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Mapping Business-Peace Interactions: Five Assertions for How Businesses Create Peace

June 2017
SSRN Electronic Journal

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University of Oslo

The conjunction of business and peace is a growing global phenomenon, but conducted and researched over a vast array of fields and contextual settings. This article provides theoretical order for this disparate material, illustrating cutting-edge research and highlighting the most urgent knowledge gaps to fill. Extracting findings from the business community, international organizations, and the academic community, this article maps these findings into five assertions about how businesses impact upon peace: economic engagement facilitates a peace dividend; encouraging local development facilitates local capacities for peace; importing international norms improves democratic accountability; firms can constrain the drivers or root causes of conflict; and undertaking direct diplomatic efforts with conflict actors builds and/or makes peace. These assertions provide a framework for categorizing and testing prominent business-peace arguments. They also support preliminary arguments that businesses cannot expect to be rewarded as peacebuilders just because they undertake peacebuilding activities, that economic opening only brings as much peace as a local regime will allow, and that truly courageous business-peace choices are rarely made in fragile contexts. This framework can encourage more coherent scholarly findings and more effective business engagements within the complex and challenging realm of peacebuilding.

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Mapping Business-Peace Interactions: Five Assertions for How Businesses Create Peace

Jason Miklian

Abstract: The conjunction of business and peace is a growing global phenomenon, but

conducted and researched over a vast array of fields and contextual settings. This article provides

theoretical order for this disparate material, illustrating cutting-edge research and highlighting the

most urgent knowledge gaps to fill. Extracting findings from the business community,

international organizations, and the academic community, this article maps these findings into

five assertions about how businesses impact upon peace: economic engagement facilitates a peace

dividend; encouraging local development facilitates local capacities for peace; importing

international norms improves democratic accountability; firms can constrain the drivers or root

causes of conflict; and undertaking direct diplomatic efforts with conflict actors builds and/or

makes peace. These assertions provide a framework for categorizing and testing prominent

business-peace arguments. They also support preliminary arguments that businesses cannot

expect to be rewarded as peacebuilders just because they undertake peacebuilding activities, that

economic opening only brings as much peace as a local regime will allow, and that truly

courageous business-peace choices are rarely made in fragile contexts. This framework can

encourage more coherent scholarly findings and more effective business engagements within the

complex and challenging realm of peacebuilding.

Keywords: peacebuilding; Business For Peace (B4P); Business ethics; liberal peace; Corporate Social

Responsibility (CSR); multinational corporations (MNCs); corporate diplomacy; international norms

Introduction

The conjunction of business and peace is a growing global phenomenon. The belief that

businesses should help build peace in their operational areas is expanding rapidly,

through ventures like the United Nations Business For Peace (B4P) initiative and within

firms themselves through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) tasks and the

implementation of conflict-sensitive business practices. With donors increasingly

fatigued by traditional mechanisms of aid delivery, both national and international

corporationsi are being encouraged to take more active roles in framing new global

peacebuilding and development agendas. Exemplifying the shift, United Nations

Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon is “counting on the private sector” to help fulfill the

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (UNDP 2015), Norway launched a Business for

Peace Foundation in 2007, and European firms formulated the Ypres Manifesto on

Business for Peace in 2014.

Supported by the United Nations (UN), World Bank and most international development

organizations, businesses in conflict zones and fragile states are now seen as active agents

of peace, stability and long-term development. Pushes for deeper business engagement in

peacebuilding (business-peace) come from shareholders who want more responsible

firms, from governmental and inter-governmental bodies, from development aid

organizations, and from developing country governments and communities imploring

firms to contribute a greater share to societal improvements. However, as these activities

are conducted over such a vast array of industries and local conflict contexts, and are

discussed across such a wide variety of scholarly fields, it is difficult to decipher the state

of the art and most valuable lessons learned. In addition, much existing material is case-

based, exploring only limited types of business interactions in specific peacebuilding

contexts that are hard to generalize.

This article provides theoretical order and an organizational home for this currently

disparate material, highlighting cutting-edge research from the business, government, and

academic communities. It builds upon previous efforts to survey business-peace

interactions within and across fields (Oetzel et al. 2010; Andersson et al. 2011; Forrer et

al. 2012; Forrer and Katsos 2015; Ford 2015b; Katsos 2016), and categorizes this

material within existing theories of how business facilitate peace to refine where further

study is most needed. This article begins with an overview of the expanding business-

peace relationship, focusing on developments since 2010. It then briefly discusses how

three key groups conceptualize business-peace today: the business community,

international organizations, and the academic community. Five Assertions from this

literature about how businesses impact upon peace are then proposed: economic

engagement facilitates a peace dividend; encouraging local development facilitates local

capacities for peace; importing international norms improves democratic accountability;

firms can constrain the drivers or root causes of conflict; and undertaking direct

diplomatic efforts with conflict actors builds and/or makes peace. Last, the article

discusses how these Assertions inform three preliminary arguments: businesses cannot

expect to be rewarded as peacebuilders just because they undertake peacebuilding

activities; economic opening only brings as much peace as a local regime will allow; and

truly courageous business-peace choices are rarely made in fragile contexts. Empirical

study of these Assertions and trends is encouraged to support more coherent scholarly

findings and more effective business engagements within the complex and challenging

realm of peacebuilding.

