Efforts to include a broader set of actors, knowledges and values in environmental decision-making have been promoted as a key remedy to technocratic decision-making and environmental degradation, and as instrumental for better decisions and democratic empowerment. Yet, such inclusive efforts yield uncertain results and entail various theoretical and practical problems, not least when environmental problems are increasingly complex and transgress political-geographic boundaries. We therefore need to take a step back from the normative presupposition that public involvement will enhance environmental governance with a more agnostic approach to its outcomes in terms of legitimate actors and issues: How are alliances created between issues and actors in relation to specific problems? How are stakes recognized as legitimate and tied to specific groups of actors and scales? What is the relation between governments’ inclusive approaches and visions of socio-technical progress and alternative socio-technical imaginaries of the future? This paper will discuss the contributions in this special issue in relation to these questions. The examples brought up by the authors can all be seen as practices in which legitimate participants and stakes are made real and with various scaling effects and possible futures as a result.