Introduction: Rethinking Stakeholder Participation in Global Governance

International institutions frequently make rules, standards, or policies that affect stakeholders who did not have a say in the process. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, for example, whose standards are set by a small group of states, have been adopted in more than a hundred jurisdictions. Historically, developing countries and representatives of non-commercial interests in civil society have been mostly marginalized or even entirely excluded. Scholars and practitioners alike have called for greater participation of such disregarded stakeholders. Against this background, in the past decade, many global governance bodies have undertaken institutional reforms with the declared purpose of boosting stakeholder participation. This book brings together scholars and practitioners to investigate the consequences of these stakeholder participation reforms: Have these reforms resulted in actual increases in participation? Have they improved the voice and influence of marginalized stakeholders? What effect have the reforms had on the legitimacy and effectiveness of rule-making? The book focuses on global finance governance and global health governance, covering treaty-based intergovernmental organizations alongside new forms of global governance, such as transgovernmental regulatory networks, multi-stakeholder partnerships, and private standard setting bodies. It compares the experiences of large emerging powers and smaller or lower-income developing countries (Brazil vs. Argentina, China vs. Vietnam, India vs. the Philippines) in a diverse set of organizations, including the World Bank; the World Health Organization; the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision; the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; the International Accounting Standards Board; the Codex Alimentarius Commission; and more.