An Overview of Business and Peace Today

The Cold War’s 1990 conclusion presented a generational opportunity for international

businesses to capitalize on a series of transformations described in positive terms as

globalization and deepening of trade relations, or more critically as the erosion of state

sovereignty through submission to market pressures. This was the decade in which the

‘end of history’ was proclaimed, from an optimist belief in the spread of free markets and

democratic institutions. Global corporate expansion thrived, and extractive multinational

corporations (MNCs) in particular entered countries that also saw a spike in civil conflict

as Cold War support was withdrawn. These ventures brought scrutiny, as firms including

Shell in Nigeria (Zalik 2004) and DeBeers in Angola and Liberia were criticized by

governments, international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) and multilateral

institutions for actions perceived to be conflict-generating. Scholars and practitioners

began to re-consider the relationship between business and conflict, but corporations

were often slow to display a self-awareness as conflict-relevant actors.

Increasingly frustrated with stagnant outcomes of traditional peacebuilding in conflict

zones, many INGOs and international governmental organizations (IGOs) began to

involve businesses as stakeholders in new peace and development initiatives that saw

firms as potential forces for good. With one billion people living in countries or regions

affected by conflict or postconflict violence (World Bank 2013), these “conflict-affected

and high-risk areas” became the core focus of the international community’s

development agenda during the 2000s (UNGC 2010). Businesses were solicited by the

World Bank and other international organizations to contribute to public-private

partnerships that tried to stimulate peaceful development through poverty reduction,

socio-economic growth, and security (Deitelhoff and Wolf 2010; UNGC 2013). As

enshrined in the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), firms were increasingly

encouraged to commit to “peace” and incorporate conflict sensitivity into their day-to-

day practices.

Today, national, regional, and transnational businesses operating in fragile environments

are asked “to become full partners in broader peacemaking and peacebuilding assessment,

planning and execution” (Ganson 2014:71), amid the belief that business-IGO/INGO tie-

ups are not only mutually adventageous but in fact necessary for the success of peace

operations in conflict zones (Ford 2015a). In 2013, the UNGC launched B4P,

institutionalizing these developments. As perhaps the clearest articulation of the business-

peace philosophy, B4P aims to “mobilize high-level corporate leadership to advance

peaceful development through actions at the global and local levels in order to galvanize

progress and scale up positive impacts, [a] leadership platform which will expand and

deepen private sector action in support of peace” (UNGC 2013). The UNGC’s goal is to

create an “epistemic community” of development organizations and businesses to bring

peace (Dahan et al. 2006; UNGC 2013).

Enthusiasm from private sector stakeholders is anchored in the argument that what they

already do anyway—grow economies and expand markets—can be key ingredients to

peace (Oetzel et al. 2010), and that “a quick influx of capital and know-how is essential

to serve as a counterweight to recidivist violence” (Gerson 2001:106). Recognizing that

economic underdevelopment can be conflict-generating, the UN Security Council

included corporate stakeholders in the drive to attain the Millennium Development Goals,

calling for more investment in fragile conflict areas to stimulate development (UNSC

2009). The UN’s new Sustainable Development Goals further strengthen these ties

(UNDP 2015), which align with business motivations to gain access to new consumer

markets in fragile developing states.

Three main groups of actors engage in significant business-peace discussions: the

business community, international organizations, and academics. Each group forwards

unique narratives about the structure, purpose, and value of business-peace engagements.

However, these groups also find challenges in speaking to each other, and also often lack

consensus within their own community. Even the terms ‘peace’ and ‘peacebuilding’ are

notoriously difficult to define and can have varied meanings in different contexts. For

purposes of this article, 'peace' is defined as the absence of physical and structural harms

to both a state and its citizens; 'peacebuilding' activities are thus those that aim to either

reduce the likelihood of violence or ameliorate perceived root causes of societal conflict.

