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From Norms to Programs: The United Nations Global Compact and Global Governance
Abstract
Norms shape policy when they get translated into concrete programs. What if a widely shared norm gets translated into a weak program? How might this influence the program's legitimacy? We examine these issues in the context of the United Nations Global Compact, a voluntary program that embodies the widely shared norm of corporate responsibility. While both international intergovernmental organization (IGO) and international non-governmental organization (INGO) networks support this norm, they differ on the adequacy of the Compact's program design. We explore how this tension affects the diffusion of the Compact across countries, which vary in their levels of embeddedness in IGO and INGO networks. Our findings suggest that embeddedness in IGO networks encourages adoption, while embeddedness in INGO networks discourages it. Our analysis provides important lessons for sponsors of voluntary governance mechanisms. Widespread support for a norm does not automatically ensure support for a program that claims to embody it.
... 'Weak' or 'soft' MSIs encourage learning and best practice approaches to achieving the objectives they endorse. They provide relatively few means by which the achievement of their principles might be enforced (Berliner & Prakash, 2012;Mena & Palazzo, 2012). Analogically, they have been referred to as the 'nurturing parent' model (Haack & Scherer, 2014). ...
... Soft MSIs, and the UNGC in particular, have often been criticized for being little more than public relations exercises that enable participants to derive reputational benefits at little or no operational cost (Berliner & Prakash, 2012;Sethi & Schepers, 2014). The supporters of such MSIs, however, posit that softness can actually be a strength: it can enable participants to be "self-disciplined and self-reliant citizens" (Haack & Scherer, 2014: 231) with genuine commitment. ...
... The preceding analysis has demonstrated the utility of analytically differentiating between an MSI's statutory procedures, mechanisms and objectives in legitimacy conflicts. In supplementing prior work on the UNGC in particular, which has largely focused on the legitimacy of the UNGC's mechanisms (e.g., Berliner & Prakash, 2012;Haack & Scherer, 652 7. Another stance would have been possible for the UNGC. For example, the Dutch Pension giant ABP argued, when it divested from PetroChina in 2012, that an apparent unwillingness t o s u p p o r t h u m a n r i g h t s i s inconsistent with UNGC Principles 1 and 2 (IAG, 2012). ...
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Organizations need legitimacy to be able to operate effectively. Consequently, and just like their participants, multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) need to respond when faced with legitimacy challenges from external parties. We build on current theory to identify three organizational elements that can be made the subject of legitimacy critique – i.e., statutory procedures, objectives and mechanisms – and use these elements to structure our analysis of a conflict-ridden case concerning the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC). Whereas prior work suggests that organizations can respond to such conflicts in a fashion consistent with either moral entrapment or decoupling, we show that organizations can also respond by deflating their statutory procedures and objectives. A deflationary response can help organizations maintain their validity by diminishing the ability of external parties to advance propriety-legitimacy critiques against them. By examining this alternative response, we expand the scope and refine the analytic detail by which organizational legitimacy conflicts can be investigated.
... Another relevant external stakeholder recognized by many authors is the government (e.g., Berliner and Prakash, 2012;Knudsen, 2011;Mele and Schepers, 2013). Rasche (2009b) states in his conceptual work that governments set up regulatory frameworks at the national (sometimes supranational) level to facilitate the implementation of UNGC principles in the companies operating in their territories. ...
... The first internal factor underlined by some scholars (Berliner and Prakash, 2012;Fritsch, 2008) is the intensity of commercial dealings with countries presenting more advanced CSR performance. Lim and Tsutsui (2012) empirically demonstrate that countries and corporations that export to countries with more UNGC companies are more likely to adopt CSR frameworks. ...
... The same concept is underlined in Fritsch (2008) conceptual paper. Other authors (Berliner and Prakash, 2012;Perkins and Neumayer, 2010) extend this factor to a national perspective, empirically demonstrating that if a country exports mainly to markets characterized by a high density of UNGC participants, this would be associated with higher domestic participation. A second internal factor is firm size. ...
The United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) is one of the most important corporate social responsibility initiatives; its aim is to align companies’ strategies and operations with principles that involve human rights, labor, the environment, and anti-corruption. After approximately 15 years of research on the UNGC, we provide a systematic literature review on this topic. We start with a keyword search of 96 papers on the UNGC. We then code these papers based on a deductive–inductive approach and classify them by year of publication, publication outlet, research focus, methodology, and underpinning theory. We frame and summarize the debate on the five main topics of UNGC literature, namely motivations driving the companies toward UNGC adoption, weaknesses, impacts, contextual factors affecting adoption, and contextual factors affecting performance. For each of the five streams of research, we identify several factors or variables that enrich the knowledge of it. Building on these findings, we identify various research gaps and develop a set of hypotheses for future empirical validation that are grounded on prominent theoretical frameworks, such as the stakeholder theory (in combination with the Human Resource Management literature) and the signal theory.
... These conditions are characteristic of the more 'coordinated market economies', as opposed to rather 'liberal market economies' (see Hall & Soskice, 2001;Jackson & Apostolakou, 2010 Pavelin, & Porter, 2006) or embeddedness in international (non-)governmental organization networks (Berliner & Prakash, 2012). ...
... Its purpose is to enrich our knowledge of the impact of the initiative on the business par-UNGC participation duration. While scholars have predominantly referred to problems with 'weak' standard designs(Behnam & MacLean, 2011;Berliner & Prakash, 2012), my findings suggest that voluntary CSR initiatives may indeed impact organizational practices, even in the absence of strict compliance and enforcement measures. Overall, I found UNGC implementation to be higher for longer UNGC participants than for newer ones. ...
... The Global Compact provides a common platform for companies to report their CSR related policies and practices. It embeds many of the normative debates into its ambit (Berliner & Prakash, 2012) to make corporates more proactive in accepting their social responsibilities (Schembera, 2018). However, it is rooted in voluntary reporting that depends on the initiatives of the participating corporations. ...
... However, it is rooted in voluntary reporting that depends on the initiatives of the participating corporations. Berliner and Prakash (2012) point out the observations of Compact's 2008 Annual Review indicating that 'not all Global Compact principles are covered with the same level of detail,' that 'there is a wide disparity with regard to information available per principle,' and that 'reported information is not comprehensive, communications on progress focusing more on commitments and management systems than on materiality, performance and achievements'. Even the recent report submitted by corporations on Global Compact suggests that the situation has more or less remained the same till date. ...
Abstract The absence of consensus on what should constitute Corporate Social Responsibility has inhibited consistent CSR legislation around the world. This paper poses a fundamental question on what should constitute CSR and what should be the nature of CSR regulation? By constructing the boundaries of CSR, the paper offers scope for consistently developing CSR regulation around the world. It construes CSR as consisting of business relation and impact relation, and demonstrates that these are intertwined with legal responsibilities of business and, consequentially, with accountability. It accomplishes this by establishing the obligatory nature of responsibilities using the lens of ethical and legal jurisprudence. This new approach towards CSR recasts it as an obligatory responsibility that is linked to accountability. Furthermore, the framework provides a foundation for consistent development of CSR regulation across different countries that can lead to effective discharge of corporates’ social responsibilities.
... Other NGOs are fundamentally opposed to business self-regulation. For example Greenpeace has opposed business initiatives such as the United Nations Global Compact due to concerns that its enforcement mechanisms are too weak (Berliner and Prakash 2012). These NGOs believe that weak voluntary mechanisms are used mainly to protect the reputation of businesses but do not result in meaningful behavioural changes. ...
... While the distinction between the different capabilities and interests of NGOs has been made in the literature by Keck and Sikkink (1999), and Berliner and Prakash (2012), the cases illustrate the way these distinctions can affect the regulatory process. ...
Who has the capacity to regulate production in transnational supply chains and whose interests does this serve? This focus of this thesis is on transnational regulation, specifically the identification of the actors who participate in setting and implementing regulatory agendas, their interests, capacity and interactions between them. Transnational regulation is the regulation of activities which take place across national jurisdictions. State and non-state actors are direct participants in transnational regulatory regimes and non-state actors may play leading roles in their development and implementation. While work has been done which examines the roles that non-state actors play in transnational regulatory processes, there has been limited investigation into the relationships between state and non-state actors on transnational standard setting and implementation. The Governance Triangle, developed by Abbott and Snidal (2009) is a framework that positions the relationships between states, businesses and NGOs as central to transnational regulation. They argue that cooperation is necessary between these groups for there to be sufficient capacity to regulate a transnational problem. However, due to the divergent interests of these actors and the distribution of bargaining powers between them, they posit transnational regulatory standards are likely to be dominated by business interests and will be sub-optimal. This thesis explores the question of whether transnational regulatory programmes dominated by business organizations are necessarily lacking regulatory capacity and whether they remain that way over time by studying the emergence and evolution of two cases of industry selfregulation designed to improve labour standards in the production of toys and chocolate. Building upon the Governance Triangle, this thesis makes three key findings: 1) Bargaining in transnational regulation is not always distributional and that it is possible for actors to cooperate to identify and develop frameworks for transnational regulatory problems. 2) Interactions within one actor type and interactions involving all three actor groups can shape power dynamics in the bargaining process and 3) Regulation that is dominated by business actors does begin as sub-optimal. However, over time new bargaining processes can be initiated which lead to incremental developments in the capacity of a system to regulate. This thesis also contributes to the literature on non-state actors in regulation by identifying the actors which participate in transnational regulatory processes and their motivation and capacity to do so. It identifies two new sources of regulatory capacity: individual policy entrepreneurs and the media.
... . For instance,Berliner and Prakash (2012) emphasize companies' social learning effects.Hyeyoon Park • 19Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/glep/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/glep_a_00707/2153201/glep_a_00707.pdf by guest on 12 August 2023 ...
