What explains the levels and diversity of stakeholder participation in public commenting on bureaucratic policymaking? We examine a novel dataset on a stakeholder engagement mechanism recently introduced by the European Commission containing information about 1258 events organized between 2016 and 2019. We highlight the importance of administrative acts' characteristics and acknowledge the role of policy area type. Acts corresponding to early policy stages, broader in scope, less technical, and more explicit about feedback loop rules, that is, roadmaps, inception impact assessments and delegated acts, generate significantly more comments, from more diverse stakeholders, relative to legislative proposals, and draft implementing acts. Regulatory and distributive policies generate significantly more comments than interior and foreign policies. Diversity is significantly higher in distributive policies but only relative to foreign policies. We contribute by showing the power of administrative acts in influencing stakeholder participation and diversity across decision stages and policy areas and shaping bias in interest representation.

中文翻译：

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了解利益相关者参与官僚决策公众评论的模式：来自欧盟的证据

如何解释利益相关者参与官僚决策公众评论的程度和多样性？我们研究了欧盟委员会最近推出的利益相关者参与机制的新颖数据集，其中包含 2016 年至 2019 年间组织的 1258 项活动的信息。我们强调了行政行为特征的重要性，并承认政策领域类型的作用。与早期政策阶段相对应的行为，范围更广，技术性更少，反馈循环规则更明确，即路线图、初始影响评估和授权行为，相对于立法提案，会从更多样化的利益相关者那里产生更多的评论，并且实施法案草案。监管和分配政策引起的评论远多于国内和外交政策。分配政策的多样性明显更高，但仅相对于外交政策而言。我们通过展示行政行为在影响利益相关者参与和跨决策阶段和政策领域的多样性以及塑造利益代表偏见方面的力量来做出贡献。