Conventional wisdom holds that interest group access to the European Commission is biased in favor of specific interests and against diffuse interests. Yet, patterns of access vary between policy areas. In this article, I map and explain the relative access of specific and diffuse interests to the European Commission's expert groups. I find that specific interests gain more access in general, but there are considerable variations across issues. I argue that variations in access across expert groups are explained by the relative ability of specific and diffuse interests to contest policies in different policy areas. This argument gains support by statistical analyses using a novel dataset comprising all expert groups with interest group participants. The findings suggest that a political logic helps explain variations in specific and diffuse interest access to the Commission.

In recent decades, one of the most prominent trends in global governance has been the increasing openness of international organizations (IOs) toward non-state actors (NSAs). As participants in the policy-making bodies of IOs, NSAs have become important actors in global governance, providing policy relevant information to decision makers, representing constituency interests, and ultimately, influencing policies. Yet to date, we have little systematic comparative knowledge about the NSAs that participate in IO bodies. This paper introduces the Non-State Participation in International Organizations (N-PINION) dataset, which maps NSA participant populations across 81 policy-making bodies in 24 global IOs between 1998 and 2017. The dataset provides indicators on the density, diversity, and volatility of NSA populations, available yearly across IO bodies. These indicators provide potential dependent and independent variables for scholars interested in a wide variety of research questions relating to the drivers, consequences, and normative merits of NSA participation in IOs.

Extensive research shows that non-state actors (NSAs) have gained growing access to international organizations (IOs) over time, to the point where most IOs nowadays offer NSAs opportunities for involvement in policy-making. This development has spurred optimism about a democratization of global governance through NSA participation, greater effectiveness as IOs harness the resources of NSAs, and improved popular legitimacy of IOs, as citizens are known to value inclusiveness in global governance. Yet, surprisingly, no study to date has examined whether access reforms actually pave the way for greater NSA participation in IO policy-making. This paper offers the first large-N comparative analysis of the relationship between NSA access and participation. Theoretically, we develop two alternative accounts about the effects of access reforms on NSA participation. Empirically, we test these expectations combining novel and unique data on NSA access and participation in 15 policy-making bodies of eight major global IOs between 1975 and 2017. We find that reforms expanding access have positive effects on NSA participation, but that different types of access reforms have markedly different effects. Specifically, a deepening of the level of access has a positive effect on NSA participation, whereas a broadening of the range of NSAs with access has a negative effect. In addition, access reforms have particularly strong effects on participation from NSAs representing economic interests. Our findings have implications for current debates on democracy, effectiveness, and legitimacy in global governance.

Non-state actors (NSAs), like business associations, trade unions, and NGOs, increasingly participate in the policy-making processes of international organizations (IOs). Conventional wisdom expects the financial and informational advantage of specific interest NSAs, which represent the occupational interests of their members, to skew participation patterns in their favor, to the detriment of diffuse interest NSAs, which represent interests that go beyond the occupational interests of their members. Yet the empirical record displays considerable variations in participation patterns that complicate theoretical expectations of consistent specific NSA dominance. This paper maps these variations and identifies their drivers through statistical analyses on a novel dataset covering NSA participants in 81 policy-making bodies across 24 global IOs between 1998 and 2017. The analyses generate two principal findings. First, participation patterns of specific and diffuse NSAs display substantial variation across issue areas, policy stages, and time. This suggests that previous research, typically focused on the main decision-making body in single IOs and issue areas, has covered a limited range of the dependent variable. Second, the nature of the governance problems and the salience of issues an IO body addresses are key drivers of variations in participation patterns. This suggests that IO–NSA relations are shaped by a combination of functional and political pressures. 

What is the effect of non-state actor (NSA) participation on the policy-making performance of international organizations (IOs)? Existing literature offers two contradictory expectations: one holds that extensive NSA participation offers opportunities for improved policy-making performance, and one suggests that NSA participation can hamper policy-making performance. Yet we know little about whether, and under what conditions, these different expectations hold true. This paper offers the first systematic comparative analysis of the relationship between NSA participation and IO policy-making performance. Theoretically, it draws on the two competing accounts to develop precise expectations about the effect of NSA participation on IO policy output. Empirically, it tests the theoretical expectations by combining a novel dataset on NSA participation patterns with updated and extended data on the policy output of 15 policy-making bodies in eight IOs between 1975 and 2017. I find that increases in NSA participation generally improve policy-making performance, but that increases from very high levels of participation can have negative effects on policy-making performance. Furthermore, less consistent evidence suggests that increased participation from NSAs representing specific interests decreases policy-making performance, whereas participation from NSAs representing diffuse interests increases policy-making performance. These findings have implications for debates on NSA participation, policy-making performance, and effectiveness in global governance.