Affectedness in international institutions: promises and pitfalls of involving the most affected

ABSTRACTPersons and groups affected by the choices and actions of international institutions increasingly claim to have a say in their making. They challenge governments, international bureaucrats, and classic NGOs for lacking legitimacy and acting in ways that disregard too many people’s legitimate concerns. To study these recent developments, this collection brings together political science and international law scholars. Based on their observations, the introduction makes three major contributions: First, it conceptualises the rising involvement of affected persons’ organisations (APOs) in global governance as a turn to affectedness-participation. As the contributions to this collection demonstrate, affected persons and groups by now participate in many areas of global rule- and law-making. Second, the introduction shows that their participation addresses current legitimacy problems of international public policy making and transnational (self-)governance. APOs often make innovative policy demands, ar...