Developing State Capacity: The Missing Variable for Corporate Social Responsibility?. Issue 3 (September 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hira, Anil
• Other Names: Hira Anil guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Journal of developing societies. Volume 36:Issue 3(2020)
• Page Start: 290
• Page End: 311
• Publication Date: 2020-09
• Subjects: Corporate social responsibility -- global governance -- private regimes -- state capacity -- labor standards -- triple bottom line; Developing countries -- Politics and government -- Periodicals; Developing countries -- Social conditions -- Periodicals; Developing countries -- History -- Periodicals; 909.09724
• DOI: 10.1177/0169796X20962878
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0169-796X

Abstract

The emergence of "corporate social responsibility" (CSR) among Western multinationals reflects doubts about governments in the South to regulate production as well as a vacuum of global regulatory capacity and authority. In response to criticism, media shaming, and protests from NGOs and civil society organizations centered around labor and environmental concerns, corporations began to organize a global public regime, as reflected in the Global Compact, in the 1990s. CSR is the focus of both national and global agreements, with companies starting to work with international organizations and NGOs in emerging CSR "mixed regimes." Yet there are inherent contradictions in both CSR and mixed regimes, ones that can only be resolved by reasserting a more activist role for the developing state.