While more sophisticated definitions of both terms exist (and should rightly be used in

other settings), broad characterizations are used here in order to draw from the entirety

of the real and potential business-peace activities as defined by firms, governments and

peace organizations, and because there is little empirical evidence guiding us as to which

business activities are truly building peace in practice. A wide conceptual net is thus cast

to lay our groundwork, and key sources and conceptual thrusts are presented to show

where coherency and gaps lie between the main proponents. Claims presented herein are

not formally tested or judged on their veracity, but presented neutrally so as to provide a

more complete mapping.

The ‘business community’ as described herein includes local, national, and international

firms headquartered in western and non-western states, and both large conglomerates and

small and medium enterprises. MNCs carry outsize importance in our discussion, as they

have typically expressed the most interest in those peacebuilding actions that drive

business-peace arguments. This is quantified through annual reports, CSR and

compliance documents, internal strategy memos and presence at business-peace events,

among others. These engagements reflect evolving corporate philosophies that supporting

societal values should be at least equally motivating as profit aims in a world of

‘universal ethics’ (Mele and Sanchez-Runde 2013; Hoskinson and Kurato 2015).

Therefore, peace and peacebuilding are good for business – and vice versa (Killelea

2014). Recognizing that the ‘business community’ represents a diverse set of actors with

competing motivations, institutional philosophies and understandings of what constitutes

positive impact, the business case for business-peace engagement has nevertheless grown

dramatically.

Businesses typically operationalize peacebuilding through CSR frameworks, which

postulate that firms should engage in good corporate citizenship by making a positive

governance contribution in operational areas (Carroll 1998). Beginning largely as public

relations efforts, CSR projects are now ubiquitous in the developing world (Jamali 2016).

Sometimes they even compete against development aid programs by NGOs and UN

agencies, incentivizing the shift towards businesses as peace agents (Valor 2005). Due to

CSR’s increasing convergence of discourse with aid organizations (Avant and Haufler

2012), it has also become a promotional tool for local development and peacebuilding in

conflict zones (Barbara 2006; JBE 2009; Jamali and Mirshak 2010). While ‘CSR’ can

mean everything from philanthropy and corporate citizenship to long-term business

strategy and risk mitigation, for the purposes of this article those CSR activities claimed

to be peace-positive are of most interest. Early adopters have also worked to encourage

(or drag) their peers into this space. For example, extractive firms have encouraged

consumer goods companies to follow their conflict-sensitive lead, western MNCs are

encouraging their Global South counterparts to participate in peacebuilding and

development activities, and large transnational firms are encouraging local businesses

likewise (USIP 2012).

Deciphering what international organizations believe about business and peace is also

complicated. While a striking degree of conformity has emerged amongst INGOs and

IGOs about the value of engaging businesses as peace partners for everything from global

development projects to the European refugee crisis (UNGC 2016a), there is little

consensus about what exactly businesses should be doing, and where their comparative

advantages lie. Some like the UN Business-Action Hub prefer public relations-style

approaches (UN Business 2016). Others like the World Bank conflate business, peace

and development to argue that business ventures stabilize fragile states by providing

development in areas of poor or non-existent governance (WB 2004; WB 2014). Some

INGOs want businesses working within conflicts to reduce the negative consequences of

their operations (International Alert 2005), while others promote businesses-community

‘partnerships’ to better engage with local communities (Killick et al. 2005; Kolk and

Lenfant 2015). However, these programs can be contentious within INGOs themselves,

as many long-time peacebuilding practitioners remain skeptical of incorporating for-

profit actors into local development projects.

Finally, the academic community is the most fractured of all. Economists, political

scientists, anthropologists, business ethicists, human rights scholars, philosophers, and

others have all tackled the thorny questions inherent in business-peace interactions,

sometimes dating back centuries. One can distinguish between two contemporary

avenues: those who see potential in business-peace interactions (coined here as

‘potentialists’), and those critical of the wisdom of the entire venture. Potentialist

philosophies can be seen as far back as the first issue of the Journal of World Business in

1966, which argued that peacebuilding roles for corporations would make an unmatched

force for peace (Kolk 2016). Drawing on political risk analysis and business strategy,

contemporary potentialist research studies how, when and why firms should engage in

peacebuilding (Ford 2015a; Ford 2015b; Fort 2015; Oh and Oetzel 2016), how conflict

lifecycles affect firm vulnerability and risk (Getz and Oetzel 2010), innovative strategies

and norms firms adopt to address conflict (JBE 2009; Kolk and Lenfant 2015; Miklian

and Hoelscher 2016), and how operating during conflicts can improve risk management

and understanding of local populations (Avant and Haufler 2012; Aaron and Patrick

2013). Potentialists include those who are fundamentally optimistic about sustained

business involvement in peacebuilding – and also those who see only certain limited

circumstances for success. The field of business ethics has made extensive contributions,

for example in exploring how companies can move beyond traditional CSR to Creating

Shared Value platforms that improve conflict-sensitive interactions (Haski-Leventhal

2014), how ethical participative leadership can empower peace (Spreitzer 2007), in

arguments for businesses to support ‘hypergoals’ that incorporate short- and long-term

building blocks for peace (Dunfee and Fort 2003), and exploring the lessons of ‘gentle

commerce’ activities that can lie outside of traditional peacebuilding or conflict zones

altogether (Fort 2014).