China became one of the biggest players in the global extractive resource supply chain, along with increasing extractive resource demand for green industries. Interestingly, over the last two decades, Chinese actors started participating in transnational extractive governance initiatives (TEGI) supporting transparency, a norm for governance-by-disclosure. This article aims to answer the question of what types of Chinese actors engage in what TEGIs regarding transparency. Based on mapping forty-eight TEGIs, this article shows a nuanced pattern of China’s involvement in extractives governance beyond a dualistic approach to China in global governance—whether China is a threat or nonthreat. Importantly, China does not act as a unified monolithic actor; rather, different types of actors engage TEGIs distinctively. Chinese corporations are most actively engaging in thin transparency TEGIs lacking stringent verification rules and featuring limited multistakeholder participation. It could potentially accelerate the risk of green washing of those companies and disempower weaker actors.
... Common to these initiatives is a growing tendency for the need for a form of standard and norm (Dashwood, 2020), as many of them face criticism that they are mere recommendations without internal mechanisms of control and enforceability. The lack of such mechanisms reduces their value as an instrument of economic management, on the one hand, and a potential tool for the development of international relations, on the other (Berliner & Prakash, 2012). ...
... Common to these initiatives is a growing tendency for the need for a form of standard and norm (Dashwood, 2020), as many of them face criticism that they are mere recommendations without internal mechanisms of control and enforceability. The lack of such mechanisms reduces their value as an instrument of economic management, on the one hand, and a potential tool for the development of international relations, on the other (Berliner & Prakash, 2012). ...
... Corporations adopt voluntary frameworks to signal their CSR to external actors such as citizens, policymakers and NGOs (Cao and Prakash 2011). To measure CSR adoption, we follow established practice (Berliner andPrakash 2012, Lim andTsutsui 2012, van den Broek 2021) and use two widely endorsed global CSR frameworks. Our argument about the relationship between lobbying and CSR implies that CSR strategies take the political context in account. ...
This paper explores the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) as an element in a corporation’s political action repertoire. Previous research has studied lobbying and CSR as a distinct means by which corporations seek to manage their non-market environment. Analyzing CSR as a political activity, we argue that corporations engage in CSR for the same reasons that prompt them to engage in lobbying. More specifically, we expect corporations to adopt CSR frameworks that are suitable to enhance their reputation in a given political arena. To evaluate this argument, we analyze the lobbying and CSR behavior in the EU and USA of over 2000 corporations from around the world. Our results show that lobbying and adopting CSR frameworks can be predicted by similar empirical models. Moreover, controlling for common predictors and endogeneity, lobbying in the EU is associated with an increased likelihood of a corporation adopting an appropriate CSR framework. However, corporations that lobby in Washington DC become less likely to engage in CSR the more they spend on lobbying. These findings shed new light on the relationship between lobbying and CSR while highlighting important differences in corporate non-market behavior across political arenas.
... Initiatives might do this, for example, by conscientiously allowing for the public display of special CSR certifications or logos. This finding might also help to explain the dramatic global diffusion of certain CSR frameworks (Berliner & Prakash, 2012;Lim & Tsutsui, 2012). One possible reason that the Global Compact and Global Reporting Initiative, for example, have become among the most popular CSR frameworks worldwide is that they give companies a structured way of highlighting their good deeds in CSR reports that are publicly disseminated. ...
The classic question of why companies do corporate social responsibility (CSR) is central to much theoretical, regression-based, and experimental research. Guiding research into this question is a tripartite schema of normative, instrumental, and political CSR motivations that has become increasingly established in the CSR literature. This paper challenges the schema's status as a typology of equally plausible alternatives through an integration and analysis of a worldwide literature of 120 existing academic surveys on CSR motivation. Rather, the paper reformulates the schema into a surveyed ordering of CSR motivations that might be called “universal” in having remarkable stability across time periods, industries, company sizes, geographic regions, question formats, types of survey respondents, and types of survey producers. The paper challenges the schema also by documenting robust internal heterogeneity that it conceals, particularly where instrumental motivations are concerned, which are among the most and least self-selected CSR motivations in our results.
... Reporting (Berliner and Prakash, 2012;Moran et al., 2014;Raufflet et al., 2014), is that the latter are much more general and provide less accountability -with the possible exception of GRI -and do not provide direct and simple communication with final consumers and supply chain business partners. For instance, in the case of UNGC it was demonstrated that UNGC members sometimes tend to enjoy the benefits of program membership without making costly changes to their human rights and environmental practices (Berliner and Prakash, 2015). ...
This article examines the current state and drivers of environmental transparency in the Russian Mining and Metals sector. The study is based upon 2016–19 successive annual rankings calculated transparently, using publicly available information and a third-party-verified ranking system. Ranking results reveal a definite in-crease in the transparency level of one of the most closed industries in Russia. The findings from the study show that a company’s presence in the stock markets has a positive impact on its openness in environmental matters. However, a company’s listing on an international stock exchange does not guarantee high environmental transparency. Some evidence of a correlation between ranking positions and participation of diversified financial-industrial groups in the share capital was also found. Overall, our analyses suggest that ESG (envi-ronmental, social and governance) management in the Russian mining and metals sector is only in the process of development. To overcome this, the environmental transparency ranking of mining and metals companies in Russia creates a new mechanism for raising public awareness and dialogue between the public and one of the most closed industries. The ranking initiated calculation of industry-average quantitative impact indicators that, as the sample grows, will transform into an important benchmark for corporate self-assessment when comparing Russian practices with those of the largest international and foreign mining and metal companies across the globe
... While facilitating businesses' self-regulation, officials should be careful not to sponsor voluntary programs or production practices that enjoy low legitimacy among regulatees (Fiorino, 2009;Hu¨lsse, 2008), maintain lower standards than widely shared industrial norms (Berliner and Prakash, 2012), or allow for agency "slippage" given information asymmetry between regulators and regulatees (Prakash and Gugerty, 2010). At times, the approach requires officials to be "educators" (Carter, 2016;Lo et al., 2009), assimilating regulatory information for regulatees and providing them with technical assistance to promote behavioral modifications (Lee, 2011). ...
How street-level organizations enforce regulations carries important governance implications. Through reviewing the regulatory enforcement literature and categorizing it into three broad governance modes, this article discusses the individual and organizational capacity prerequisites for street-level organizations to enact the corresponding government–society relationship and improve governance outcomes. Through analyzing enforcement challenges faced by street-level officers in Beijing’s recent food safety reform, the article also identifies the essential capacities for street-level organizations to regulate under a legal-hierarchical governance mode. The article hopes to inspire further research to uncover specific governance capacity requirements for other administrative organizations under different governance modes.
Points for practitioners
Apart from policy effectiveness, government regulators should also sometimes pay attention to their impacts on governance. Despite frontline regulators’ discretion, street-level organizations may improve governance outcomes by devising and implementing regulatory enforcement programs and strategies in line with the governance mode the government is engaged in as what they do enacts the specific government–society relationship in the governing process. Administrators in charge of street-level organizations may benefit from cultivating capacities essential to actualizing the respective governance mode. Absence of these capacities is likely to undermine governance effectiveness.
... Strong environmental performance should also decrease compliance costs of stringent VEPs for firms (Darnall et al. 2009). Firms with strong environmental performance are also in better positions to benefit more from stringent programs because they facilitate learning networks with other high performing participants, where high environmental performers can collaborate on extending their competitive advantages (Berliner & Prakash, 2012). ...
We meta-analyze research on why firms join voluntary environmental programs (VEP) to assess the impact of program stringency, or the extent to which they have rigorous, enforceable standards on these decisions. Stringency creates trade-offs for firms by impacting programs’ effectiveness, legitimacy, and adoption costs. Most research consider singular programs and lack cross program variation needed to analyze program stringency’s impact. Our meta-analysis addresses this by sampling 127 studies and 23 VEPs. We begin by identifying common institutional and resource-based drivers of participation in the literature, and then analyze how program stringency moderates their impacts. Our results suggest that strictly governed VEPs encourage participation among highly visible and profitable firms, and discourage it when informal institutional pressures are higher, and firms have prior experience with other VEPs or quality management standards. We demonstrate that VEP stringency has nuanced effects on firm participation based on the institutional and resource-based factors facing them.
... Strong environmental performance should also decrease compliance costs of stringent VEPs for firms (Darnall et al. 2009). Firms with strong environmental performance are also in better positions to benefit more from stringent programs because they facilitate learning networks with other high performing participants, where high environmental performers can collaborate on extending their competitive advantages (Berliner & Prakash, 2012). ...
... Scholars argue that IGOs co-construct global norms that shape international policies and program designs (Berliner & Prakash 2012). IGOs also arguably serve a regulatory function that strengthens inter-state activities and shapes the institutional arrangements where public and private actors interact (Abbott & Snidal 2010). ...
The United Nations (UN) system comprises several intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) that are established to contribute to the functioning of the overall transnational system of delivering global public goods. However, many IGOs under the UN system are criticized for their failure to accomplish their mandates. Research argues that IGO boards serve as a governance mechanism that should be designed in order to effectively perform the monitoring function to ensure fulfillment of IGO mandates. Thus, using an inductive fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, this study explores 13 IGO boards under the UN system to identify the board designs that are associated with highly effective monitoring in IGOs. Our findings reveal a board design typology reflecting the interplay of the level of organizational complexity and the extent of distribution problem in IGOs. This research contributes to our understanding of IGO governance by underscoring the relationship between board designs and highly effective monitoring to help researchers and practitioners improve IGO performance.
... First, it is expected they are easier to develop and implement because they do not have to go through the checks and balances required for mandatory interventions, and they can target specific groups of firms or citizens rather than proposing a 'one size fits all' solution as mandatory interventions often do (Sheehy, 2011;Sik & Kriznik, 2017). Second, higher levels of acceptance and compliance are expected of voluntary programs because those targeted are often involved in their development (Lyon & Wren Montgomery, 2015), and because they voluntary commit to them rather than being forced to do so (Berliner & Prakash, 2012). Third, win-win outcomes are expected as those committing to voluntary programs gain-through financial, information, or other rewards-and the targeted cities gain by seeing reduced carbon emissions (Hayden, 2014). ...
