This thesis investigates the dark sides of stakeholder engagement at the transnational,

national and organisational levels in settings addressing social and environmental problems such

as climate change, and public health crises. While stakeholder engagement has become a central

governance principle, particularly within multi-stakeholder frameworks, this principle has faced

significant challenges when implemented in practice. Tensions arise from conflicting values,

unequal power dynamics, governance obstacles, and competing stakeholder expectations. These

tensions often result in conflict, disengagement and disinformation.

The research examines these dark by-products of stakeholder engagement through three

distinct but interconnected dimensions. The first explores the normative principle of stakeholder

inclusion, arguing for a reconceptualisation of inclusion to embrace conflict as an inherent part of

the engagement process. The second dimension pertains to the materialisation of the stakeholder

inclusion principle in transnational governance settings, focusing on the UNFCCC COP26 summit

and its attempts to broaden stakeholder inclusion. The third dimension addresses online

stakeholder engagement within violent environments, mainly targeting the problem of

disinformation and actors’ loss of motivation in fighting it.

This thesis advances knowledge on how organisations can navigate the complexities of

stakeholder engagement when addressing pressing societal and environmental challenges first by

focusing on stakeholder inclusion as a fundamental principle of responsible governance and

reconceptualising it as conflictual/agonistic, with implications on how to reconfigure the

engagement spaces and inclusion strategies more effectively; secondly, it explains the negative

role of material elements and how their conflicting interactions lead to the failure of

materialisation of the principle of inclusion, with the outcomes of stakeholder disengagement from

organisational activities and organisational delegitimation; finally it illustrates how debunking

work and stakeholder engagement in online violent contexts can be sustained using emotional

energy replenishment mechanisms.

In doing so, this thesis contributes to the broader conversation on fostering more effective

and conflict-sensitive inclusive governance.