Designing advisory councils to do what? Analysing the most common participatory institution in Spain

Abstract

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Advisory councils (ACs) are one of the most common participatory institutions, aimed to provide authorities with a forum to consult the organized groups at a given territorial or sectoral level. Although they constitute permanent spaces for civic participation, they remain overlooked. This work systematically analyses ACs from a large-N perspective that goes beyond the best-cases approach. The article initially reflects on the role and expected benefits of ACs, identifying three important design choices: organizational structure, objectives, and accountability channels. Then, the article maps 2,013 ACs in Spain and develops a descriptive analysis relying on an original database obtained from the study of official regulations and web pages of 70 ACs. Our first goal is to describe ACs. Secondly, a good picture of these councils sets the foundation for discussing their performance in terms of inclusiveness, impact in policy-making and democratic control. Combining different statistical techniques the article shows that: (1) ACs present diverse design features; (2) these characteristics enable the generation of typologies of ACs; and (3) having the explicit goal of influencing public policies positively correlates with being an empowered council. These findings connect with the broader debate on participatory governance.