GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE GOVERNANCE AND PRIVATE DIPLOMACY: THE CASE OF TRANSNATIONAL THINK TANKS

Abstract One of the most pressing questions regarding global climate change governance concerns how and under what conditions non-state diplomacy matters? Earlier research shows that this form of diplomacy is of importance, but little is known as to how. This project studies how transnational think tanks, e.g.

World Economic Forum and World Business Council for Sustainable Development, construct and shape “private diplomacy”.

How and by what measures are these commonly corporate funded organizations partaking in and influencing climate change governance?

A key theoretical concern of the project regards the social and symbolic forms of capital that transnational think tanks draw upon in their struggles over key assumptions within climate change governance. The project is led by Adrienne Sörbom, in close cooperation with Christina Garsten and Ulrik Jennische.

The group has in previous studies successfully followed transnational think tanks by ethnographic measures. In these studies secrecy, discretion and seclusion formed key ingredients for gaining leverage in global governance.

As the same type of actors are active also in climate change negotiations as back-channel agents, the group will interview and shadow the work of these actors in relation to the UNFCCC and COP-meetings.

Their practices are exemplar of the contradictions between transparency and accountability on the one hand, and efficiency of secluded diplomacy on the other that underlie climate change governance.