasheva, 2009. "The Power to Delay: The European Parliament's Influence in the Consultation Procedure," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47, pages 385-409, March.
    3. Christine Quittkat, 2011. "The European Commission's Online Consultations: A Success Story?," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(3), pages 653-674, May.
    4. Thomas Sloot & Piet Verschuren, 1990. "Decision‐making Speed in the European Community1," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(1), pages 75-85, September.
    5. Raya Kardasheva, 2009. "The Power to Delay: The European Parliament's Influence in the Consultation Procedure," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(2), pages 385-409, March.
    6. Jonathan Golub & Bernard Steunenberg, 2007. "How Time Affects EU Decision-Making," European Union Politics, , vol. 8(4), pages 555-566, December.
    7. Andreas Maurer, 2003. "The Legislative Powers and Impact of the European Parliament," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(2), pages 227-247, April.
    8. Golub, Jonathan, 1999. "In the Shadow of the Vote? Decision Making in the European Community," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 53(4), pages 733-764, October.
    9. Tsebelis, George, 1995. "Decision Making in Political Systems: Veto Players in Presidentialism, Parliamentarism, Multicameralism and Multipartyism," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(3), pages 289-325, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Heike Klüver & Iñaki Sagarzazu, 2013. "Ideological congruency and decision-making speed: The effect of partisanship across European Union institutions," European Union Politics, , vol. 14(3), pages 388-407, September.
    2. Frank M. Häge, 2011. "The European Union Policy-Making dataset," European Union Politics, , vol. 12(3), pages 455-477, September.
    3. Christophe Crombez & Pieterjan Vangerven, 2014. "Procedural models of European Union politics: Contributions and suggestions for improvement," European Union Politics, , vol. 15(2), pages 289-308, June.
    4. Jens Blom-Hansen, 2019. "Studying power and influence in the European Union: Exploiting the complexity of post-Lisbon legislation with EUR-Lex," European Union Politics, , vol. 20(4), pages 692-706, December.
    5. Karlson, Nils & Herold, Theo & Dalbard, Karl, 2022. "Ratio Working Paper No. 353: From free competition to fair competition on the European internal market," Ratio Working Papers 353, The Ratio Institute.
    6. Anne Rasmussen & Dimiter Toshkov, 2013. "The effect of stakeholder involvement on legislative duration: Consultation of external actors and legislative duration in the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 14(3), pages 366-387, September.
    7. Rory Costello & Robert Thomson, 2010. "The policy impact of leadership in committees: Rapporteurs’ influence on the European Parliament’s opinions," European Union Politics, , vol. 11(2), pages 219-240, June.
    8. Nikoleta Yordanova, 2011. "The European Parliament: In need of a theory," European Union Politics, , vol. 12(4), pages 597-617, December.
    9. Anne Rasmussen, 2011. "Early conclusion in bicameral bargaining: Evidence from the co-decision legislative procedure of the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 12(1), pages 41-64, March.
    10. Madeleine O. Hosli & Běla Plechanovová & Serguei Kaniovski, 2018. "Vote Probabilities, Thresholds and Actor Preferences: Decision Capacity and the Council of the European Union," Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics, Springer, vol. 35(1), pages 31-52, June.
    11. David Marshall, 2015. "Explaining Interest Group Interactions with Party Group Members in the European Parliament: Dominant Party Groups and Coalition Formation," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(2), pages 311-329, March.
    12. Dimiter Toshkov, 2011. "Public opinion and policy output in the European Union: A lost relationship," European Union Politics, , vol. 12(2), pages 169-191, June.
    13. Attila Kovács, 2014. "Political Networks in the European Parliament: Network Analysis of the 2013 Common Agricultural Policy Reform," Proceedings of FIKUSZ '14, in: Pál Michelberger (ed.),Proceedings of FIKUSZ '14, pages 107-122, Óbuda University, Keleti Faculty of Business and Management.
    14. Thomas König & Bernd Luig, 2014. "Ministerial gatekeeping and parliamentary involvement in the implementation process of EU directives," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 160(3), pages 501-519, September.
    15. Enrico Borghetto & Lars Mäder, 2014. "EU law revisions and legislative drift," European Union Politics, , vol. 15(2), pages 171-191, June.
    16. Maria Chiara Vinciguerra, 2021. "Punching Below Its Weight: The Role of the European Parliament in Politicised Consultation Procedures," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 9(3), pages 29-39.
    17. Thomas König, 2008. "Analysing the Process of EU Legislative Decision-Making," European Union Politics, , vol. 9(1), pages 145-165, March.
    18. Moritz Osnabrügge, 2015. "The European Commission and the implementation of its legislative programme," European Union Politics, , vol. 16(2), pages 241-261, June.
    19. Robin Hertz & Dirk Leuffen, 2011. "Too big to run? Analysing the impact of enlargement on the speed of EU decision-making," European Union Politics, , vol. 12(2), pages 193-215, June.
    20. Steffen Hurka & Maximilian Haag, 2020. "Policy complexity and legislative duration in the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 21(1), pages 87-108, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:15:y:2014:i:4:p:595-613. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.