Original
Responsive to What? Explaining the Information Quality of Public Comments on Bureaucratic Policymaking Using a Text‐as‐Data Approach
Abstract
ABSTRACT What drives the quality of information that public comments on bureaucratic policymaking provide? We address this question along a text‐as‐data approach, develop and validate four measures capturing the multidimensional concept of information quality, and apply it to an original dataset covering more than 20,000 public comments across 1036 policy acts issued by the European Commission between 2016 and 2021. We argue that the interplay of information demand and supply and institutional factors matter in particular for varying information quality of public comments. Our results show only mixed evidence regarding the claim that high‐quality comments are more likely during the policy formulation stage. Counterintuitively, we find that more informationally dense and syntactically complex EC policy documents generate public comments of higher quality. Regarding policy areas, information quality is unrelated to the age of European policy while more technical fields receive public comments of lower quality on average. Based on developing and validating an innovative empirical strategy, we thus provide novel insights into how the design of public commenting procedures and crafting of policy acts shape the information quality provided through public consultations.
中文
回应什么？运用文本即数据方法解释公众对官僚决策评论的信息质量
摘要
摘要 是什么驱动了公众对官僚决策的评论所提供信息的质量？我们采用文本即数据方法处理这一问题，开发并验证了四个测量指标，以刻画多维的信息质量概念，并将其应用于一个原创数据集，该数据集涵盖2016年至2021年间欧洲委员会发布的1036项政策法案所收到的2万余条公众评论。我们认为，信息需求与信息供给的相互作用以及制度因素，尤其能够解释公众评论信息质量的差异。我们的结果表明，关于高质量评论更可能出现在政策形成阶段的说法仅得到混合证据支持。与直觉相反，我们发现，信息密度更高、句法更复杂的欧委会政策文件会带来更高质量的公众评论。就政策领域而言，信息质量与欧洲政策的年龄无关，而技术性更强的领域平均获得的公众评论质量较低。基于开发并验证一种创新性实证策略，我们由此对公众评论程序的设计和政策法案的起草如何塑造公众咨询所提供信息的质量，提供了新的洞见。
关键词
公众评论、信息质量、官僚决策、欧洲委员会、公众咨询、文本即数据、政策制定、欧盟治理