Experts and Democratic Legitimacy

Tracing the Social Ties of Expert Bodies in Europe

Eva Krick, Cathrine Holst, Eva Krick, Cathrine Holst

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000740516
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Política

Experts and Democratic Legitimacy challenges the technocratic reading of expert bodies, such as central banks, advisory committees and regulatory agencies.

Expert contributors ask in what way expert bodies are subject to some of the key pressures in contemporary governance, such as democratisation, politicisation and expertisation. Based on empirical studies, the book traces the multiple social ties of expert bodies and refines the common perception of expert bodies as 'de-politicised' institutions that are detached from political interference and societal input. It further theorises the tension and reconcilability between reliable, independent expert knowledge on the one hand and the need for accountability and legitimacy in modern policy-making on the other hand.

Refining the detached, de-politicised image of non-majoritarian institutions, Experts and Democratic Legitimacy will be of great interest to scholars of European studies, political and social theory, modern governance and policy-making. This book was originally published as a special issue of European Politics and Society.

The socio-political ties of expert bodies. How to reconcile the independence requirement of reliable expertise and the responsiveness requirement of democratic governance

Eva Krick and Cathrine Holst

ABSTRACT

This study questions the traditional story of the detachment and independence of expert bodies such as agencies, central banks and expert committees. It directs attention to the numerous institutional links with elected bodies and societal actors that we typify as mechanisms of stakeholder inclusion, government control and public and parliamentary scrutiny. With reference to EU examples, we illustrate that these socio-political ties of expert bodies are intensifying and attend to the normative implications of this ‘representative turn’. When expert bodies increasingly link up with societal and political actors, this can be a source of democratisation, but it can also politicise and undermine the independence of expertise. Against this background, the key question becomes how to reconcile the independence requirement of reliable expertise and the responsiveness requirement of democratic governance. We approach this question by, first, delineating a way of incorporating ideal and non-ideal concerns in normative assessment. Second, we identify the key normative challenges related to the legitimate role of experts in democracies and discuss institutional solutions to the ‘democratic-epistemic divide’ that strike a balance both between the two norms, and between ideal requirements and feasibility constraints.

Introduction

The background of the study at hand, and the special issue it concludes, is the millennia-old tension between the rule of knowers and democratic rule, the tension that lies essentially in the specialisation and independence logic of reliable expert knowledge and the equality and inclusion imperative of democracy.¹ This democratic-epistemic divide or ‘dilemma of expertise’ (Nowotny, 2003) has been exacerbated by modern society’s growing dependency on expertise for solving increasingly complex and technical collective problems (Holst & Molander, 2017; Turner, 2013) and by the legitimacy crisis of the representative model of democracy (Saward, 2010).² We focus on the democratic-epistemic divide as it manifests itself in the political role of expert bodies such as regulatory and executive agencies, non-departmental public bodies, advisory boards and committees or independent central banks.³ Specialised knowledge and organisational autonomy is key to the authority of these institutions (Busuioc, 2009; Carpenter, 2010; Vibert, 2007, p. 4). Yet, they are not academic, knowledge-producing institutions, but part of the system of government in the wider sense. They exert formal and/or de facto public authority and are set apart or only loosely tied to elected institutions. Some operate at arms’ length from governmental control; some are even further detached. Across countries and within political systems, there is a large variety of empirical forms and terminology. With slightly different emphases, these boundary institutions at the policy-science-nexus have also been termed ‘non-majoritarian institutions’ (Thatcher & Sweet, 2002), ‘quasi-autonomous (non-governmental) organisations’ (quangos) (Greve, Flinders, & van Thiel, 1999) or ‘unelected bodies’ (Vibert, 2007) in the literature.⁴ These institutions stand for the rise of the regulatory, de-politicised state and the empowerment of experts and technocrats (Thatcher & Sweet, 2002), and their ‘explosion’ in recent decades has been connected to ‘the tidal wave of bureaucratic reorganisation known as New Public Management (NPM)’ (Greve et al., 1999, p. 130). They have also been interpreted as the epitome of expertisation (or ‘scientification’) trends, i.e. the increasing reliance on science, evidence and expertise in modern policy-making (Gornitzka & Krick, 2018; Holst & Molander, 2017; Turner, 2013), and their relative independence is both a source of their authority and a matter of concern from a perspective of democratic accountability (see e.g. Curtin, 2007; Holst & Molander, 2017). Their prevalence has triggered a new research field within public administration studies, which has traced the rise of these institutions not only on the EU level, but also within nation states (see e.g. Busuioc, 2013; Christensen & Holst, 2017; Curtin, 2007, 2017; Egeberg & Trondal, 2011; Egeberg, Schaefer, & Trondal, 2003; Ennser-Jedenastik, 2016; Gornitzka & Krick, 2018; Keleman, 2002; Lord, 2011). Recently, research on these institutions has directed more attention to the social and political ties of expert bodies (Busuioc, 2013; Ennser-Jedenastik, 2016; Gornitzka & Krick, 2018; Lodge, 2008; Pérez-Durán, 2018), i.e. institutions that link up these expert bodies to civil society or the political realm (see section 1). Such institutional links can strengthen accountability relationships and thus add to the responsiveness and legitimacy of expert-based decision-making. However, a representative turn of expert bodies towards elected governments and parliaments as well as non-elected forms of representation through association, can also politicise and undermine the independence of the developed expertise, which has been described as one of the main sources of trustworthiness and problem adequateness of expert judgements (Haas, 2004; Lentsch & Weingart, 2011) (see section 3).

