Legitimating non-state actor engagement in global climate governance

Abstract 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.