Independent agencies, credible policies? The role of prior beliefs in shaping stakeholder perceptions of credibility in a contested environment.

ABSTRACT: Agency independence is understood to instil credibility in regulatory policy. This is a core tenet of regulation theory, foundational to the EU regulatory state's own origin story. We put the assumption to rigorous testing, in addition to expanding on it theoretically. We expect that stakeholder perceptions of credibility depend not only on agencies' institutional insulation, but also on whether regulatory outcomes are congruent with stakeholders' prior beliefs and preferences. Focusing on EU food safety regulation and the European Food Safety Authority, we test, observationally and experimentally, whether the credibility of agency scientific outputs is enhanced when stakeholders perceive the agency as more independent. Some support for the theorised link is present observationally, yet we

SUBMITTER: Alon-Barkat S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11835309 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature