Informal Organisations – Formal(ised) Contestation: G20 Relations with Organised Civil Society

Most global economic institutions are dealing with contestation not only from (non-)member states but also from civil society. While it can seem as if protests only result in a viscous circle of increasing security measures, most economic institutions have actually started to open up to civil society (compare Tallberg et al. 2013). Evolving from a culmination of violent contestation in the 1990s, civil society participative formats, often in the form of so-called Dialogue Forums, have been implemented with the hope of making an institution (appear) more democratic. Although (scarce) research on these forums questions their intentions and impact (Deitelhoff 2012; Hack 2019), and practitioners have boycotted them in the past, the format is flourishing. While legitimacy research often focusses on states and bureaucracies, the effort poured into these outreach formats clearly illustrates that institutions take civil society seriously as a legitimacy constituency - Warranting further research that accounts for civil society as legitimacy audience in its multiplicity and furthermore examines not only civil society demands from international organisations but more so expectations that IOs might have of civil society. Therefore, this paper analyses the G20’s relationship, expectations and perception of civil society over time, comprehending civil society not as a monolithic but as a diverse legitimacy constituency within the international realm. The G20 outreach process takes a specific form, in that there is not only one central Dialogue Forum, but eight officially acknowledged (as of 2021), thematically differentiated, and self-organising Engagement Groups. These Groups, started with/ by the business community (B20) in 2010, have provided an increasingly formalising space of engagement and criticism. Additionally, there is a number of unofficial groups as well as engagement with CSOs outside of this process. Thus, the G20 maintains relations with various sectors of civil society in different stages of formalisation. A further dimension is added by the yearly rotating presidency, meaning that G20-civil society relations have to be newly negotiated every year. The paper’ analysis of G20-civil society relations will be mostly text-based, using official G20 declarations and documents as well as social media communication for content analysis. A discourse network analysis (following the approach by Leifeld) supports the examination of the dimensions relation and time. Research is supported by (online) participating observation of numerous Engagement Group meetings as well as by background interviews.