Voluntary urban climate programs challenge firms and citizens to reduce resource consumption and carbon emissions at city level but without the force of law. High hopes are expressed about their capacity to accelerate a transition towards low-carbon building and city (re)development. This article explores, maps, and interrogates a global trend of voluntary urban climate programs, with a specific focus on action-networks, performance recognition programs, and eco-financing for low-carbon building initiatives. It finds that, thus far and within the boundaries of the literature reviewed, voluntary programs for building initiatives have not contributed to resource consumption and carbon emissions reductions at a level that will help achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement (i.e., staying under 1.5°C). It concludes with approaches that will help to make better use of these programs.
... The O&G sector lacks certification schemes like those currently in use in "soft commodities" sectors, such as the Forest Stewardship (Berliner & Prakash, 2012;Moran, Lodhia, Kunz, & Huisingh, 2014;Raufflet et al., 2014), are far more general and provide less accountability-with the possible exception of GRI-and do not provide direct and simple communication with consumers and supply chain business partners. For UNGC it was demonstrated that UNGC members sometimes tend to downplay their sustainability commitments: enjoying the benefits of program membership without making costly changes to their human rights and environmental practices (Berliner & Prakash, 2015). ...
The article discusses the evolution and current state of transparency of environmental performance data in the Russian Oil and Gas sector. We build upon our first-hand experience in a transparent , publicly available information and third-party-verified rating system. Based on 2014-16 successive annual ratings, we conclude that implementing "soft" responsibility mechanisms can improve environmental responsibility standards and transparency in the oil and gas industry. At the same time, in terms of improving environmental performance of oil and gas companies it is reasonable to assume an emerging trend. Its full realization will require (1) longer rating time, including that for public exposure to misleading environmental performance information and the use of poorly verified nonfinancial reporting; (2) application of independent analysis of satellite monitoring information to the professional audit and public verification of nonfinancial reporting; and (3) sophistication of guidelines for professional audit and public verification of nonfinancial reports.
KEYWORDS environmental impact, environmental management, environmental responsibility, information disclosure, rating, Russian oil and gas industry
... Similar to business school accreditation systems, UN initiatives such as PRME and the Global Compact are also commonly considered 'weak' initiatives from a sustainability standpoint as compliance standards are low and legitimacy concerns tend to drive accreditation(Berliner and Prakash 2012;Eiríksdóttir and Engelmark 2016). ...
The much-maligned field of economics has long had an uneasy relationship with ethical and value-based concepts such as sustainability . This chapter shows how a shift towards teaching a heterodox, socially and ecologically literate economics that is also sensitive towards questions of power , equity and justice can help overcome the autism the dominant neoclassical school of economics is standing accused of. Such an approach may not only serve to make the field more attractive again to students but also to help restore its relevance within the sustainability context.
... The article's first contribution consists in an insightful problem analysis based on the n-person prisoner's dilemma. In addition to the insights on the UNGC's implementation problems, this analytical tool can explain the moderate successes and weaknesses of both the learning-oriented (e.g., Kell and Levin 2003;Palazzo and Scherer 2010;Haack and Scherer 2014) and compliance-oriented (e.g., Berliner and Prakash 2012, 2014, 2015Sethi and Schepers 2014) solution approaches. The article's second contribution consists in pointing to the UNGC's limited prospects as a self-regulation approach to the establishment of the minimal state. ...
The United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) has difficulties in attracting new voluntary members and inciting them to implement its ten principles. The present article analyzes this implementation deficit from the perspective of Lockean social contract theory and derives new strategies for reducing it. On this view, the UNGC presents itself as the attempt to realize a set of moral norms, typically enforced by an impartial minimal state, protecting its citizens from violations of their natural rights, negative externalities and discrimination by bribed officials. It will only succeed in facilitating the realization of those norms on a strictly voluntary basis, if it manages to overcome the underlying n-person prisoner’s dilemma. This requires the existence of a critical mass k < N of conditionally moral firms, which are willing to observe the UNGC principles and to resist the temptation to free ride on their observance by others, if it does not disadvantage them in comparison to their situation in a state of universal non-observance. Four contracting problems can impede the conclusion of this Lockean social contract. The UNGC has a slim chance of overcoming its implementation deficit on a non-coercive basis by cultivating four institutional capabilities assisting conditionally moral firms in surmounting those four problems of voluntary norm compliance.
... First, this study tackles one important aspect of global governance: the IGOs (e.g., Bernstein & Cashore 2007;Pattberg 2005). Scholars argue that IGOs co-construct global norms that shape international policies and program designs (Berliner & Prakash 2012). IGOs also arguably serve a regulatory function that strengthens inter-state activities and shapes the institutional arrangements where public and private actors interact (Abbott & Snidal 2010). ...
... The article focuses on companies that are legal in the US and the UK and listed on the New York Stock Exchange (US firms) and the London Stock Exchange (UK firms). It selects large firms, which are defined as firms with more than 250 employees (Berliner and Prakash, 2012;Eurostat, 2016). A search for firms was carried out using the Orbis Database (see the Appendix A). ...
This article examines corporate social responsibility (CSR) pertaining to labor standards in apparel and tax transparency in extractives and explores how domestic regulatory traditions shape CSR in large international US and UK firms. Reflecting their more collaborative business-government traditions, British firms are more willing to join international CSR multi-stakeholder initiatives with business-critical actors such as unions and civil society actors. The US has a more top-down regulatory approach, which promotes hard law international CSR or encourages business-driven voluntary CSR initiatives. This article makes three contributions. First, it argues that while corporations are the key actors in international CSR, their behavior reflects their respective national business systems. Second, focusing on a range of international CSR initiatives, this article finds that UK firms are more interested in adopting international (multi-stakeholder) CSR initiatives than US firms. Finally, the article shows that the US and the UK governments play a key role in driving an international CSR agenda, and in doing this it highlights government agency more so than other research has.
... For example, UNGC signatories are given latitude to adopt Global Compact norms in their corporate policies as they wish, submitting annual Communications on Progress (COP) reports that are posted on the Global Compact's website. While critics have noted there is considerable variety in the depth and breadth of these reports (Berliner and Prakash 2012), they also acknowledge that the adoption of practices at the firm level is influenced by government commitments to the UN (Bennie et al. 2007). In sum, the firm-level identity of the UNGC, and its embeddedness, is important to enabling or constraining organizational decisions regarding how UNGC ideals translate into practice (Glynn and Raffaelli 2013), which are reflective of the UNGC as a form of explicit CSR. ...
This article analyzes the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) under the conceptual framework of explicit versus implicit corporate social responsibility (CSR) to better understand the operational and governance challenges behind this voluntary global initiative. Using institutional logics theory, we show how the UNGC is a practice that embodies seemingly competing logics. We suggest mechanisms to facilitate the interplay of implicit/explicit CSR and the co-existence of logics that might allow the UNGC to move forward while addressing its critics. We argue that failure to conceptualize the UNGC as a combination of explicit and implicit CSR leaves the UNGC subject to criticism that might be better directed toward organizations that fail to practice explicit CSR. While viewing the UNGC through an integrated CSR framework may not immediately reconcile its critics and proponents, combining elements of both may provide opportunities to posit collaborative solutions to improve the quality, outcome, and legitimacy of UNGC initiatives.
... Therefore, beyond internal firm characteristics, the external environment in which businesses operate is likely to be crucial in steering corporations towards corporate responsibility (Crouch and Maclean, 2011;Smith et al., 2010;Tsutsui and Lim, 2015). These studies, however, are only suggestive because they are limited to corporations of certain sizes, industries, and countries (Gallego, 2006;Mio, 2010), or have focused on simple membership counts in the GCR movement instead of levels of disclosure (Berliner and Prakash, 2012;Lim and Tsutsui, 2012). An important reason for these restrictions is practical: data on GCR and the corporations that comprise the movement are either unavailable or inconsistent across various countries, making cross-national generalizations about the GCR movement difficult. ...
In the domain of global corporate responsibility (GCR), international organizations have promoted disclosure as a means to address global concerns with corporations’ social and environmental practices. Business disclosure practices, however, remain uneven across organizations and countries. This article examines various field, national, and global factors that facilitate or mitigate GCR disclosure among corporations worldwide. Analyzing unique quantitative data on more than 1800 disclosure reports by corporations in more than 50 countries, this article presents two main findings. First, field-level factors are prominent but they influence disclosure levels in different ways. Third-party verification encourages greater disclosure, while peer organizations mitigate disclosure. Second, national and global factors influence disclosure differently in developed and developing countries. Business disclosure in developed countries is impacted by national factors while, in developing countries, disclosure is significantly influenced by global factors. The article concludes by discussing the implications of GCR disclosure for wider global corporate governance concerns.
This paper aims to argue the fundamental significance of education in addressing notable gaps in the constitutive, performance, and evaluation criteria for corporate social responsibility (CSR) and endeavours to showcase the complementarity between education, human security, sustainable human development, and the pursuit of CSR as an ideal normative paradigm. An abstractive approach to studying CSR engages with corporate philanthropy, which has not been helpful outside traditional CSR paradigms without looking at key dynamics that can robustly underpin successful CSR. It relies on the systematic analysis of written data sources to theoretically explore the central significance, and complementarity between human security, education, and human dignity and how they can orchestrate a holistic CSR paradigm. In 1994, the UNDP in formulating the human security doctrine recognised the syncretic correlation between human security, education, and sustainable human development as fundamental elements that should underpin CSR. This paper contends that these are necessary intrinsic components of human dignity as the central factor that justifies a multi-dimensional and proactive approach to CSR. Despite the criticisms against human security, this paper identifies it as an important concept that could instrumentally orchestrate a model of CSR that uniformly mainstreams sustainable human development and human dignity that leverages education which has routinely and traditionally been seen as a constitutive component of CSR. It reveals how a holistic path to CSR can reinvigorate the central pillars of human security and human dignity using education as a springboard and makes a compelling case for supporting explicit references to education in company law with appropriate human security informed constitutive, performance, and evaluation criteria which are absent in existing legally orchestrated CSR.