Conversely, critical studies give pause to the wisdom of expanding business-peace tie-ups.

MNCs have harmed some vulnerable societies (Pugh 2005), and the international

community has supported the expansion of foreign firms at the expense of their local

business and government counterparts (Richmond and MacGinty 2015). Many scholars

are skeptical of giving business a more central peace role due to repeated field failures

(Berdal and Mousavizadeh 2010; Idemudia 2010; Hönke 2014). Others question whether

corporations should be involved in the operational side of peace at all. As Milton

Friedman (1970) famously chided: “the social responsibility of business is to increase its

profits” and no more,ii as private sector assistance to peace in any form constitutes a

market distortion. While this idea has fallen out of favor in the business community, it

has found new support from critical scholars, who argue that business-peace engagements

are primarily a tool to defuse criticism of corporate expansion into conflict zones

(Banerjee 2008). Critical scholars also tend to problematize the natures of peace and

conflict in a more comprehensive and nuanced manner than businesses, international

organizations, or potentialists.

Of course, these categories aren’t as neatly drawn in practice as the above assessments

imply. Proponents and detractors of business-peace activities can be found in all three

realms, and there is often coherence across streams. For example, most consider the

Nicosia Chamber of Commerce work in Cyprus’s multi-decade peace process to be a

peacebuilding activity. Further, few argue that participation in economic opening by itself

should be called peacebuilding by business, although the end result may indeed be a more

stable and peaceful society, such as is promised with foreign business engagement in

Myanmar. A lack of coherence about the peace value of a given business activity does

not necessarily signify disagreement, but as these different strands approach these topics

in different ways in this still-emerging arena, conceptual gaps are commonplace. To

move towards testability – and find out which business actions truly engender peace, and

why - we must first provide a more complete taxonomy of the field.

Five Assertions on How Businesses Can Facilitate Peace

This article presents five Assertions that motivate businesses to contribute as

peacebuilders. It collates leading propositions from the academic literature; claims from

policy- and practice-oriented researchers; documented corporate approaches; and new

governmental and institutional pushes, going beyond well-studied literature (e.g.

businesses as conflict actors) to focus on the more aspirational business-peacebuilding

studies. It also builds upon past works, in particular Oetzel et al.’s (2010:355) six

Business Actions for Promoting Peace. The Assertions are again: economic engagement

facilitates a peace dividend; encouraging local development facilitates local capacities for

peace; importing international norms improves democratic accountability; firms can

constrain the drivers or root causes of conflict; and undertaking direct diplomatic efforts

with conflict actors builds and/or makes peace. The Assertions can be conceived as

transiting from broad/macro impact on peace through traditional or conservative

approaches to specific/micro peacebuilding initiatives with more progressive and

interventionist frameworks.

Each Assertion contains two sections: a description of positive change claims by its

proponents, and a presentation of the challenges given by its detractors. These example-

richiii Assertions go beyond laudable recent analyses that explore similar literature gaps

(e.g. Oetzel et al. 2010; Forrer and Katsos 2015; Ford 2015b; Miklian et al. 2016),

incorporating new literature from more varied practitioner and peace research

backgrounds, and also serves to more deeply define and contextualize major debates to

help clarify how proponents and detractors view business contributions to peacebuilding

in theory and practice.

Assertion 1: Businesses influence peace through economic engagement that

facilitates a ‘peace dividend’.

Description and proponents

The belief that businesses bring peace by growing and linking economies is a core

paradigm of international political economy, rooted in liberal peace theory, economic

integration theory and peace dividend theory. In this strand, business activities in and of

themselves are considered to engender peace. Through trade, economic growth, and

financial injections, businesses help provide the fundamental building blocks of

development to fragile countries that in turn cement peace. The belief that economic

entrepreneurship will lead to peace and development can be traced back to John Locke’s

Second Treatise (1689). The doctrine is also associated with Immanuel Kant, Joseph

Schumpeter, and more recently Francis Fukuyama, scholars who combined elements of

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republican or democratic politics and the ‘spirit of commerce’ in different ways to argue

that economically integrated democracies positively correlate with peaceful foreign

policies (Doyle 1986).

