Do governance reforms affect public acceptance of regulatory decisions, and if so, how? We tackled this critical but under-studied question through a pair of linked survey experiments on public attitudes toward the reform of European Union (EU) pesticides regulation among a representative sample of the adult population in six EU member states. We tested the expectation that citizens are more likely to accept a regulatory decision that runs counter to their prior policy preferences if it is taken under a procedure they support. We first conducted a conjoint experiment to study whether the specific design of decision-making procedures impacts public support for EU pesticide regulation. In a second linked experiment, we asked respondents whether farmers should be allowed to use glyphosate, the best known and most controversial pesticide. We then asked respondents if they would accept an authorization decision on glyphosate contrary to their prior expressed preference if it were taken under a decision-making procedure they supported. The results demonstrate that a regulatory decision-making procedure respondents support increases their willingness to accept a hypothetical authorization decision contrary to their prior expressed preference. Contrary to the findings of previous research, our study thus provides strong evidence that governance reforms supported by citizens can enhance acceptance of controversial regulatory decisions, even on politicized issues such as pesticides authorization.

中文翻译：

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治理改革和公众对监管决策的接受：来自欧盟农药授权相关调查实验的跨国证据

治理改革是否会影响公众对监管决策的接受程度？如果会影响，如何影响？我们通过两项相关的调查实验解决了这个关键但尚未得到充分研究的问题，这些实验涉及六个欧盟成员国成年人口的代表性样本中公众对欧盟农药监管改革的态度。我们测试了这样的预期：如果公民按照他们支持的程序做出违背其先前政策偏好的监管决定，那么他们更有可能接受该决定。我们首先进行了联合实验，研究决策程序的具体设计是否影响公众对欧盟农药监管的支持。在第二个相关实验中，我们询问受访者是否应该允许农民使用草甘膦这种最著名且最具争议的农药。然后，我们询问受访者，如果根据他们支持的决策程序做出决定，他们是否会接受与他们之前表达的偏好相反的草甘膦授权决定。结果表明，受访者支持的监管决策程序会增加他们接受与他们之前表达的偏好相反的假设授权决定的意愿。因此，与之前的研究结果相反，我们的研究提供了强有力的证据，表明公民支持的治理改革可以提高对有争议的监管决策的接受度，甚至在农药授权等政治化问题上也是如此。