Abstract
Improving policy deliberation is a central objective for theEuropean Union's institutions. Focusing on the European Parlia-ment's committee hearings as an understudied area of Europeangovernance, we aim to understand their role, and their capacity toimprove its procedural legitimacy. Building on theoretical work oninterest group access and deliberation we argue that hearings canserve three purposes: (i) coordinative; (ii) epistemic; (iii) enhancingpublic participation. We construct a set of measures and assess anentire population of participants in hearings (2009–14), concentrat-ing on three committees. Our analyses show that hearings serve ahybrid purpose between coordinative and epistemic. At the topend, we observe a core group of gatekeepers representing thedominant constituencies. Simultaneously, research organizationsare granted unique access as experts that de-politicize debates.Theoretically, we contribute to discussions on interest group accesswhile providing an innovative set of tools for its measurement, andthe first dataset of its kind.
This is the peer reviewed version of the article, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12406. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.