Over the past three decades norms research has become a subfield that matters beyond the boundaries of the discipline of International Relations. Like other such generative processes this subfield’s path is marked by debates over conceptual and methodological preferences. This book argues that irrespective of how we understand these divides, the critical question for today’s norms researchers becomes: how have our understandings of norms developed over this period? To address this question this book brings together a range of junior, mid-career, and senior scholars, working at the leading edge of norm research, across a diversity of issues and sub-fields, and using different epistemological perspectives. Two lenses feature in this endeavour: the first considers the history of norm research as a series of three distinct and theoretical moves (i.e., first creating an interest in ideas and social facts in IR, then focusing on norm adaptation, and finally shifting to a view of norms as processes), and the second examines the potential of practices of interpretation and contestation (which we term the ‘interpretation-contestation framework’) as a way of bringing together a range of theoretical tools to understand norm change, evolution, and replacement. In short, this book focuses on the past trajectory of the field to argue that norm research continues to hold significant potential and promise both about theorizing within IR, and for studying current issues and problems in world politics.
Over the past two decades, we have seen a significant shift in the norms literature away from the idea that a norm reflects a fixed and universally accepted shared understanding to notions that any norm – even those which appear to be widely institutionalized in international organisations of global governance – remains subject to contestation and interpretation at multiple sites in world politics. In this concluding chapter, we take up the challenge of studying these diverse types of norms and their meaning, use, and role in practice. We begin by returning to the three moves laid out in the introduction – first creating an interest in ideas and social facts in IR, then focusing on norm adaptation, and finally shifting to a view of norms as processes – and use as a vignette the forced landing of Ryanair Flight 4978 in Belarus in May 2021 to explore how each of these three moves can explain these events. We then draw out three sets of conclusions from the volume’s chapters, focusing on the process of contestation and interpretation, on how we can research contestations, and how other structures can and do interact with norms during these processes. We end by noting that the distinct approaches to norm research developed over the past thirty years do speak to one another in meaningful and innovative ways. By focusing on contestation in a holistic way, we can not only understand norms in a unique way but also how they constitute the world.
Corporate Social Responsibility Across the Globe demonstrates many ways that CSR can be applied by law to overcome regulation and governance challenges around the world. Using interdisciplinary and comparative models and perspectives, the book challenges dominant understandings of CSR, such as neoliberal voluntarism, and demonstrates the regulatory and governance implications of an interdependent relationship between CSR and the law. The book identifies substantive and procedural barriers for CSR in national, public, and private international law. By analyzing, deconstructing, and reframing CSR in these contexts, the book underlines opportunities for more effective application of CSR as a governance mechanism. Chapters investigate relevant regulation concepts, paradigms and approaches for CSR; methods for infusing CSR in corporate governance; and ways to facilitate private regulation of CSR in more developed, emerging, and developing jurisdictions.
Corporate Social Responsibility Across the Globe demonstrates many ways that CSR can be applied by law to overcome regulation and governance challenges around the world. Using interdisciplinary and comparative models and perspectives, the book challenges dominant understandings of CSR, such as neoliberal voluntarism, and demonstrates the regulatory and governance implications of an interdependent relationship between CSR and the law. The book identifies substantive and procedural barriers for CSR in national, public, and private international law. By analyzing, deconstructing, and reframing CSR in these contexts, the book underlines opportunities for more effective application of CSR as a governance mechanism. Chapters investigate relevant regulation concepts, paradigms and approaches for CSR; methods for infusing CSR in corporate governance; and ways to facilitate private regulation of CSR in more developed, emerging, and developing jurisdictions.
Corporate Social Responsibility Across the Globe demonstrates many ways that CSR can be applied by law to overcome regulation and governance challenges around the world. Using interdisciplinary and comparative models and perspectives, the book challenges dominant understandings of CSR, such as neoliberal voluntarism, and demonstrates the regulatory and governance implications of an interdependent relationship between CSR and the law. The book identifies substantive and procedural barriers for CSR in national, public, and private international law. By analyzing, deconstructing, and reframing CSR in these contexts, the book underlines opportunities for more effective application of CSR as a governance mechanism. Chapters investigate relevant regulation concepts, paradigms and approaches for CSR; methods for infusing CSR in corporate governance; and ways to facilitate private regulation of CSR in more developed, emerging, and developing jurisdictions.
The adoption of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in 2011 marked a watershed moment, establishing the first global standards for preventing human rights abuses by business. In light of this paradigm shift, The Business and Human Rights Landscape offers the most comprehensive analysis to date of the current legal framework. It includes in-depth explorations of the UN Guiding Principles from both theoretical and practical standpoints, with case studies ranging from the Rana Plaza building collapse to Kenyan resource extraction. Bookending current analyses are historical accounts (discussing the colonial slave trade) and forward-looking perspectives (analyzing labor's role). Bringing together top scholars from across the globe, The Business and Human Rights Landscape represents essential reading for anyone interested in the past, present, or future of business and human rights.
Green development is a common goal pursued globally for carbon neutrality, and whether environmental regulatory system drives it in pollution-intensive industries (PIIs) is puzzled. Using provincial panel data of Chinese PIIs during 2005–2017, this paper applied entropy method to integrate existing environmental regulatory system into three types of environmental regulations, and then explored non-linear effects of them on green total factor productivity (GTFP). Several conclusions are generated. The annual growth rate of GTFP is 10.61% and it presents industrial differences. Technical change is the driving factor, while technical efficiency shows inhibiting effect. The effect of command-and-control environmental regulation on GTFP is a significant inverted U-shape curve, which is currently the primary driving role in green development, but it is too strict and increasingly less effective. Both market incentive and voluntary environmental regulations appear as positive U-shape curves, and their proper enhancement is breakthrough for future green development. Besides, market incentive environmental regulation is more effective in PIIs with relatively low pollution, while voluntary environmental regulation is sensitive to PIIs with relatively serious pollution. The Chinese government should allow environmental regulatory system more marketability and voluntariness, and production characteristics and pollution density of targeted industries should be considered.
Purpose - In a world characterised by increasing environmental and social awareness, the number of corporate social responsibility and sustainability initiatives has significantly grown. Among these, the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) is one of the most important, involving more than 12,000 companies. The purpose of this study is to investigate the UNGC's worldwide diffusion, both at country and industry level, to understand the reasons leading to the highlighted dissemination patterns, and to propose various future projections.
Design/methodology/approach - The study pursues its objectives by applying the logistic curve model to data provided by the United Nations. The analysis is complemented by adopting instability and concentration indexes.
Findings - Results suggest that, while human rights and environmental safeguard in some areas and industries will remain a controversial issue, UNGC adoption will continue growing and giving the participants the required legitimacy to compete in worldwide markets.
Originality/value - To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first paper that analyses the UNGC's worldwide diffusion and proposes a prediction model for its future dissemination. The findings are of considerable importance in extending the knowledge of the initiative and in understanding the potential values of its adoption.
Multinational firms operate in multiple national jurisdictions, making them difficult for any one government to regulate. For this reason the firms themselves are often in charge of their own regulation, increasingly in conjunction with international organizations by way of public-private governance initiatives. Prior research has claimed that such initiatives are too weak to meaningfully change firms’ behavior. Can public-private governance initiatives help firms self-regulate, even if they lack strong monitoring or enforcement mechanisms? I take two steps toward answering this question. First, I introduce a new measure of firms’ performance on ESG (environmental, social, and governance) issues: the extent to which the firms issue public responses to claims of misconduct from civil society actors. Second, I argue that public-private governance initiatives allow firms to benefit from the legitimacy of their public partners, lowering the reputational cost of transparent response. Employing novel data on firm responses to human rights allegations from the Business and Human Rights Resource Center, I find that membership in the largest and most prominent initiative, the United Nations Global Compact, significantly increases firms’ propensity to respond transparently to stakeholder allegations. These results suggest a limited but important role for public-private initiatives in global governance.
This chapter describes my entry into this old-fashioned cosmopolitan space and why I choose the UNDP China 5office as the site of my ethnographic enquiry. Its organisational design and the relatively long record of operating in China provides a crucial case for observing the everyday dynamics of norm diffusion of international institutions in the background of emerging powers. This chapter further includes a methodological discussion on the use of political ethnography, also called “perestroika movement” in political sciences, and responses to the questions of generalisation and objectivity.
Nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations have become prominent participants in a global organizational responsibility movement. This trend of nonprofit responsibility is puzzling because nonprofits are presumably already dedicated to the pursuit of collective well-being objectives. This article examines the nonprofit responsibility movement from a cultural perspective, whereby broader cultural changes at the level of international organizations have constructed nonprofit entities as empowered and socially responsible actors. Using the case of the United Nations Global Compact, a global framework for corporate social responsibility, the author shows how (1) the construction of cultural meanings of autonomy and decentralization in the neoliberal context, (2) existing institutional structures, and (3) the delegation of responsibility to nonprofit organizations have enabled nonprofit organizations to become active participants in the global organizational responsibility movement. This article utilizes documentary data from the United Nations as well as previously-existing interviews with United Nations officials.
