The Representativeness of Global Deliberation: A Critical Assessment of Civil Society Consultations for Sustainable Development
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12371 |
| Date | 01 February 2017 |
| Published date | 01 February 2017 |
The Representativeness of Global Deliberation:
A Critical Assessment of Civil Society
Consultations for Sustainable Development
Carole-Anne S
enit
Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI), Paris, and
Utrecht University
Frank Biermann and Agni Kalfagianni
Utrecht University
Abstract
During the negotiations of the Sustainable Development Goals, the United Nations consulted worldwide nearly ten million
people for their views. Such proliferating megaconsultations are often uncritically accepted as a remedy for an assumed
democratic deficit of intergovernmental institutions. We argue, however, that the potential of civil society consultations to
democratize global governance is constrained by the limited legitimacy of these consultations in the first place. Global consul-
tations regularly fail to include civil society actors from developing countries, or show other sociodemographic biases. Also,
they often fail to strengthen accountability between citizens, international organizations and governments. In this article, we
investigate the causes of this phenomenon by exploring the relationship between the design of consultations and their demo-
cratic legitimacy. The basis for our argument is an in-depth empirical study of three consultations carried out during the nego-
tiations of the Sustainable Development Goals. We find that design is an important variable to explain the overall legitimacy
of consultations. Yet its exact role is sometimes unexpected. Extensive material resources and open access conditions do not
systematically enhance the legitimacy of the studied consultations. Instead, developing clear objectives, allocating sufficient
time to participants, and formally binding the consultation to the negotiations hold considerably more promise.
Policy Implications
•Develop a clear set of objectives for consultations and bind it in an accountable way to the negotiations for which public
input is sought.
•Involve civil society in the design and dissemination of consultations to increase ownership and improve inclusiveness
and accountability.
•Carry out consultations at an early stage of negotiations to allow for greater inclusiveness.
•Secure more resources for consultations with restricted access to improve representativeness in the sample of participants.
•Allocate sufficient time to participants to read and react on the various proposals and take into account time zone differ-
ences.
•Encourage the participation of government representatives in consultations to increase accountability.
1. Civil society consultations and democratic
policy making at the global level
Today civil society participation is considered key to resolve
a perceived democratic legitimacy deficit in global policy
making on sustainable development. Theorists of global
democracy propose different alternatives to enhance partici-
pation. While ‘cosmopolitans’argue that civil society partici-
pation should be linked to global political representatives
(Bohman, 2010; Held, 1995; Held and Koenig-Archibugi,
2005), ‘critical approaches’advocate for participation outside
formal institutions (Dryzek, 2000, 2006, 2010; Dryzek et al.,
2011). Both perspectives have been criticized for relying on
national democratic practice and denying the legitimate
desire of civil society to directly engage in intergovernmen-
tal institutions, respectively (Cochran, 2002; Smith and Bras-
sett, 2008). A third, ‘liberal’approach favours the
institutionalization of civil society participation in existing
intergovernmental institutions (B€
ackstrand, 2006; Cohen and
Sabel, 1997, 2005; MacDonald, 2008). Since the 1992 UN
Conference on Environment and Development, formal con-
sultations have been increasingly used by governments and
international organizations to solicit public input into global
policy making on sustainable development. This culminated
©2016 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Global Policy (2017) 8:1 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12371
Global Policy Volume 8 . Issue 1 . February 2017
62
Research Article
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