ABSTRACT
What is the role of non-diplomatic actor agencies: International organizations and NGOs—in complex multilateral communication? The answer to this question has served as the principal starting point for the advancement of a multitude of theories, approaches, and analytical perspectives. Beginning with theories of international relations, in which international organizations as well as NGOs were assigned a secondary role, and progressing to global governance, in which non-state organizations stood as autonomous bureaucratic organizations, many approaches viewed non-state agencies as an autonomous environment for states. Sociological theory has largely focused on institutions as international regimes thus not incorporating the organizational nature of international institutions. This chapter argues that institutional networks have built on international institutions that comprise both the organizational characteristics of international bureaucracies and norm-setting principles of international institutions. Moreover, this chapter investigates the networks of non-state stakeholders that are part of the complex networks of the UN Human Rights Council—NGOs and corporate actors. These networks reflect the institutional process of the “NGOization” of the UN system and the UN Human Rights Council in particular. The chapter discusses the typology of non-governmental stakeholders, their cohesiveness, the main core, subgroups, and the distribution of roles within this non-governmental level.