This study analyzes which firms leave multi-stakeholder initiatives for corporate social responsibility. Based on an analysis of all active and delisted business participants from the United Nations Global Compact between 2000 and 2015 (n=15,853), we find that small and medium-sized enterprises are more likely to leave than larger and publicly-traded firms; that early adopters are less likely to leave than late adopters; and that the presence of a local network in a country reduces the likelihood of leaving. Based on these findings, we discuss theoretical implications related to MSIs’ output legitimacy, the nature of organizational platforms supporting norm entrepreneurs within MSIs, and the occurrence of legitimacy spillover effects in local networks.
Do private firms act beyond “business as usual” and proactively build peace? Firms are largely absent from the conflict management literature, despite studies suggesting their importance. What conditions encourage firms to actively prevent or resolve violent conflict? Are such actions interdependent with ongoing international conflict prevention and management efforts? I argue international efforts encourage corporate conflict management-related activities since conflict management interdependencies can decrease the costs of conflict management, while increasing the benefits and success of their efforts. In addition, firms respond to gaps in governance and instability, especially when they are norm entrepreneurs or their reputation is threatened. I test these arguments on original cross-national data of conflict management-related efforts by large, domestic firms in Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa from 1999–2013. The findings bring large-N empirical analysis to a topic dominated by case studies and emphasize the need for conflict management scholars to account for the role of the private sector in our studies.
The environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data provided in firms’ sustainability reports is often unaudited. If ESG information disclosed by firms is not reliable, a firm’s greenwashing behavior can be a barrier to integrating ESG factors into investment decisions. In this paper, we study mechanisms to lessen firms’ greenwashing behavior in ESG dimensions holistically. Firstly, we identify “greenwashers” as firms which seem very transparent and reveal large quantities of ESG data but perform poorly in ESG aspects. By creating peer-relative greenwashing scores for a cross-country dataset comprised by 1925 large-cap firms, we measure the extent to which large-cap firms engage in greenwashing. We find evidence that greenwashing behavior in ESG dimensions can be deterred by scrutiny from (a) independent directors, (b) institutional investors, (c) influential public interests via a less corrupted country system, and (d) being cross-listed. Our results suggest that the two firm-level governance factors are most effective at attenuating firms’ misleading disclosure relating to ESG dimensions.
Although the literature on multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) for sustainability has grown in recent years, it is scattered across several academic fields, making it hard to ascertain how individual disciplines such as business ethics can further contribute to the debate. Based on an extensive review of the literature on certification and principle-based MSIs for sustainability (n=293 articles), we show that the scholarly debate rests on three broad themes (“the 3Is”): the input into creating and governing MSIs; the institutionalization of MSIs; and the impact that relevant initiatives create. While our discussion reveals the theoretical underpinnings of the 3Is, it also shows that a number of research challenges related to business ethics remain unaddressed. We unpack these challenges and suggest how scholars can utilize theoretical insights in business ethics to push the boundaries of the field. Finally, we also discuss what business ethics research can gain from theory development in the MSI field.
This article aims to focus on how signatories versus nonsignatories in the U.S. pharmaceutical sector compare with respect to the internal and external stakeholders and principles of the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC). We seek to answer the question: Do signatories to the UNGC walk the talk better than nonsignatories as determined by a variety of published rankings and data? This research presents an innovative approach to the evaluation of UNGC signatories. It uses several objective and independent data sources to assess a matched group of signatories versus nonsignatories in the U.S. pharmaceutical sector. Signatory organizations in the same sector as determined by SIC codes were matched with nonsignatories on variables such as size and number of employees in U.S. pharmaceutical companies. Then both types of organizations were compared on the following data sources: Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies ratings, ratings by external stakeholders, ratings by employees, unionization data, financial measures, and annual reports to shareholders. Using nonparametric testing the research found there are differences between signatories and nonsignatories in the U.S. pharmaceutical sector for some of the external stakeholder measures and no differences were found for the internal stakeholder measures.
The purpose of this review article is to connect sociological perspectives on global health to Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual health disparities. This article uses the ecosocial theory of health to analyze the ratification of LGB human rights as a cross‐national contributor to health outcomes for the LGB population. I outline the findings of previous research on this intersection as well as call for more research on this relationship by addressing the gaps within the literature and available data, which have stalled more robust analysis. Finally, I address potential future directions for research including further data collection and attentiveness to national contexts.
The work of international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) has contributed to the institutionalization of environmentalism. Putting environmental INGOs in comparative perspective, it is argued that differences in authority among INGOs are an important determinant of the strategies that INGOs adopt and the ultimate influence they are able to achieve. This claim is illustrated through an examination of the changing political opportunities for INGOs and a case of a recent private governance initiative, The Sustainability Consortium. The status maintenance concerns of leading INGOs encourage them to adopt incrementalist and pro-market policies that help launch weak governance schemes and frustrate many other environmental INGOs.
Human actions have pushed planetary systems beyond their normal range of operation, bringing forth a new geological epoch of its own making. The Anthropocene —the age of humankind—is argued here to represent a failure of the higher education system (and business schools in particular) to prepare society for the challenges of transforming towards true social -ecological sustainability . In turn, it will be demonstrated that adherence to normative ‘mechanistic ’ modes of thought has prevented mainstream business education from effectively engaging with this task, and that a reorientation towards an organicist worldview is required. In doing so, the contours of business education are redefined to embrace holism, social-ecological complexity and ethical care for nature. Two organicist principles—social-ecological systems thinking and positive ecological reciprocity—are presented here as a starting point to imagine a business education fit for purpose in the twenty-first century.
Purpose
This paper aims to consolidate the constructs of national responsibility (NR) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the context of corporate responsibilities. The paper traces the historical evolution of the concepts of NR and CSR with a discussion on bridging CSR with NR. The aim of this paper is to develop an understanding of the potential of CSR to support NR.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper reviews the historical evolution of the CSR and NR concepts to identify how CSR can be integrated and focused towards supporting NR.
Findings
NR needs partnership and support from the corporate and commercial world to direct its efforts towards effective implementation of CSR to ensure NR.
Practical implications
The paper offers the implications for the development of a powerful CSR, its relation with NR and how the linkage should be developed at an organizational level.
Originality/value
This research paper fulfils the need to study the role of CSR in supporting the NR at a corporate level.
The chapter outlines the book’s overall argument, pointing to the limitations of ‘globalist’ perspectives in the governance literature whereby macro processes and explanations take precedent over developments at the domestic level, particularly when these refer to the global South. Against this, I argue that the diffusion of transnational regulation can be conceived as a process of collective mobilization, aiming to motivate actors in different locations to adopt new norms and behaviors. Hence, I rely on a detailed examination of the contrasting situation of sustainability governance in Argentina and Brazil to demonstrate the conditioning effect of national political cultural institutions, discourses, and legacies over the type of engagement and interest local actors display in relation to transnational regulatory initiatives.
In this chapter, I situate transnational governance and diffusion processes against mainstream explanations. I challenge what I consider a pervasive Western perspectivism in conventional theoretical models and point to the limitations of technical and transcendental explanations for unravelling domestic trajectories of private regulation and accounting for context-specific developments and outcomes. Subsequently, drawing from social movement ideas, I propose an interpretative framework where the transnational diffusion of private governance is conceived as a contingent process of framing, sense-making, and (eventual) collective mobilization, significantly affected by the degree of semantic alignment between ‘global’ regulatory norms and frames with relevant dimensions of national political culture, including historical institutional and non-institutional legacies, models of state-society relations, and political discourses.
The state-based system of global governance has struggled for more than a generation to adjust to the expanding reach and growing influence of transnational corporations. The United Nations first attempted to establish binding international rules to govern the activities of transnationals in the 1970s. That endeavor was initiated by developing countries as part of a broader regulatory program with redistributive aims known as the New International Economic Order. Human rights did not feature in this initiative. The Soviet bloc supported it while most industrialized countries were opposed. Negotiations ground to a halt after more than a decade, though they were not formally abandoned until 1992.
This article traces the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) from its post WWII beginnings in popularity up through the end of the 1990s. The article focuses on definitions or understandings of the concept/construct. It does not focus on actual company practices during this time as they were quite varied. (This article has been ranked #1 most read in the Business and Society journal for years now).
For several years, the Economic Freedom of the World (EFW) annual reports large set of nations around the world. 1 This index is designed to measure the degree to which a nation's policies and institutions protect its citizens' economic freedom. In this article, we explain the basic methodology employed in constructing the index and summarize the study's findings. What Is Economic Freedom? Any attempt to quantify economic freedom must begin with a solid theoretical under-standing of the concept. The EFW report holds the key ingredients of economic freedom to be personal choice, voluntary exchange, freedom to compete, and protection of person and property. Institutions and policies are consistent with economic freedom when they provide an infrastructure for voluntary exchange and protect individuals and their property from aggressors who seek to use violence, coercion, and fraud to seize things that do not belong to them. Legal and monetary arrangements are especially important: governments promote economic freedom when they provide a legal structure and a law-enforcement system that protect the property rights of owners and enforce contracts in an even-handed manner. They also enhance economic freedom when they facilitate access to sound money. In some cases, the government itself may provide a currency of stable value. In other instances, it may simply remove obstacles that retard the use of sound money that is 1 The most recent report is Gwartney and Lawson 2004. In this article, we draw heavily from the first chapter of that report.
National activities to protect the natural environment are on the rise. Conventional explanations of the phenomenon emphasize domestic processes, set in motion by environmental degradation and economic affluence. We propose instead a top-down causal imagery that hinges on a global redefinition of the 'nation-state' to include environmental protection as a basic state responsibility. We test our view using event-history analyses of five indicators of environmentalization: The proliferation of (1) national parks, (2) chapters of international environmental associations, (3) memberships in inter-governmental environmental organizations, (4) environmental impact assessment laws, and (5) environmental ministries in countries around the world over the twentieth century. For all five measures, the top-down global explanation proves stronger than the bottom-up domestic alternative: The global institutionalization of the principle that nation-states bear responsibility for environmental protection drives national activities to protect the environment. This is especially true in countries with dense ties to world society and prolific 'receptor sites,' even when controlling for domestic degradation and affluence. It appears that blueprints of nation-state environmentalization, which themselves become more universalistic over time, are drawn in world society before being diffused to and enacted by individual countries.