Assertion 1 also incorporates debates over what policy roles governments should support

in the pursuit of sustainable peace, pitting philsophies like those of the free market liberal

economist Fredrich Hayek against the more interventionist-friendly John Maynard

Keynes (Schneider and Gleditsch 2013).iv While the empirical evidence and definitions

remain contested, protagonists hold that “empirical confirmation of the liberal peace is

exceptionally strong” for peaceful interdependence amongst market democracies (Doyle

2005:466; Gartzke 2007). The Washington Consensus of policy prescriptions supported

by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, through its agenda of dismantling

state-led economies to foster peace and development in the Global South through

deregulation, privatization and liberalization forms the most poignant contemporary

enshrining of this agenda (Berdal and Mousavizadeh 2010).

The robust literatures tying economic integration and development to peaceful relations

between states – and that infusions of economic development can mitigate intrastate

conflict - provide straightforward templates for firms to consider corporate expansion as

carrying a peacebuilding ‘value-added’. These activities aim to broadly improve the

conditions of peace without constituting specific peacebuilding activities. Examples

include firms aiding the transition from war to peace economies by helping to normalize

trade and provide essential revenue streams in fragile environments as in post-2011

Myanmar, moving into post-conflict or nearly post-conflict environments to solidify

fragile economies like investment in Kurdistan and Afghanistan, and creating economic

inter-dependence across geographic boundaries and social lines of division, as the

European Economic Community/Union and Nicosia Chamber of Commerce have done.

Others propose that business can build peace by reducing poverty and generating local

economic development through foreign investment or through local economic support,

for example in facilitating post-conflict macroeconomic recovery (ILO 2010). It is

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therefore ‘bad business’ to engage in conflict, and a ‘peace dividend’ of increased

prosperity will result. While policies to boost economies in an effort to create more stable

societies can be traced back centuries – if not millennia - the belief that prosperity equals

peace (and thus more prosperity is peacebuilding) is a more recent variation (Fort and

Schipani 2004). Friedman’s Dell Theory of Conflict Prevention (2005) highlights the

potential of economic interdependence at the national level to reduce conflict risk, and

the public-private partnership strand emphasizes that by providing services that a

government can’t (or won’t), peaceful legitimacy is increased. In short, better services

lead to more legitimate governments, which in turn leads to more satisfied and peaceful

populaces (Tokuda 2014).

Challenges and challengers

Detractors argue that the empirical evidence in support of liberal peace theories is mixed

(Barbieri and Schneider 1999), typified by the contested legacy of Washington

Consensus-supported activities in fragile states (Szeftel 2000). Within-country empirical

relationships between development, trade and peace are weak, especially for the main

institutional components of the liberal peace in fragile and post-conflict environments:

democratization, promotion of the rule of law and free markets (Richmond 2006). Some

see deeper involvement of businesses into fragile conflict zones as neo-colonial

exploitation (Hönke 2014), claiming “pacification through political and economic

liberalization” (Paris 1997:56). But absent an alternative, liberal peacebuilding continues

to be the frame around which contemporary peace action is organized (Paris 2010;

Miklian 2014; Schouten and Miklian 2017), not least because it still promises peace and

development through the agency of western actors, on the premise that ‘we just need to

get the conditions right’.

Business activity can also exacerbate generalized conflict drivers like inequality. In

resource-poor societies, the introduction of new resources more often intensifies

competition rather than eases it, questioning the argument that better services leads to

more legitimate governance which subsequently leads to peace (Mazurana et al. 2014).

Large investments can corrupt and calcify local elites, reducing space for civil society

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participation and risking new cycles of violence, as seen with oil investments in Nigeria

(Zaum and Cheng 2012). Thus, the connections between economic growth and

peacebuilding can be more complex than a simple input-output model can explain

(Chigas and Woodrow 2009). Finally, the fact that a business conceivably needs to only

conduct its standard operations to reap the benefits of providing a ‘peaceful dividend’

could mean that it warrants exclusion from discussion as a tangible strand of business-

facilitated peacebuilding.

Assertion 2: Businesses influence peace by encouraging local development and

facilitating local capacities for peace

Description and proponents

Under Assertion 2 we find claims that businesses can and should build local development

capacities in their operational areas, which will in turn facilitate local peace. Activities

here are development-centric and generally at least one causal link removed from direct

peacebuilding action. Projects focus on improving the building blocks of society through

community engagement that ‘gives back’ resources to impoverished groups, cutting

across a broad array of actions, sectors, and degrees of local business integration. They

are supported by IGOs and NGOs in the belief that mitigation of harm is a conflict-

sensitive peacebuilding venture, and that addressing local societal needs (past, present or

future) through development leads to broader societal peace (MercyCorps 2011;

International Alert 2015).

