Europe's New Technocracy: Boundaries of Public Participation in EU Institutions
本文通过访谈欧盟委员会官员和公民社会组织，论证欧盟的公众参与机制实质是新技术官僚制，旨在增强技术官僚的回应性而非民主创新，对研究欧盟治理和公众参与的学者有参考价值。
Regional organizations in the Global North have sought to create avenues for legitimating integrationist activities. Participatory initiatives are one such route. Referring to mechanisms whereby ‘independently created forms of collective action’, encompassing trade unions, special interest groups and pressure groups, political parties, business organizations, and mass social movements can influence regional decision making, participatory initiatives are proliferating among regionalist bodies (Gerard and Mickler, this issue). This article argues that the proliferation of participatory mechanisms can be conceptualized as the development of a ‘new technocracy’ in regionalist organizations. To make this case, the article examines the case of regionalist participatory initiatives in the European Union's (EU) directorates and agencies. Recently, an evolving literature on the EU as a ‘responsive technocracy’ has analysed how the growing politicization of EU-level initiatives and institutions had led to those institutions responding by, for example, adopting new legislation (Rauh, 2016, 2019). Scholars also suggest the need to analyse the ‘responsiveness’ of EU organizations at an administrative level (De Wilde and Rauh, 2019). This article adds to this literature by analysing the boundaries of participatory initiatives by analysing their technocratic logic, and thus showing how they operate as methods for furthering ‘technocratic responsiveness’, rather than democratic innovation. This framework draws upon a theory recently posited by Anders Esmark (2017, 2020) that the concept of technocracy has been widely misunderstood in governance studies. Contemporary forms of technocratic governance, Esmark argues, are intended to engage broadly with civil society to enhance their functional utility, both at national and transnational levels. They are characterized by the need to connect with relevant actors by ensuring they receive relevant information, manage risk in terms of foreseeing and displacing the possibility of political contestation, and monitor the performance of EU regulations. The article argues that processes of public involvement are viewed by those engaged in them as functional to EU institutions, and therefore can be seen principally as mechanisms for extending technocratic legitimacy. To show this, the article analyses semi-structured interviews with 24 European Union Commission Directorates-General (DGs), civil society organizations and independent agencies, as well as stakeholder engagement strategies and engagement requirements provided in governing regulations. This article proceeds in four sections. First, it charts the evolution of the EU's technocracy and suggests that since the early 2000s EU institutions have responded to criticisms they are insular and disconnected from the public. Second, it introduces Esmark's theory and suggests this can be applied as a way of framing this development as the emergence of a new technocracy rather than a renewal of democratic legitimacy. Third, the article presents interview and documentary evidence demonstrating how stakeholder engagement processes in EU institutions are viewed by those who enact and receive them as forms of technocratic governance enabling: (1) connectivity, (2) risk management and (3) performance. Fourth, the article reflects upon the implications of this analysis for our understanding of the potential of EU stakeholder engagement strategies as normatively desirable forms of democratic participation. It suggests the development of new technocracy might have potential, if its logic of seeking external legitimacy through responsiveness can be developed to coincide with logics of participatory or deliberative democracy. Technocracy has been an ever-present ‘spectre’ in European integration (Streeck, 2012). Haas' (1958) original thesis in The Uniting of Europe that practical concerns about economic growth and political stability would lead to ‘ever closer union’ has influenced EU scholars and policymakers, who became concerned principally with developing legitimacy through the ‘outputs’ produced by expert-led institutions. This ‘neofunctionalist’ argument, as Moravcsik (2005, p. 350) suggests, ‘remains a touchstone for scholarship and, albeit tacitly, for practical politics concerning the EU’. As Martin Shapiro (2004, p. 345) states, in the EU the ‘prevalent trend has been an attempt to recruit technocratic legitimacy for government regulation as a substitute for democratic legitimacy’. This form of technocratic rule has changed over time, however, and has implications for our understanding of the boundaries of public participation in EU institutions. What I call the ‘old technocracy’ has its roots in classical functionalist arguments about the basis of European integration. Old technocracy is defined as ‘rule by experts’, seeking legitimacy through checks and balances with public actors and institutions. Wallace and Smith (1995) provide a detailed elaboration on how technocratic tendencies historically influenced EU integration. The 1951 Treaty of Paris, they show, set up a High Authority (later to merge into the European Commission in 1967) advised by a Consultative Committee of ‘representative organizations’ including consumers, businesses and workers: ‘functional representation assisting technical experts’ (Wallace and Smith, 1995, p.142). Here, the place of democracy was in essentially pluralist underpinnings of technocratic rule. The High Authority had to ‘consult’ trade unions and employers, and its decisions were taken in light of consultation. This approach carried through to the late 1980s, with a 1988 regulation emphasising ‘close consultation between the Commission, the member states concerned and the competent authorities’ (Regulation (EEC) 2052/88). The old technocracy thus had its basis in pluralist assumptions, that: (1) there needed to be a balance of power between competing interests of member states, and of economic actors, and (2) the functional necessity of post-war economic recovery and growth provided an underpinning consensus for integration. Here, the boundaries of participation are conceptualized in a Madisonian way, as a set of checks and balances on Commission power by member states and, to a lesser extent, employer and worker representatives. New technocracy is defined as ‘rule by experts’, seeking legitimacy through responsiveness to the public (see Table 1, below). This came about through the growing importance of ‘responsiveness’ as a key question through the 1990s and 2000s. The growth of Euroscepticism since the 1980s led to theories that the ‘permissive consensus’ on integration had morphed into a ‘constraining dissensus’ (Hooghe and Marks, 2009). Scholars noted growing politicization (De Wilde, 2011) and contestation of integrationist tendencies (Adam and Maier, 2011). These political dynamics have not, however, led to the disappearance of an earlier technocratic approach, but to its