Politics of Legitimacy Via Deliberative Fora? The World Economic Institutions and Their Critics

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International institutions are under pressure, confronted with open critique towards their procedures and the outcomes they generate. Not only states but civil society as well is targeting international institutions. Especially the world economic institutions have suffered from recurring waves of protests by civil society organizations. In consequence, all of them have established dialogue forums to open up to their critics and to re-establish their legitimacy. Initially heralded as a major change for the inclusion of civil society in global governance, these forums have recently been harshly criticized as mere talk shops and failures. Is this critique justified? Why do the forums not meet the expectations they have raised? The proposed research project analyzes the institutional design of and practice within the dialogue forums of four major world economic institutions: the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (a shared forum), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the G7/8, and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) over time to understand how the forums have developed and to investigate which factors are responsible for this development.