This double challenge affects the normative questions that need to be dealt with. The key question is not only how the power of detached expert bodies can be kept in check by democratic means, or how their autonomy can be ensured, but how to strike a balance between the independence requirement of reliable expertise and the responsiveness requirement of democratic governance.

In the following, based on the contributions to this special issue on the social ties of non-majoritarian institutions (or expert bodies), as well as on existing research and official documents, we summarise, first, empirical varieties of expert bodies’ institutional links with the societal and political realm. We distinguish between three types of ties (government control, stakeholder inclusion, parliamentary and public scrutiny) and three types of expert bodies that play a pronounced role across Europe (agencies, central banks and advisory committees) (section 1). With reference to empirical examples on the EU level we can show that the most quintessential expert bodies in European policy-making (decentralised agencies, expert groups, comitology committees and the European Central Bank (ECB)) are clearly, and increasingly, socially and politically embedded and scrutinised even when they have a large degree of discretion. Against this background, the perception of expert bodies as detached, depoliticised and technocratic needs to be refined and the normative questions raised need to be adapted to this reality.

Second, after this mapping, typification and (re-)conceptualisation of European expert bodies, we discuss different ways to approach the identified empirical patterns from a normative perspective (section 2). There is a set of pitfalls to be avoided in such an endeavour, and we delineate a way of balancing ideal and non-ideal concerns. Our approach is to utilise the considerable proximity between ideal theory parameters and the normative concerns identified within empirically-grounded research on expert bodies.

On this basis, we, third, elaborate on the normative implications of socio-political ties of expert bodies (section 3). We discuss the foundations of independent, largely impartial expertise on the one hand and democratised, accountable expertise production on the other. We explore the boundaries and tensions between these two normative dimensions and suggest institutional solutions to the tension that are neither too idealised to be applicable in practice, nor bound by immediate constraints to an extent that they fail to provide a critical corrective. For this, we build in part on ideal theory-oriented normative political theory, in part on empirically grounded, non-ideal theorising in social science.

Varieties of socio-political ties: empirical mapping and typification

In the following, we distinguish between three forms of expert bodies’ socio-political ties: stakeholder inclusion (1.1.), executive control (1.2.) and parliamentary and public scrutiny (1.3.). There is a wide variety of empirical forms of expert bodies, with considerable differences both between and within political-administrative systems. When not otherwise stated, our examples of ‘agencies’, ‘independent central banks’ and ‘advisory committees’ here refer to EU level ‘decentralised agencies’, the ECB model, ‘expert groups’ and ‘comitology committees’.