We examine some issues in the estimation of time-series cross-section models, calling into question the conclusions of many published studies, particularly in the field of comparative political economy. We show that the generalized least squares approach of Parks produces standard errors that lead to extreme overconfidence, often underestimating variability by 50% or more. We also provide an alternative estimator of the standard errors that is correct when the error structures show complications found in this type of model. Monte Carlo analysis shows that these “panel-corrected standard errors” perform well. The utility of our approach is demonstrated via a reanalysis of one “social democratic corporatist” model.
The increased visibility of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)
and social movements at the international level invites continuing
evaluation of the extent and significance of the role they now play in
world politics. While the presence of such new actors is easily
demonstrated, international relations scholars have debated their
significance. The authors argue that the concept of global civil
society sets a more demanding standard for the evaluation of
transnational political processes than has been applied in prior
accounts of transnational activity. Further, most empirical studies
of this activity have focused on a limited number of NGOs within a
single issue-area. Using three recent UN world conferences as
examples of mutual encounters between state-dominated
international politics and global civic politics, the authors develop
the concept of global civil society to provide a theoretical foundation
for a systematic empirical assessment of transnational relations
concerning the environment, human rights, and women at the global
level.
Using an event history framework we analyze the adoption rate of national human rights institutions. Neo-realist perspective
predicts adoption rates to be positively influenced by favorable national profiles that lower the costs and make it more reasonable
to establish these institutions. From a world polity perspective adoption rates will be positively influenced by a world saturated
with human rights organizations and conferences, by increasing adoption densities, and by greater linkages to the world polity.
We find support for both perspectives in the analysis of the human rights commission. Only the changing state of the world
polity is consequential for the founding of the classical ombudsman office. We discuss the national incorporation of international
human rights standards and its relevance to issues of state sovereignty and national citizenship.
Standards have become one of the most important nontariff barriers to trade, especially national product standards that specify design or performance characteristics of manufactured goods. Divergent national standards often inhibit trade, whereas regional and international standards increasingly serve as instruments of trade liberalization. Consequently, the setting of international standards—seemingly technical and apolitical—is rapidly becoming an issue of economic and political salience. But who sets international standards? Who wins, who loses? This article offers a fresh analytical approach to the study of international standards, which the authors call the institutional complementarities approach. It builds on insights from realism and the “Battle of the Sexes” coordination game but emphasizes complementarities of historically conditioned standardization systems at the national level with the institutional structure of standardization at the international level. It posits that, after controlling for other factors that influence involvement in international standardization, differences in institutional complementarities play a critical though largely accidental role in placing firms from different countries or regions in a first- or second-mover position when standardization becomes global. The authors illustrate the insightfulness of this approach through statistical analyses of the first scientific set of data on standards use and standardization, collected by the authors through an international online survey.
This article investigates the nature of the linkages between trade and labor rights in developing countries. Specifically, we hypothesize that a “California effect” serves to transmit superior labor standards from importing to exporting countries, in a manner similar to the transmission of environmental standards. We maintain that, all else being equal, the labor standards of a given country are influenced not by its overall level of trade openness, but by the labor standards of its trading partners. We evaluate our hypothesis using a panel of 90 developing countries over the period 1986–2002, and we separately examine the extent to which the labor laws and the actual labor practices of the countries are influenced by those of their export destinations. We find that strong legal protections of collective labor rights in a country's export destinations are associated with more stringent labor laws in the exporting country. This California effect finding is, however, weaker in the context of labor rights practices, highlighting the importance of distinguishing between formal legislation and actual implementation of labor rights.
In theory, corporate social responsibility (CSR) considers private companies as potentially important development agents, particularly in partnership with the government and civil society groups. Following on the first article by Hamann in this issue, which considered the business perspective, this article considers how civil society should respond to the CSR and partnership concepts, with reference to the South African context. Firstly, a critical view of CSR emphasises the need to consider underlying motivations for business to embrace and perpetuate the CSR concept. These may relate to accommodation - the implementation of cosmetic changes to business practice in order to preclude bigger changes - and legitimisation - the influence by business over popular and policy-related discourse in order to define what questions may be asked and what answers are feasible. The second part of the article describes important benefits of the CSR concept for civil society groups, in terms of increased power and rights and hence better negotiating positions. This, however, requires that non-governmental organisations and others proactively engage in shaping the CSR debates, by insisting, inter alia, that CSR be underpinned by corporate accountability. Finally, the article argues that partnerships with business can indeed be beneficial to civil society groups, but that a critical position needs to be maintained within this cooperative approach, namely 'critical cooperation'. Such partnerships will require the strategic use of power-, rights- and interest-based negotiation. Following a brief overview of some recent South African experiences in the mining and chemicals sectors, the article concludes by pointing out the important role of the government in facilitating fair and effective partnerships.
There is growing recognition that organizational innovations can have a major influence on the geography of economic activity. Yet, little is known about the mechanisms and geographic preconditions underlying their diffusion, particularly at the global level. In this article, we test a series of hypotheses about the conditions under which organizations are most likely to adopt ISO 9000, the internationally recognized set of standards for quality management, using panel data for 130 countries from 1995 to 2001. Our findings support the idea that transnational networks that connect different countries at the international level provide conduits for the cross-national transfer of new organizational practices. Thus, exports to the European Union, local involvement of transnational corporations (TNCs), European colonial ties, and the availability of telecommunications all emerge as statistically significant determinants of ISO adoptions. Our findings also underscore the importance of national environmental conditions in influencing the receptiveness of organizations to new practices. A low regulatory burden, a high share of manufacturing activity, high rates of secondary school enrollment, and low levels of productivity are positively correlated with the number of ISO 9000 certificates. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for current debates about the mechanisms, preconditions, and scales of organizational transfer, diffusion, and convergence.
In this article, contrary to "neo-realist" and "neo-liberal" arguments that identify identites and interest as given in the system, the author porposes an alternative system perception based on the hypotheses of "constuctivist" theory focusing on the processes. This constructivist explanation that the author defends questions the main consensus in the literature by emphasizing the proceses and provides alternative explanations. In the first part, the author presents the way main stream theories explain the system and as alternative to them he explores how social proceses create and transform identites and interests. In the second part, the author explains how inter-state relations are formed and transformed with the examples from different types of states and emphasize that this relationship system is a process. In the third part, the author discusses the dynamics that define the structure of international relations by exploring concepts like security and sovereignty. In the conclusion, the author argues that the social dynamics are important in creation of the international system and that these dynamics can transform the system into different structures and that these alternative explanations should be explored more in the literature.
Despite their availability to firms across the world, uptake of global voluntary standards has proceeded unevenly across countries over time. In this paper we seek to provide new insights into how geography shapes these spatiotemporal variations, focusing on two leading examples of codified voluntarism: ISO 14001 and the Global Compact (GC). In an advance on previous quantitative studies, which have analyzed domestic and nondomestic influences separately, we examine how the internal attributes of place ‘condition’ the influence of transnational spatial dependencies. We find that higher levels of ISO 14001 certification in other economies are more likely to spill over (via transnational linkages) into higher domestic uptake of the standard in wealthier economies, while domestic receptivity to the influence of higher GC adoptions abroad is greater in more democratic countries. Another important advance on previous studies is that we examine the influence of a larger number of measures of transnational economic linkage. Providing evidence of ‘trading-up’ and ‘investing-up’ dynamics, we show that higher densities of ISO 14001 certificates and GC participants in a country’s export and inward foreign direct investment partners are associated with higher levels of domestic uptake of the respective standard. We also find tentative evidence of ‘visiting-up’ dynamics associated with the cross-border movement of businesspeople.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has established numerous voluntary environmental programs over the last fifteen years, seeking to encourage businesses to make environmental progress beyond what current law requires them to achieve. EPA aims to induce beyond-compliance behavior by offering various forms of recognition and rewards, including relief from otherwise applicable environmental regulations. Despite EPA's emphasis on voluntary programs,relatively few businesses have availed themselves of these programs -- and paradoxically, the programs that offer the most significant regulatory benefits tend to have the fewest members. We explain this paradox by focusing on (a) how programs'membership screening corresponds with membership rewards, and (b) how membership levels correspond, in turn, with membership screening. Our analysis of three major case studies, as well as of data we collected on all of EPA's "green clubs," shows that EPA combines greater rewards with more demanding membership screening, which in turn corresponds with lower participation. EPA's behavior can be understood as a response to the political risks the agency faces when it recognizes and rewards businesses it otherwise is charged with regulating. Given the political constraints on EPA's ability to offer significant inducements to business, we predict participation in all but the most inconsequential voluntary environmental programs will remain quite low, thereby inherently limiting the ultimate value of voluntary programs as a strategy for advancing environmental protection.
The state-based system of global governance has struggled for more than a generation to adjust to the expanding reach and growing influence of transnational corporations, the most visible embodiment of globalization. This paper reviews two recent chapters in this endeavor, focused specifically on human rights: the “Draft Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights,” adopted by the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights but not by its parent body, the UN Human Rights Commission (since replaced by the Human Rights Council); and the author’s subsequent UN mandate as Special Representative of the Secretary-General “on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises.” The paper analyzes key conceptual flaws of the draft Norms, noting the pitfalls of imposing on corporations, directly under international law, the same range of human rights duties that states have; it presents an empirical mapping of current international standards and practices regarding business and human rights, ranging from the most deeply rooted international legal obligations to voluntary initiatives; and it proposes a strategy for building on existing momentum in order to reduce human rights protection gaps in relation to corporate activities.
