The Alliance of Small Island States – An Equal Player in International Climate Negotiations?

International climate negotiations are among other things characterized by an increasing diversity of interest-based state coalitions. One of the oldest and most vocal coalitions is the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), an association of 43 low-lying and island developing states. It has been especially influential in the preparation of the Kyoto Protocol (KP) in the mid 1990s, and has strongly advocated for the extension of KP's mandate and/or for a legally binding and ambitious agreement to step in after 2012. In the corresponding more recent international negotiations, AOSIS's success rate has been rather mixed. On the one hand, the coalition managed to enduringly shape the negotiation agenda. On the other hand, the coalition's main demands – ambitious and encompassing emission reduction commitments and a legally binding agreement – have not been reflected in the actual outcomes. In the paper, which is mainly based on own empirical qualitative research conducted at various Conference of the Parties (COP) meetings of the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (UNFCCC), we analyze AOSIS's strategies in multilateral climate negotiations and the conditions of the coalition's success/ failure herein. Particularly, we focus on epistemic injustice as a possible explanatory variable – that is, the stereotypisation of AOSIS's members and the denial of being recognized as an equal negotiation partner. This might result for example in the exclusion from informal negotiation settings. Through this analytical perspective we contribute to the emerging academic literature of International Political Theory, which has not least been concerned with the applicability of the Habermasian model of deliberative democracy to international processes. It promises the improvement of collectively binding decisions through an inclusive, transparent and open decision making process – a factor which also AOSIS repeatedly but not always successfully has been calling for in climate negotiations.