Inclusion in country delegations during transnational negotiations provides non-state actors (NSAs) considerable advantages: it allows NSAs to prepare negotiations with policymakers, it allows NSAs to contact policymakers directly during the conferences, and it allows NSAs to gather valuable information on the progress of negotiations. Despite these advantages, we know surprisingly little about why states include NSAs in country delegations. In this paper I propose two general purposes: increase of legitimacy and information supply. I expect legitimization purposes to vary across the level of democracy, while information demand varies across a country’s level of development. For the empirical analysis I, first, analyze all NSAs that participated in country delegations during UN climate conferences between 1997-2012 (n=1,154). To evaluate the inclusive nature of country delegations, I, then, compare the population of NSA ‘insiders’ with the broader population of NSAs that participated during the conferences as observers (n=6,655).
