Participation and inequality ‘beyond the state’. An explorative study on the opportunities for participation of transnational civil society actors based on the example of institutions of global economic governance

该项目分析了“全球经济治理”制度背景下政治参与与不平等之间的相互作用。问题在于，国际组织对民间社会行动者参与对话论坛的开放，是否以及在多大程度上减少或加强了现有的不平等结构，或者它们是否甚至助长了全球政治中新形式的不平等的形成。该项目基于这样一种观察：自上世纪90年代末以来，世界经济组织越来越多地面临着从根本上缺乏合法性的指责，它们对此作出了回应，即建立所谓的对话论坛。这些论坛结合了根据地位的制度化但有区别的参与可能性和管理当局根据情况给予的参与。在编写本项目提案期间进行的初步经验观察表明，对话论坛至少应该在两个方面巩固和加强不平等现象，这些观察将在研究项目的框架内进行后续工作。首先，进行主题预选，其中不包括对现有全球秩序（政治不平等和关系不平等）的激进批评，其次，参与是否能够处理这些问题的讨论。在此背景下，该项目追求双重目标：首先，它旨在调查对话论坛的积极参与和不平等结构之间的相互作用。正如第一个探索性的考虑似乎表明的那样，新的不平等形式已经通过对话论坛形成，或者旧的形式，即对殖民主义和帝国主义的看法，已经继续？还是说，不平等结构正在被打破，世界经济问题正在被这些有剂量的参与形式政治化？演员出现在对话论坛中，他们代表了没有以这种形式预见到的其他观点、行为模式或话语动态，这一事实是否得到了发展？其次，该研究项目试图重建（跨国）民主和民主合法性的理念，这些理念指导和激励了一般的改革努力，特别是对话论坛。

The project analyses the interactions between political participation and inequality in the context of institutions of "global economic governance". The question is whether and to what extent the opening up of international organisations to the participation of civil society actors in dialogue forums has reduced or strengthened existing structures of inequality, or whether they have even contributed to the establishment of new forms of inequality in global politics.The project is based on the observation that world economic organisations have reacted to accusations of a fundamental lack of legitimacy, which they have increasingly been confronted with since the end of the 1990s, by setting up so-called dialogue forums. These forums combine institutionalized but differentiated possibilities of participation according to status with situationally granted participation by the governing authorities. Preliminary empirical observations carried out in the preparation of this project proposal, which are to be followed up in the framework of the research project, suggest that the dialogue forums are supposed to cement and reinforce inequalities in at least two respects. Firstly, a thematic pre-selection is made, which does not include radical critics of the existing global order (political inequality and inequality of relations) and, secondly, to take part in the discussion on the question of whether or not to be able to deal with them.Against this background, the project pursues a twofold objective: Firstly, it aims to investigate the interactions between the dosed participation in and by means of the dialogue forums on the one hand and inequality structures on the other. As the first exploratory considerations seem to suggest, new forms of inequality have formed through the Dialogue Forums, or old forms, i. e. with a view to colonialism and imperialism, have been continued? Or are inequality structures being broken up and world economic questions politicized by these dosed forms of participation? Does the fact that actors appear in the dialogue forums who represent other views, behavioural patterns or discursive dynamics that were not foreseen in this form develop? Secondly, the research project seeks to reconstruct the ideas of (transnational) democracy and democratic legitimacy that guide and inspire reform efforts in general and the dialogue forums in particular.