A conceptual framework and empirical case studies of the policy effect of voluntary programs sponsored by industry, government, and nongovernmental organizations.
The recent growth of voluntary programs has attracted the attention of policymakers, nongovernmental organizations, and scholars. Thousands of firms around the world participate in these programs, in which members agree to undertake socially beneficial actions that go beyond the requirements of government regulations, such as following labor codes in the apparel industry, adhering to international accounting standards, and adopting internal environmental management systems. This book analyzes the efficacy of a variety of voluntary programs using a club theory, political-economy framework. It examines how programs' design influences their effectiveness as policy tools. It finds that voluntary programs have achieved uneven success because of their varying standards and enforcement procedures.
The club theory framework views voluntary programs as institutions that create incentives for firms to incur the costs of taking progressive action beyond what is required by law in exchange for benefits that nonmembers do not enjoy (such as enhanced standing with stakeholders). Voluntary Programs develops this theoretical framework and applies it to voluntary programs sponsored by industry associations, governments, and nongovernmental organizations, organized around policy issues such as “blood diamonds,” shipping, sweatshops, and the environment. The wide diversity of cases—across sectors, sponsoring organizations, and objectives—provides valuable applications of the club framework, generates new insights for future research, and offers practical guidance for designing effective programs.
ContributorsDavid P. Baron, Tim Bartley, Tim Büthe, Cary Coglianese, Elizabeth R. DeSombre, Daniel W. Drezner, Daniel Fiorino, Mary Kay Gugerty, Virginia Haufler, Matthew J. Kotchen, Mimi Lu, Jennifer Nash, Matthew Potoski, Aseem Prakash, Klaas van 't Veld
International institutions vary widely in terms of key institutional features such as membership, scope, and flexibility. In this 2004 book, Barbara Koremenos, Charles Lipson, and Duncan Snidal argue that this is so because international actors are goal-seeking agents who make specific institutional design choices to solve the particular cooperation problems they face in different issue-areas. Using a Rational Design approach, they explore five features of institutions - membership, scope, centralization, control, and flexibility - and explain their variation in terms of four independent variables that characterize different cooperation problems: distribution, number of actors, enforcement, and uncertainty. The contributors to the volume then evaluate a set of conjectures in specific issue areas ranging from security organizations to trade structures to rules of war to international aviation. Alexander Wendt appraises the entire Rational Design model of evaluating international organizations and the authors respond in a conclusion that sets forth both the advantages and disadvantages of such an approach.
The UN Global Compact is a voluntary initiative designed to help fashion a more humane world by enlisting business to follow ten principles concerning human rights, labor, the environment, and corruption. Although the four-year-old Compact is a relatively successful initiative, having signed up over eleven hundred companies and more than two hundred of the large multinationals, and having begun some important projects on globalization issues, there is a serious problem in that very few of the major U.S. companies have joined. While the premier U.S. companies are interested in meeting the legitimate expectations of society, there is concern centering around accountability issues. The accountability issues are in four major areas: 1. Accountability showing that the globalization of the economy actually helps the poor. 2. Accountability showing the corporate performance matches rhetoric. 3. Accountability that provides legitimacy to a two-tier pricing system and other measures that are designed to assist the poor in developing countries. 4. Accountability in the human rights area; what societal expectations are multinational companies accountable for? The article outlines the problems that the Compact brings to the fore and offers some insight from the ethical literature that may address U.S. company concerns or provide new ways of thinking about the issues. It further argues that the forum provided by the Compact may be the most effective means to gain consensus of the role of business in society.
In recent years a startling policy innovation has emerged within global and domestic environmental governance: certification systems that promote socially responsible business practices by turning to the market, rather than the state, for rule-making authority. This book documents five cases in which the Forest Stewardship Council, a forest certification program backed by leading environmental groups, has competed with industry and landowner-sponsored certification systems for legitimacy. The authors compare the politics behind forest certification in five countries. They reflect on why there are differences regionally, discuss the impact the Forest Stewardship Council has had on other certification programs, and assess the ability of private forest certification to address global forest deterioration.
Nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) have in increasing numbers injected unexpected voices into international discourse about numerous problems of global scope. Especially during the last 20 years, human rights advocates, gender activists, developmentalists, groups of indigenous peoples and representatives of other defined interests have become active in political work once reserved for representatives of states. Their numbers have enlarged the venerable, but hardly numerous, ranks of transnational organisations built around churches, labour unions and humanitarian aims. The United Nations (UN) system provides a convenient, accessible vantage point to observe some of the most active, persuasive NGOS in the world. During the last 50 years, various UN organisations have felt the direct and indirect impact of NGOS. According to the Union of International Associations, the NGO universe includes well over 15 000 recognisable NGOS that operate in three or more countries and draw their finances from sources in more than one country; this number is growing all the time.' In their own ways, NGOS and intergovernmental organisations (IGOS) grope, sometimes cooperatively, sometimes competitively, sometimes in parallel towards a modicum of 'global governance'. We define global governance as efforts to bring more orderly and reliable responses to social and political issues that go beyond capacities of states to address individually. Like the NGO universe, global governance implies an absence of central authority, and the need for collaboration or cooperation among governments and others who seek to encourage common practices and goals in addressing global issues. The means to achieve global governance also include activities of the United Nations and other intergovernmental organisations and standing cooperative arrangements among states. This introductory essay generally discusses the NGO phenomenon. It proposes a definition of NGOS to serve for the purpose of this issue, although much controversy remains about the concept and individual authors may offer refinements. It also provides a general backdrop of historical, legal and political factors for the study. It offers some analytical detail needed for deeper understanding of the phenomenon, and outlines a set of fundamental factors for studying NGOS. It does not assume that NGOs always or even usually succeed in reaching their goals or, if they do, that the result is beneficial for peace, social or personal welfare, or human rights. The studies that follow all employ the United Nations as a central and reasonably transparent point of observation that has legal and historical underpinnings, and branching activities that reach to the social grass roots. Moreover, NGOS are omnipresent in many aspects of international relations, and they may 0143-6597/95/030357-3 1 ?D 1995 Third World Quarterly
There is an impressive history associated with the evolution of the concept and definition of corporate social responsibility (CSR). In this article, the author traces the evolution of the CSR construct beginning in the 1950s, which marks the modern era of CSR. Definitions expanded during the 1960s and proliferated during the 1970s. In the 1980s, there were fewer new definitions, more empirical research, and alternative themes began to mature. These alternative themes included corporate social performance (CSP), stakeholder theory, and business ethics theory. In the 1990s, CSR continues to serve as a core construct but yields to or is transformed into alternative thematic frameworks.
Obra que reconstruye el origen y evolución de las actuales redes transnacionales que, con la utilización de las nuevas tecnologías informativas como recurso organizador y aglutinador, han logrado constituirse en movimientos más o menos presionadores en la defensa de los derechos humanos, de la protección ambiental y de una mayor equidad de género, entre otros.
Globalization critics argue that international trade spurs a race to the bottom among national environmental standards. ISO 14001 is the most widely adopted voluntary environmental regulation which encourages firms to take environmental action beyond what domestic government regulations require. Drawing on a panel study of 108 countries over seven years, we investigate conditions under which trade linkages can encourage ISO 14001 adoption, thereby countering environmental races to the bottom. We find that trade linkages encourage ISO 14001 adoption if countries' major export markets have adopted this voluntary regulation.
Scholars have often remarked that Congress neglects its oversight responsibility. We argue that Congress does no such thing: what appears to be a neglect of oversight really is the rational preference for one form of oversight--which we call fire-alarm oversight--over another form--police-patrol oversight. Our analysis supports a somewhat neglected way of looking at the strategies by which legislators seek to achieve their goals.
We examine patterns of citizen participation in the global human rights movement through memberships in human rights international nongovernmental organizations (HRINGOs). After showing enormous growth in the number of HRINGOs in recent decades, we investigate country level characteristics leading to greater participation in the international human rights movement. Drawing on the social movement literature and world society theory, we employ multivariate regression analyses to explain HRINGO memberships in 1978, 1988 and 1998. To understand changes over time, we also use panel analyses for 1978 - 88 and 1988 - 98. The strongest predictors of memberships in HRINGOs are found to be embeddedness in global civil society and international flows of human resources. The effects of these international factors grew stronger over time while domestic factors became less important.
We examine some issues in the estimation of time-series cross-section models, calling into
question the conclusions of many published studies, particularly in the field of comparative
political economy. We show that the generalized least squares approach of Parks produces
standard errors that lead to extreme overconfidence, often underestimating variability by 50% or
more. We also provide an alternative estimator of the standard errors that is correct when the error
structures show complications found in this type of model. Monte Carlo analysis shows that these
"panel-corrected standard errors" perform well. The utility of our approach is demonstrated via a
reanalysis of one "social democratic corporatist" model.
What role do international business norms play in regulating the behavior of firms? Despite growing acceptance of the constructivist claim that norms play an important role in international life and an increased interest in private authority by international relations (IR) scholars, surprisingly little research in the field has explored the extent or mechanisms by which norms influence the behavior of firms. I argue this oversight has more to do with the bias in political science against viewing firms as social or socializable institutions than with the applicability of constructivist theory to firms or markets. To make this argument I examine the spread of sustainability norms across transnational business networks and illustrate how theories of socialization developed by IR constructivist scholars can help explain the rapid spread of these norms and the effects they have on corporate environmental governance. The paper ends with a call for more research on the effects of international business norms and makes several suggestions for how to counteract the bias in political science against doing so.
