LIST OF PANELS

This panel examines delegated agencies, and more specifically, their governance style, engagement and coordination with, and of, broader publics. Recent literature in (multi-level) governance has recognized that delegated agencies perform important roles in actively facilitating the construction of policy fields, their (meta) regulation, learning across jurisdictions, and sometimes their democratisation. These are generally expert organizations with specialist knowledge of policy fields. By delegated agencies we mean semi-autonomous agencies at arms-length from the core of government by virtue of legislation or executive arrangement. Located at the intermediary between central government and broader publics (including professionals, industry, NGOs, service users, citizens and other agencies), delegated agencies are strategically placed to engage policy communities, also across jurisdictional boundaries. Such engagement may include public consultations with stakeholders in the process of policy making, the explanation and justification of policies in the media, and facilitating exchanges about ‘best practices’ across differently placed policy actors and policy communities. It is an activity that comes, however, with perils particularly for delegated agencies themselves, as it challenges representative democracy and traditional notions of accountability. Delegated agencies engaging the public creates new political spaces for mobilising the commitment of publics to government initiatives, for policy learning, for contesting and reforming initiatives, and for, better or worse, informing the credibility and legitimacy of delegated agencies themselves. The panel seeks papers that both theoretically and empirically examine, compare, and critically interrogate delegated agencies engagement of publics. It is interested in papers that adopt broadly political, sociological, pragmatic learning or rhetorical perspectives to analyse the way in which delegated agencies actively present themselves, and their functions or government policies, to broader publics, whether to facilitate learning or policy commitment. Beyond the nature of agencies’ engagement with publics, there is also an interest in conceptualizing and examining the conditions for maintaining agency credibility and legitimacy among the public, and their function in facilitating democratic deliberation.

The panel encourages scholars of delegated agencies to examine the external policy role of these bodies. While traditionally, delegated agencies have been studied with respect to their internal governance and efficiency, there has been relatively little analysis of their active engagement of the public, and more broadly policy fields. This is despite recognition that delegated agencies have come to play growing and significant roles in promoting and coordinating policy making in the regulatory state, and are more frequently expected to engage with the media and other publics such as professions and interest groups, as well as citizens. The increasing engagement of delegated agencies with the public presents tensions with traditional forms of accountability and highlights the political role of delegated agencies in policy making. By examining the conditions under which agency engagement of the public appears to be successful, it might be possible to evaluate alternative forms of accountability.