Regulatory agencies such as the currently 33 decentralised agencies of the EU have their own legal personality and basis. They are staffed with civil servants and provide advice and public services, perform operational activities, adopt binding decisions and implement key tasks. Advisory committees such as expert groups and comitology committees have formally a merely advisory character. Expert groups can advise on policy formulation or implementation, are often established by decree, seated within a Directorate General of the EU Commission (Commission) and primarily composed of interest group representatives, academic experts and member state civil servants (Gornitzka & Krick, 2018). Comitology committees are dominated by member state representatives, established by law and deal with draft implementing measures sent to them by the Commission. Whether they are placed outside or within the Commission’s administration and to which degree they are autonomous is contested (see Curtin, 2007). The ECB is an official EU institution that was established by a constitutional act. It takes authoritative, autonomous decisions and adopts binding regulations in monetary policy. The ECB is extraordinarily independent and not allowed to seek or take instructions from any other institution.

These organisational differences have implications for the institutions’ discretion, independence and accountability as well as the status of their members and staff. Yet, one should not overestimate the power of formal rules. After all, delegation analysis has shown that the most formally autonomous agencies are often controlled and politicised informally, through the backdoor (Busuioc, 2009; Ennser-Jedenastik, 2016) and with regard to comitology committees, Curtin points out that ‘in practice it appears that the Commission almost never differs from the opinion of the committee’ (Curtin, 2007, p. 529; see also Egeberg et al., 2003).

The following subsections each start with a general account of the empirical varieties of the respective types of socio-political ties that the subsection focuses on. This is followed by an empirical account of the state of affairs and recent developments for the cases of the ECB, the EU’s decentralised agencies, comitology committees and expert groups.

Stakeholder inclusion

Even the most detached expert bodies link up with stakeholders – comprising here political parties, NGOs and interest groups – to a certain extent. However, the degree of formalisation of relations and the roles of stakeholders vary considerably. Stakeholders can participate as co-deciders or advisors, they can observe and listen, or voice their concerns in a one-sided relationship (Bader, 2014). Some expert bodies consult interest groups and NGOs informally and on an ad hoc basis within loosely attached hearings or participatory formats. Some have permanent stakeholder panels or reference groups whose input is officially channelled into the decision process. Others include representatives of political parties, constituent states or interest groups into oversight boards and yet other expert bodies elevate stakeholders to the rank of ‘expert’ by involving them as equal members or part of the staff of an expert body (see Bader, 2014; Krick, 2018).

Despite the often evoked demise of corporatism, there is scattered evidence of stakeholders asserting themselves as important members of the EU’s expert groups with interest groups adapting to expertisation pressures by professionalising internally and using information as ‘access goods’ to the policy process – instead of being crowded out by academics (Bouwen, 2004; Gornitzka & Krick, 2018; see also Hesstvedt & Christensen, 2018). As part of the EU’s common approach on decentralised agencies⁵ and in response to ‘technocracy’ allegations, nearly half of the EU’s agencies now involve societal representatives within management boards, distinct stakeholder groups or expert committees (Pérez-Durán, 2018) and agencies such as the European Medicines Agency and the European Chemicals Agency have recently strengthened their ties with civil society through consultation and hearing channels. Public administration studies also describe a growing ‘party-politicisation’ of the most formally independent European regulatory agencies, with politicians responding to increasing degrees of agency independence with greater efforts to install political allies within agency leadership (Ennser-Jedenastik, 2016; see also Busuioc, 2013; Lodge, 2008). Even the ECB links up with stakeholders through a range of ‘advisory groups’ that represent financial corporations, companies and (trade) associations alongside national central banks.⁶

Executive control

All types of expert bodies underlie executive influence to certain extents. Governments can use the...