Normative arguments for non-state actor participation in international policymaking processes: Functionalism, neocorporatism or democratic pluralism?

Abstract

The participation of non-state actors (NSA) in multilateral institutions is often portrayed as one way of decreasing the perceived legitimacy deficit in global governance. The literature on NSAs has identified several ways in which these actors can enhance the legitimacy of inter-governmental organisations and global governance arrangements. Three partially-competing normative arguments, or rationales, for the inclusion of nonstate actors in international policy-making -functionalism, neocorporatism and democratic pluralism -have been identified (Willetts, 2006). Whereas functionalism highlights the contribution of NSAs to output legitimacy in terms of expertise, neocorporatism emphasises the inclusion of affected interests, and democratic pluralism claims that NSAs increase input legitimacy through procedural values. These three normative arguments thus offer different understandings of the motives for inclusion and representation of NSAs in international negotiations and diplomacy. Through a single case study of UN climate diplomacy, we analyse the extent to which the three rationales for NSA inclusion are found in views held by state and non-state actors participating in the annual UN climate change conferences. Our results show that different actor groups place varying degrees of emphasis on the different rationales for NSA inclusion, even though the neocorporatist rationale remains most favoured overall. We discuss the implications of our findings for the democratic legitimacy of increasing participation of NSAs in intergovernmental affairs and recent trends in the participation of NSAs in the international climate change policy-making process.

Organizing international experts: IPBES’s efforts to gain epistemic authority

“…One reason why many expert organizations have failed to develop their trustworthiness is that their assessments are seen as too restricted; the technical framing of an environmental issue restricts its relevance and meaning, excluding important knowledge coming from outside the scientific community (Jasanoff 2012;Wynne 2005). Another reason is that assessments are conducted at a distance from the public and stakeholders, and without reference to their input (Beck et al 2014;Esguerra, Beck, and Lidskog 2017;Nasiritousi, Hjerpe, and Bäckstrand 2016). By including representatives from other knowledge systems and having an ambitious and explicit strategy for stakeholder inclusion (Díaz et al 2015a;Díaz et al 2015b;Larigauderie 2015), IPBES seems to avoid this criticism.…”

“…Another reason is that assessments are performed remotely, far from inputs from the public and stakeholders (Beck et al 2014;Nasiritousi, Hjerpe, and Bäckstrand 2016). In this respect, IPBES, with its ambition to incorporate different kinds of knowledge in its assessments and with its ambitious and explicit strategy for stakeholder inclusion, seems to avoid this criticism (Larigauderie 2015).…”

Stakeholder Engagement in the Making: IPBES Legitimization Politics

“…These depended in part on "whether it has been produced through a participatory and inclusive process" (Gupta et al 2012, 70). It was therefore seen as a way of ensuring buy-in regarding the final knowledge product (Nasiritousi et al 2016). The rationale is that engaging stakeholders reduces skepticism toward research results, thus enhancing the likelihood of scientific knowledge having an impact (van der Hel 2016, 169).…”

“…This article explores how IPBES addressed this challenge and finally adopted a formal stakeholder engagement strategy (SES). In doing so, we address a crucial research gap: although there is a growing literature on the opening up of international organizations (Nasiritousi et al 2016;Tallberg et al 2013;Zürn 2014) and on the construction of local, situated legitimacy (Connelly 2010;Turnhout et al 2015), little empirical research has been conducted on such participation in international expert organizations (Lidskog and Sundqvist 2011). One reason for this gap is that stakeholder engagement is almost always conducted as a local, small-scale, and place-based practice, with only few systematic, ambitious efforts to engage stakeholders in global environmental assessments (Saurugger 2010).…”

Deliberation in Multi-Stakeholder Participation: A Heuristic Framework Applied to the Committee on World Food Security

“…Proponents of including non-state actors in international organization and global governance tend to argue that (potentially) this constitutes a change that could be useful to counteract structural flaws in existing settings of international governance and multilateral institutions [9]. It is argued that the inclusion of non-state actors might counteract the often undemocratic nature and legitimacy deficit of international politics, addressing long-term institutional problems of access, transparency and responsiveness [10]. The inclusion of non-state actors, so the argument goes, addresses these legitimacy issues by changing the composition of actors towards more democratic procedures of representation and decision-making than the nation state-based system.…”