transformation. Analysing dynamics of integration during the Eurozone crisis, Schimmelfennig (2014, p. 335) argues, ‘The process of technocratic integration during the crisis has largely followed neofunctionalist instead of postfunctionalist expectations’. Supranational integration increased in economic policy, for example, with technical agencies like the European Banking Authority gaining more power. That is not to say, however, that the rationale for technocratic forms of governance looked the same as in the 1950s, or that the boundaries of public participation are the same. Rauh (2016, 2019, p. 361) instead identifies a ‘responsive technocracy’ in which ‘widespread EU politicization creates Commission incentives to serve immediate public interests in contemporaneously salient initiatives’. His interview research suggests ‘Commission bureaucrats, who are usually portrayed as the most distant and technocratic actors in the EU's polity, are aware about the immediate distributional consequences of their policy choices and are willing to adapt them to changes in the political context of European integration’ (Rauh, 2019, p. 361). This ‘responsiveness’ does not mean technocratic institutions abandon their objectives. Rather, it suggests a subtle reconfiguration of the boundaries of public participation, summarized in Table 1. An incremental shift from ‘old’ to ‘new’ technocracy can broadly be captured in the emergence of a participatory agenda initiated in the 2000s–2010s. In 2001 a widely cited Commission White Paper stressed that ‘many people are losing confidence in a poorly understood and complex system to deliver the policies that they want’ (European Commission, 2001, p. 1). We can view this statement as an acknowledgement of a shift in the political context from ‘permissive consensus’ to ‘constraining dissensus’. The White Paper hence proposed the Commission should ‘renew the Community method by following a less top-down approach and complementing the EU's policy tools more effectively with non-legislative instruments’ (European Commission, 2001, p. 2). This agenda has been reflected in a deeper and more diverse range of consultation processes, including ‘Roadmaps’ and ‘Inception Impact Assessments’ implemented by all Commission DGs. The ‘Better Regulation’ initiative has also emerged, aiming to avoid introducing new legislation by updating and improving existing laws, complementing this with widespread engagement of relevant affected communities (Bunea and Ibenskas, 2017). The subtle difference between ‘old’ and ‘new’ technocracy is explicated here. While the stakeholders are not too dissimilar to those established as representative organizations in the 1951 Treaty of Paris creating the European Coal and Steel Community, the intensity of interaction has increased substantially and the range of representatives expanded to cover Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and consumers in various areas of EU competence (see Arras and Beyers, 2020; Pérez-Durán, 2019; Wood, 2018). These changes are incremental, and there has not been a scaling back of the technical role of EU agencies and DGs. The most significant transformation, however, is the rationale underpinning reasons for seeking legitimacy by engaging external environments – from instituting checks and balances to responding to dynamics of politicization. Whereas in the ‘old’ technocracy participation is conceived as seeking legitimacy through formalized checks and balances on Commission power, in ‘new’ technocracy engagement is defined as expert-led agencies seeking legitimacy through responsiveness in a broader context of politicization. This means the boundaries of participation are conceived potentially wider, so as to effectively manage politicization pressures by including a range of affected actors, but narrower in the sense that the flexibility of responsive technocracy means engagement is justified largely on the basis of the implications of engagement for the core workings of EU bodies. Responsiveness is conceptualized primarily as adjustments to policy and institutional practice (such as adoption of legislation) in response to politicization (De Wilde and Rauh, 2019). Analysing the underlying rationale for stakeholder and societal engagement within an administrative context can unpack this is more detail. De Wilde and Rauh (2019) suggest a fruitful approach shifting analysis from ‘systemic’ responsiveness (policy adjustments and legislative adoption) to a ‘procedural’ approach studying ‘dynamic adaptation’ of adminstrative actors to external pressures. This article fits within this agenda. It assesses how managers of EU institutions conceptualize their engagement practices as responses to external pressures. In doing so, it draws from recent innovations in public administration theory to establish a conceptual framework from which to analyse participatory initiatives as forms of technocratic responsiveness, in EU institutions. Esmark's (2017, 2020) framework for assessing the ‘new technocracy’ in public administration is the most systematic recent theorization of how technocratic governance has shifted in the so-called ‘late modern’ era of capitalism. Esmark (2017, p. 501) asks the question: ‘how are we to interpret administrative reforms and policy that have challenged the bureaucratic model in recent decades?’ These reforms, he argues broadly, have brought about an era of ‘governance’ characterized by fluid risks and dispersed information. For some, this has led to a replacement of technocratic bureaucracy with engaged and interconnected ‘governance’. However, Esmark is not so quick to dismiss the idea of technocracy and ‘rule of experts’. His argument is that this rule has morphed to become more responsive and engaged, rather than being introverted and withdrawn: ‘Although the governance paradigm clearly deploys the language of organizational and technological imperatives, it is not exactly hidden or subdued: it is rather an open, assertive, and largely transparent paradigm’ (Esmark, 2017, p. 506). This theoretical perspective links well with the procedural approach to responsiveness advocated by De Wilde and Rauh (2019). Esmark's argument is not that expert technocrats have become less powerful, but that technocracy has become less associated with legitimation through bureaucratic rationality (qua Max and more associated with through governance, risk management and performance management (Esmark, a shift in the way in which technocratic is or the in which are in an attempt to for political They provide a way of shifting analysis of ‘responsiveness’ as a new perspective on EU to the level of administrative and as advocated by De Wilde and Rauh (2019). The is concerned with a shift from legitimation through formalized and processes of governance and to the management of This links to Esmark on on the and of largely the of governance is defined as decision processes to in with in in information, including and social than the and of social governance the adoption of an logic and the attempt to with the of (Esmark, 2017, p. also p. 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