Türkiye’s multi-stakeholder engagement in global governance: governmental and NGO normative deliberations within ECOSOC

This research explores Türkiye’s governmental and nongovernmental engagements with ECOSOC. Addressing the notable lack of scholarly attention to Türkiye’s multi-stakeholder participation in normative governance within the UN, the study contributes to understanding Turkish governmental and civil society engagement in ECOSOC as a global governance forum for norm-making and deliberation on development goals. Employing a grounded research design, the study analyses oral and written statements by the Turkish government and accredited Turkish NGOs in ECOSOC meetings. The findings show that governmental representatives primarily endorse global partnership and development-financing norms while contesting some of their foundational principles under the guise of sovereignty, national ownership, and burden-sharing. Accredited NGOs, by contrast, advance rights-based, gender-just, and participatory interpretations of developmental objectives, particularly gender and youth goals. The intricate dynamics of normative validation and contestation are influenced by Türkiye’s oscillation between a democracy-promoting model country and a competitive middle power, whose contributions to the implementation of developmental goals have been increasingly shaped by its evolving governance trajectory. Consequently, ECOSOC has functioned both as a platform for the government to assert its normative identity and as a venue for accredited Turkish NGOs to either expand their capacity to influence global norms or directly challenge governmental agendas on the global stage.