Calls to advance the democratization of sustainable development negotiations have recently proliferated. However, the participatory schemes set up by international organizations and governments have fallen short of answering to academic and empirical demands for global democracy, in particular by excluding the most marginalized actors from policymaking. Deliberative democrats argue that discursive representation may, in some contexts, overcome the shortcomings of actor-based representation and advance global democracy. To what extent, then, does discursive representation effectively contribute to the democratization of global policymaking by representing diverse interests, including those of marginalized actors? By performing a qualitative–quantitative discourse analysis of 122 primary documents issued during the formal sessions of negotiations of the Open Working Group on the Sustainable Development Goals, this article explores the extent to which different sustainability discourses that evolve in the public space got represented within authoritative circles of decision-making. While the negotiations on the Sustainable Development Goals involved more than ten million civil society voices and resulted in an agreement that claims to “transform our world” and “leave no-one behind,” the study shows that discursive representation was biased toward a progressive sustainability discourse, depicting a state-centric orientation of equity and responsibilities to address global sustainable development challenges. Besides, the coalitions that emerged between state and non-state actors on alternative sustainability discourses failed to increase the saliency of the interests of marginalized actors in the shaping of the goals. As the understandings of transformation and inclusiveness conveyed in the negotiations were biased toward the interests of the most represented actors in the Open Working Group, the article reveals that in the context of the negotiations on the Sustainable Development Goals the effectiveness of discursive representation in democratizing global policymaking was eventually limited.

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改变我们的世界？在可持续发展目标谈判中的话语代表性

推动可持续发展谈判民主化的呼声最近激增。然而，国际组织和政府设立的参与计划未能满足对全球民主的学术和经验要求，特别是将最边缘化的参与者排除在决策之外。协商民主主义者认为，在某些情况下，话语代表可以克服基于行动者代表的缺点并促进全球民主。那么，话语代表在多大程度上通过代表不同的利益有效地促进了全球决策的民主化？包括那些边缘化的演员？通过对可持续发展目标开放工作组正式谈判期间发布的 122 份主要文件进行定性-定量论述分析，本文探讨了在公共空间中演变的不同可持续性论述在多大程度上在权威机构中得到体现。决策圈。虽然关于可持续发展目标的谈判涉及超过 1000 万民间社会的声音，并达成了一项声称“改变我们的世界”和“不让任何人掉队”的协议，但该研究表明，话语表达偏向于渐进式的可持续性话语，描绘了以国家为中心的公平和责任取向，以应对全球可持续发展挑战。除了，国家和非国家行为者在替代可持续性话语方面出现的联盟未能提高边缘化行为者在制定目标方面的利益的显着性。由于谈判中传达的对转型和包容性的理解偏向于开放工作组中最具代表性的参与者的利益，文章揭示了在可持续发展目标谈判的背景下，话语代表在全球民主化方面的有效性决策最终受到限制。