Empirical evidence is limited but positive, including studies suggesting that higher-

quality corporate engagement with local communities may lower the incidence of

kidnappings, killings and protracted conflict (Aaron and Patrick 2013). CSR projects

have effectively defused small-scale tensions between local communities, (re)built health

and education infrastructures, and empowered disadvantaged communities, often

prioritized by firms through ‘win-win’ profit and peace relationships. Examples include

corporate support of local and regional peacebuilding organizations like Partners for

Peace in the Niger Delta, strengthening voices of local government and civil society

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through the Tintaya dialogue table in Peru and the Business Partners for Development

experiment, Newmont Gold’s recognition of Ghana’s Peace Councils in its own

grievance resolution processes and Barrick Gold’s support for municipal planning and

service delivery capabilities in the Dominican Republic. Reviews of Chevron’s

community development projects in Nigeria found that empowering peacebuilders

contributed to a dramatic reduction in violence - both against company facilities and

amongst communities formerly fighting one another (Hoben et al. 2012). Recent studies

argue for more direct political engagement that tackles local social issues and governance

gaps in fragile states to generate both societal benefits and corporate profits (Valente and

Crane 2010; Westermann-Beyhalo et al. 2015).v

As a primary cog of local economic development, providing jobs is forwarded as a means

to promote peace, especially in establishing inclusive and diverse workplaces or

supporting collaboration between conflict actors to build social cohesion (Fearon et al.

2009). IGOs like the World Bank (2008) highlight the benefits of employment, and

academics including Forrer et al. (2012) and Ozetel and Getz (2012) highlight the

benefits of inclusive economies. One example is the 2015 Business for Peace award

given to Merrill Fernando, the founder of Dilmah Tea in Sri Lanka. Fernando was

awarded the prize for his emphasis on workplace diversity that “empowered differently

able and under-privileged people in their communities with dignity and in a sustainable

manner” (BfP 2015:1). Firms can also provide a neutral space for suppliers/sellers of

different ethnicities and similar inclusivity characteristics (Khan and Ahmed 2014;

Lugard 2014), believing that engaging in such activities will promote trust, reduce

stereotypes and build inter-personal relationships, reducing participation in or support of

violence. Motivation is essentially subjugated to effectiveness, or as Starbucks Coffee

CEO Howard Schultz framed his firm’s impressive CSR portfolio: “This is not altruistic;

this is business. Values are a big part of both the balance sheet and the income statements

of Starbucks” (Ripley 2016:1).

Challenges and challengers

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The strongest critiques of local development by business focus upon the aims, scope and

relevance of CSR as peacebuilding. CSR policies only carry limited influence over

operational decision-making for businesses in fragile states (Yang and Rivers 2009), with

a lack of accountability mechanisms and poor track records for those affected in conflict

zones (Idemudia 2010; Prandi and Lozano 2011). Despite support from IGOs and INGOs,

as the operations and CSR divisions of most large firms are different entities, such

activities often merely project the appearance of participation but in practice dilute local

impact and engagement (Guidi 2008). Further, intent does not necessarily translate into

effective action, as declarations by senior management about their CSR programs

correlate poorly to actual CSR impact (Van de ven and Graafland 2006). Attempts to link

ethics, norms and responsibilities together – ‘thick’ CSR approaches – have been made to

break this impasse, but ‘thick’ morality-based approaches are often too complicated to

implement due to the competing needs of different in-house divisions (O’Riordan and

Fairbrass 2014). Despite efforts to guide corporate morality dating back to Adam Smith

(Brown and Forster 2013), CSR is still viewed as a weak strategic platform. CSR

reporting on conflict mitigation and peace impact also remains limited. If such reflections

appear in annual reports, they are almost always generic in nature (Kolk and Lenfant

2010).

Further, while INGO-business partnerships for conflict-sensitive development can

stimulate best practice agendas on conflict resolution (Haufler 2009), firms often view

these partnerships as tools to manage political and reputational costs or to defend against

encroachment by competitors – not as an avenue for constructive peace engagement

(Poret 2014). International firms are wary of funding warring regimes, not least due to the

reputational risks involved should the payouts (constituted as taxes or bribes) become

public knowledge. This wariness is conceived internally as risk mitigation, but often

construed publicly as an unwillingness to help the host community. Many corporate

boards and host governments are skeptical of business interfering in contested issues like

peace and local governance, and some firms curb local participation in CSR processes

lest they lose control of their project’s direction—and of their preferred framing of what

constitutes ‘peace’.

