Explaining Non-State Actor Participation in International Organizations

Non-state actors (NSAs), like business associations, trade unions, and NGOs, have increasingly come to participate in the policy-making processes of international organizations (IOs). While some point to the democratizing effect this could have on global governance, others suggest that the trend may produce participation patterns skewed in favor of NSAs representing specific interests, most prominently business associations, to the detriment of NSAs representing broader, diffuse interests, like environmental or consumer organizations. Yet case-study evidence suggests a more complex picture, with participation patterns varying significantly across issue areas, between IOs, and over time. This paper maps these variations in specific and diffuse NSA participation, and identifies their drivers. In so doing, it offers a two-fold contribution. Theoretically, it integrates international relations theory and interest group theory to explain patterns of specific and diffuse NSA participation in IO bodies, pitting a rational functionalist explanation against one emphasizing IOs’ need to ensure political support. Empirically, it relies on a new data set covering NSA participants in the policy-making bodies of global IOs between 1998 and 2017. Whereas previous research has tended to focus on single IOs or issue areas, this paper is the first to analyze specific and diffuse NSA participation in a large number of IO bodies over time. The paper has implications for our understanding of IOs as either functional solutions to international governance problems, or increasingly politicized entities, and for normative evaluations of NSA participation in IOs.