This paper examines the failure of materialisation COP26’s stakeholder inclusion discourse and its subsequent delegitimation. Despite the UNFCCC’s promises of inclusion, COP26 failed to translate its aspirational vision of inclusion, framed as a normative governance principle, into practice. This study contributes to the literature on organisational legitimacy by demonstrating that delegitimation can arise from the failure to materialise an aspirational idea of inclusion for two reasons: (a) the clash between two competing interpretations of inclusion - one as a normative governance principle and the other as a legal framework of representation; and (b) the materialisation of these competing interpretations into artefacts (treaty, badges, zones, and online platforms) that, due to their conflicting interactions, reinforced perceptions of exclusion, leading to stakeholder disengagement and the delegitimation of COP26. We also extend the concept of moral entrapment, showing how ambitious promises can be limited by the very artefacts meant to materialise them.