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Last, what many businesses, IGOs and NGOs might call ‘community empowerment’ or

‘inclusive’ activities can be labeled by governments (especially repressive regimes) as

enabling ‘dangerous resistance movements’ or ‘anti-nationalist’ support of political

opposition. This is especially the case where deep ethnic divisions lie. Empowering one

community may be viewed by others as a slight, and evidence for successful local

peacebuilding ‘trickling up’ into power centers for durable change is weak (MacGinty

and Richmond 2013). Further, business empowerment initiatives can trigger new fissures

by creating ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’, and firms can become targets of violent resistance.

Well-meaning actions can erode local government capacity as its essential duties are

subcontracted to foreign entities, making a firm so powerful that its presence rivals or

exceeds that of the state (Zandvliet and Anderson 2009). This dynamic of corporate

paternalism harkens back to early 20th century CSR practices (Husted 2015), played out

to the extreme across the colonial world but also in the United States, as Company Towns

asserted absolute control over goods, services and even governance of local populations

(Green 2010).

Assertion 3: Businesses influence peace by importing international norms or other

tools for democratic accountability

Description and proponents

Assertion 3 houses claims that foreign (typically western) firms can contribute to peace

by importing international standards, norms and ethics that improve the structural

conditions for peace and change corrupt local mindsets. These activities constitute

specific actions that are derived from broad regional or global frameworks that explicitly

call for direct engagement by the private sector (Rettberg 2016). Firms can reward good

behavior by states as determined by international guidelines through additional

investment, or punish bad behavior by withdrawing and removing the tax bases that such

operations provide. Indirect initiatives include business compliance and risk mitigation

strategies, under the belief that international firms leading by example through adherence

to global best practice norms will trickle down to local society (Lisk et al. 2013). This

approach encourages peacebuilding buy-ins in ways that businesses find predictable and

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achievable as they promise a competitive playing field and stress engagement with

governments to prevent abuses, as opposed to negotiating through rebel groups or other

less predictable actors.

Accepting the notion that they cannot ethically dismiss the consequences of their

presence, foreign firms increasingly support governance-positive peacebuilding activities

in conflict zones. Such activities include business initiatives that empower civil society

like opening formerly secret data to encourage popular accountability by the Extractive

Industries Transparency Initiative, working with anti-corruption watchdogs in corrupt

states like Transparency International’s partnership with the Organisation for Economic

Co-operation and Development on anti-bribery regulations, and supporting international

attempts to jointly tackle global trends that are presumed to exacerbate conflict, such as

the 2015 Caring For Climate initiative launched by a large business consortium and the

concerted push for business involvement in the UN SDGs. Recognizing the wide array of

potential guidance, efforts have been made to consolidate such standards to make it easier

for firms to implement these principles (IDPS 2015).

More support is found in discussions on transparency. For example, if a firm complies

with financial transparency initiatives like Publish What You Pay, then it is believed that

citizens will use this information to hold the government accountable, thus constraining

unscrupulous government behavior (Hamann et al. 2011). By refusing to engage in

wrongdoing, say by paying (or receiving) bribes where such practices are pervasive,

healthier societal relations are promoted, fostering a better groundwork for peace (Fort

and Schipani 2007). Peace is thus intertwined with virtues such as justice and honesty,

and to refuse bribes could require considerable courage, personal integrity and

justification to boards or shareholders (Schminke et al. 2015). These actions presuppose

transparency as both outward tool and internal check, and that promoting ethical

problem-solving business behavior will promote peace. In short, more ethical business

practices improve societal accountability, thus making democratic and non-violent means

of redress more realistic and possible.

17!

Challenges and challengers

Beyond the eyebrow-raising implied by eliciting foreign corporations to be the paragons

of international morality, there remain large gaps between the ethics of ‘do no harm’ and

‘do something!’ for international firms in conflict settings. Fort and Schipani’s

(2004:348) maxim that “it is not any business that fosters peace; it is an ethical business

that fosters peace” still holds. But we lack clear definitions of the meaning of ethical

action, and more importantly how to mitigate unintended consequences. To wit, Talisman

Oil was shamed out of the former Sudan after the Sudanese government was linked to

crimes of genocide; this gap was filled by the Indian firm ONGC Videsh who was

disinclined to consider this link as problematic or join western-led peace initiatives. Thus,

even if business-peace paradigms contain compliance mechanisms, whether this creates

peace dividends in practice is questionable as ethical withdrawal can leave voids for

firms of lower standards to fill (Patey 2007). Further, defining accountability initiatives

as peacebuilding may hold only limited benefit for local populations or local businesses

(Killick et al. 2005).

