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

ABSTRACT 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.