The Multi-Stakeholder Concept as Narrative : A Discourse Analytical Approach

Over the last 20 years, multi-stakeholder processes have developed into a kind of new blueprint of transnational coordination. Somewhat antithetic to its rise as a role model for legitimate governance arrangements, however, empirical case studies have found little evidence in support of this success. Quite to the contrary, the academic literature keeps lamenting the poor performance of multi-stakeholder arrangements. The growing discrepancy between expectations and performance of multi-actor approaches is itself an interesting issue to examine. A growing number of empirical studies, predominantly focusing on the environmental policy, aim to understand the potential causes of the model's failures and search for ways to reduce them. Another, perhaps less obvious option to approach this discrepancy is to reflect on the model itself and the potential reasons for its rising popularity despite well-known performance problems. The second option takes an interest in the relation between concept and practices of multi-stakeholderism and explores this relationship from a discourse analytical perspective. It argues that discursive representations of reality are always performative; they exert a powerful impact on political processes by shaping collective perceptions of problems and their solutions, and thereby giving meaning and direction to policy areas. This paper starts with a short introduction of the concept of political narratives and imaginaries followed by an overview of the discussion on multi-stakeholderism. The subsequent section empirically illustrates the performativity of the multi-stakeholder narrative