Private, voluntary compliance programs, promoted by global corporations and non-governmental organizations alike, have produced only modest and uneven improvements in working conditions and labor rights in most global supply chains. Through a detailed study of a major global apparel company and its suppliers, this paper argues that this compliance model rests upon misguided theoretical and empirical assumptions concerning the power of multinational corporations in global supply chains; the role information (derived from factory audits) plays in shaping the behavior of key actors (i.e., global brands, transnational activist networks, suppliers, purchasing agents, etc.) in these production networks; and the appropriate incentives required to change behavior and promote improvements in labor standards in these emergent centers of global production. We argue that it is precisely these faulty assumptions and the way they have come to shape various labor compliance initiatives throughout the world - even more than a lack of commitment, resources, or transparency by global brands and their suppliers to these programs - that explains why this compliance-focused model of private voluntary regulation has not succeeded. In contrast, this paper documents that a more commitment-oriented approach to improving labor standards co-exists, and in many of the same factories, complements the traditional compliance model. This commitment-oriented approach, based upon joint problem solving, information exchange, and the diffusion of best-practices, is often obscured by the debates over traditional compliance programs but it exists in myriad factories throughout the world and has led to sustained improvements in working conditions and labor rights at these workplaces.
Voluntary environmental programs (VEPs) seek to improve the environment by encouraging, rather than mandating, businesses and other organizations to adopt environmentally protective measures. Since the 1990s, VEPs established by industry, government, and nongovernmental organizations have proliferated around the globe, raising the question of how effective these programs are in securing environmental protection, both on their own and in comparison to traditional mandatory regulations. This article reviews the emerging research literature on VEPs, describing the variation in their structures, providing a framework for assessing their impacts, and summarizing what is known about why organizations engage in voluntary environmental action and what effects these programs have on environmental quality.
We examine the commitments of transnational corporations to human rights, labor, environmental, and anti-corruption standards. Modeling commitment as a function of the nature of the firm’s business activities and conditioned by neighborhood and audience contexts, we investigate adherence to the principles entailed in the UN Global Compact program by the world’s 2000 largest companies. Our results suggest that the decisions to participate in and to take steps to comply with the Global Compact are influenced by the characteristics of the firm as it adapts to its institutional and political environment. Signing up to the program increases the likelihood of firms developing human rights-related company policies and receiving positive external assessments of their performance.
Competition to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) creates opportunities for multinational enterprises (MNEs) to diffuse corporate management practices from their countries-of-origin (home countries) to countries hosting their foreign operations. We examine conditions under which MNEs transfer corporate environmental practices from home countries to host countries. Our focus is on ISO 14001, the most widely adopted voluntary environmental program in the world. We examine inward FDI stocks and ISO 14001 adoption levels for a panel of 98 countries, and a subset of 74 developing countries, for the period 1996–2002. We find support for the country-of-origin argument in that inward FDI stocks are associated with higher levels of ISO 14001 adoption in host countries only when FDI originates from home countries that themselves have high levels of ISO 14001 adoption. Countries’ ISO adoption levels are associated not with how much FDI host countries receive overall but from whom they receive it. Three implications emerge from this study: (1) FDI can become an instrument to perpetuate divergence in corporate practices across the world; (2) economic integration via FDI can create incentives for firms to ratchet up their environmental practices beyond the legal requirements of their host countries; (3) instead of racing down to match the less stringent corporate practices prevalent in developing countries, developed countries can employ FDI outflows to ratchet up corporate practices abroad given that developing countries are net recipients of developed countries’ FDI outflows.
Can businesses voluntarily adopt progressive environmental policies? Most environmental regulations are based on the assumption that the pursuit of profit leads firms to pollute the environment, and therefore governments must impose mandatory regulations. However, new instruments such as voluntary programs are increasingly important. Drawing on the economic theory of club goods, this book offers a theoretical account of voluntary environmental programs by identifying the institutional features that influence conditions under which programs can be effective. By linking program efficacy to club design, it focuses attention on collective action challenges faced by green clubs. Several analytic techniques are used to investigate the adoption and efficacy of ISO 14001, the most widely recognized voluntary environmental program in the world. These analyses show that, while the value of ISO 14001's brand reputation varies across policy and economic contexts, on average ISO 14001 members pollute less and comply better with governmental regulations.
Susan K. Sell’s book shows how power in international politics is increasingly exercised by private interests rather than governments. In 1994 the WTO adopted the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), which dictated to states how they should regulate the protection of intellectual property. This book argues that TRIPS resulted from lobbying by twelve powerful CEOs of multinational corporations who wished to mould international law to protect their markets. This book examines the politics leading up to TRIPS, the first seven years of its implementation, and the political backlash against TRIPS in the face of the HIV/AIDS crisis. Focusing on global capitalism, ideas, and economic coercion, this work explains the politics behind TRIPS and the controversies created in its wake. It is a fascinating study of the influence of private interests in government decision-making, and in the shaping of the global economy.
The United Nations Global Compact is a new initiative intended to increase and to diffuse the benefits of global economic
development through voluntary corporate policies and actions. Kofi Annan, secretary-general of the United Nations, addressing
the Davos World Economic Forum in January 1999, challenged business leaders to join a “global compact of shared values and
principles” and to provide globalization a human face. Annan argued that shared values provide a stable environment for a
world market and that without these explicit values business could expect backlashes from protectionism, populism, fanaticism
and terrorism.’ Following the 1999 Davos meeting, Annan and a group of business leaders formulated nine principles, which
have come to be known as the UN Global Compact. After lengthy consultation, a tenth principle against corruption was added
in June 2004.
The authors analyze the nation-state as a worldwide institution constructed by worldwide cultural and associational processes, developing four main topics: (1) properties of nation-states that result from their exogenously driven construction, including isomorphism, decoupling, and expansive structuration; (2) processes by which rationalistic world culture affects national states; (3) characteristics of world society that enhance the impact of world culture on national states and societies, including conditions favoring the diffusion of world models, expansion of world-level associations, and rationalized scientific and professional authority; (4) dynamic features of world culture and society that generate expansion, conflict, and change, especially the statelessness of world society, legitimation of multiple levels of rationalized actors, and internal inconsistencies and contradictions.
Realist or liberal explanations for the end of the cold war cannot account for the specific content of the change in Soviet foreign policy or for Western responses to it. These theories need to be complemented by approaches that emphasize the interaction between international and domestic factors and that take seriously the proposition that ideas intervene between structural conditions and actors' interests. Some of the strategic prescriptions that informed the reconceptualization of Soviet security interests originated in the Western liberal internationalist community, which formed transnational networks with in the former Soviet Union. These new ideas became causally consequential for the turnaround in Soviet foreign policy and also had an impact on American and German reactions to it. Even though transnational networks were active in Germany, the Soviet Union, and the United States, their success varied. Domestic structures like the nature of political institutions, state-society relations, and political culture determine the ability of transnational networks first, to gain access to a country's political system and second, to build These differences in domestic structures can largely explain the variation in impact of the strategic prescriptions among the three countries.
World Development Indicators, the World Bank's respected statistical publication presents the most current and accurate information on global development on both a national level and aggregated globally. This information allows readers to monitor the progress made toward meeting the goals endorsed by the United Nations and its member countries, the World Bank, and a host of partner organizations in September 2001 in their Millennium Development Goals. The print edition of World Development Indicators 2005 allows you to consult over 80 tables and over 800 indicators for 152 economies and 14 country groups, as well as basic indicators for a further 55 economies. There are key indicators for the latest year available, important regional data, and income group analysis. The report contains six thematic presentations of analytical commentary covering: World View, People, Environment, Economy, States and Markets, and Global Links.
CONTENIDO: V. 1 ORGANIZATION DESCRIPTIONS AND INDEX
Norms have never been absent from the study of international politics, but the sweeping “ideational turn” in the 1980s and 1990s brought them back as a central theoretical concern in the field. Much theorizing about norms has focused on how they create social structure, standards of appropriateness, and stability in international politics. Recent empirical research on norms, in contrast, has examined their role in creating political change, but change processes have been less well-theorized. We induce from this research a variety of theoretical arguments and testable hypotheses about the role of norms in political change. We argue that norms evolve in a three-stage “life cycle” of emergence, “norm cascades,” and internalization, and that each stage is governed by different motives, mechanisms, and behavioral logics. We also highlight the rational and strategic nature of many social construction processes and argue that theoretical progress will only be made by placing attention on the connections between norms and rationality rather than by opposing the two.
The rise in the importance of nonstate actors in generating new norms in world politics has been documented by scholars, but the literature has focused predominantly on nonsecurity (“new”) issue areas. Conversely, although recent constructivist work in international relations has examined the security policies of states, typically it is the state that is doing the constructing of interests. I bridge these two literatures by examining the hard case of transnational civil society working through issue networks to teach state interests in security policy. I analyze the campaign by transnational civil society to generate an international norm prohibiting antipersonnel land mines and trace the effects of several techniques through which states can be said to be socialized. Through generating issues, networking, “grafting,” and using a transnational Socratic method to reverse burdens of proof, the campaign has stimulated systemic normative change through two processes: norm adoption through the conversion of persuaded moral entrepreneurs and emulation resulting from social pressures of identity.
This article examines corporate participation in the UN Global Compact programme. Using data on the world's 2,000 largest companies, we address the question of why companies voluntarily assume the programme's responsibilities and promote the rights of ‘global citizenship’. Our analytic approach is to view transnational corporate political behaviour as a result of firm-level decisions shaped by country-level variation in political audience effects. Drawing on earlier research on more conventional forms of corporate political activity, we expect factors influential in the standard model of firm political activity to determine participation in the Global Compact. In addition, we argue that this highly visible, less instrumental dimension of a firm's political behaviour is driven by efforts to build a good environmental and human rights reputation with its audience of external actors. The importance of environmental and human rights concerns depends on the substance of the firm's business activities, the availability of investment and ‘exit’ options, and the home audience's bias towards the UN and human and environmental rights. We find support for political factors as well as firm and industry-level characteristics influencing the decision to participate in the Global Compact.