Legitimating non-state actor engagement in global climate governance

Datos Bibliográficos

ID9915382
AutoresHai Yang (0000-0002-9719-1813, autor de correspondencia), Hayley Walker (0000-0003-1368-1338)
Año2025
Volumen101
Número2
Páginas439-458
Fecha de publicación2025-03-03
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaInternational Affairs (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0020-5850 • E-ISSN: 1468-2346
EditorialOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/ia/iiae321
OpenAlexW4406851349
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas6

Our study examines how international organizations seek to legitimate non-state actor engagement to elite audiences, using the secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change as an illustrative case. We employ the prism of legitimation, a process whereby international organizations justify their institutional designs, decision-making procedures and policy outcomes with a view to enhancing legitimacy. We unpack legitimation along two vectors: normative and operational. Normative legitimation seeks to justify a particular norm, while operational legitimation explains how the organization meets a norm—or why it fails to do so. The latter constitutes a blind spot in existing literature. Based on a qualitative analysis of official documents and interviews with climate secretariat officials, we present two findings. First, the secretariat has sought to justify the need for non-state actor engagement by accentuating its significance for procedural and performance legitimacy. Second, in response to contestation over its engagement practices, the secretariat advances operational claims. It has underscored multiple constraints to its agency, the tension between ever-rising audience demands and a finite supply of engagement opportunities, and a unique organizational environment. Our analysis highlights the need to recognize the complex operational realities international organizations face when making normative demands or gauging the appropriateness of global governance

Business · Climate change · Climate governance · Corporate governance · Global governance · Political economy · Political science · Sociology · State (computer science · Computer Science · Geology · International Development and Aid · Oceanography