When does the structural power of business fade? Assessing business privileged access at global climate negotiations

Which non-state actors gain privileged access to policymakers during global environmental negotiations? This paper offers a first systematic answer to this question. I argue that, overall, business non-state actors gain more access to policymakers compared to NGOs. Importantly however, the privileged position of business groups becomes less pronounced – sometimes even disappears – if countries are more developed, less reliant on fossil fuels, more democratic, or the impact of climate change is higher for a country. For the empirical analysis, I first analyzed all business groups and NGOs that participated in country delegations at UN climate conferences between 1997 and 2012 (n = 3,734). To evaluate privileged access, I compare actors which gained access to country delegations (n = 804) with the organizations that participated during the conferences as observers (n = 2,930). The results confirm that business has more privileged access in general but not in all countries.