As with the previous Assertions, empirical links between implementation of standards

and the generation of peace are tenuous (Richmond 2013), and assume that peace action

comes after the successful (and extremely difficult and time-consuming) re-engineering

of society to a more transparent, western model (Roland 2004). Institutional reforms that

attract investment may have little to do with broader societal or economic reform, and

may reinforce neo-patrimonialism (Rodrik 2006). Others see international standards as

simply a new generation of corporate window-dressing to operate in contentious areas

(Chavkin et al. 2015). Even the UNGC (2010:np) has found that “conflict-sensitive

practices have not been widely embraced and have not yielded a cumulative positive

benefit to conflict-affected communities.” And firms complain of the difficulty of

implementing standards in the best of circumstances, let alone in conflict-affected areas

(Hoffmann 2014).

Others critique a host of related assumptions: that local actors care about adhering to

international standards; that clear links exist between norms, standards and the generation

of peace; that corrupt societies are conflict-ridden (and vice-versa); that watchdog

18!

organizations have legitimate punitive capabilities; that justice and peace are synonymous

in conflict-ridden societies; and that businesses are beacons of best practice on any of the

above (Reimann 2006; Muller 2013). Moreover, there is no clear evidence that adopting

international standards actually fosters peace. In fact, preliminary research has found an

inverse relationship between tax compliance and CSR performance by MNCs in fragile

and conflicted-affected states in certain situations (Hansen 2015). Also, most foreign

firms operate on the basis of contracts with states, whose regulatory power can dictate

aspects of firms’ operations and limit their potential for – or desire for – advocating for

societal change.

Assertion 4: Businesses influence peace by attempting to constrain the drivers or

root causes of conflict

Description and proponents

Proponents here assume that there are specific actions that businesses can take to quell

drivers of conflict. These drivers can be economic, political, or structural in nature, and

the actions may or may not relate to core business operations. Assertion 4 houses specific

initiatives that attempt to tackle root causes of conflict. Much existing business-peace

literature studies the role of business in addressing, influencing and changing the material

conditions of conflict environments. One common proposition is that if local conditions

can be improved, the root causes of conflict are addressed and the incentives for conflict

are reduced (Wenger and Mockli 2003; Ghimire and Upreti 2012). Although this

overlaps with previous Assertions (particularly Assertion 3), debates here focus upon the

multi-faceted causes of conflict gleaned from peace studies literature, including the

motivations, opportunities and incentives for conflict and generalized violence.

For firms, this frequently means attempting to stop financial flows that fund conflict

actors. Examples include the Kimberley Process for diamonds, Conflict Free Minerals

Initiatives in central Africa, banning the sale of oil from ISIS-held areas, and preventing

payment of royalties/taxes to oppressive regimes. Some organizations that normally lean

critical (e.g. Global Witness, International Alert) advocate for business engagement here,

19!

arguing that tightening trade and finance regimes related to conflict resources will help

stop wars. In support, many firms have elected to institute conflict-sensitive business

practices to attempt to ensure that they do not intentionally or unintentionally provide

material support to conflict actors. Businesses and IGOs/NGOs see these initiatives as

helping to prevent abuses while also reducing incentives to operate unethically

(Ballentine and Haufler 2009). Actions are concrete, and can be clearly presented to

shareholders, activists, and others. Results tend to be direct and accountable, particularly

in linking business actions and contributions to peace and conflict equations.

Beyond Assertion 2’s notion that any job (or any development) can build peace, firms

can employ more targeted approaches to address grievances like hiring former rebels or

other conflict actors, as Juan Valdez coffee in Colombia has done. Businesses have met

basic needs in conflict areas through social contributions assumed to build more peaceful

societies as with school and hospital construction by Heineken in the Congo, and

business organizations have partnered with governments and international bodies to

pressure regimes with discriminatory policies to achieve political change, as in boycotts

of the South African apartheid policy. Businesses have also attempted to address root

causes of insecurity that they risk contributing to, typified by the World Bank’s

Extractives Industry Review (EIR 2003:33) argument that “(m)any grievances from

communities and especially from indigenous peoples…relate to their claims that their

rights to participate in, influence, and share control over development initiatives,

decisions, and resources are ignored.”

Challenges and challengers

Assertion 4’s harshest critiques argue that the fluid nature of complex inter-group

grievances makes them exceptionally complicated to navigate, even for firms with the

managerial capacity and willingness to correctly assess what the true local conflict

drivers are (Ganson 2014). Business activity can also exacerbate conflict drivers like

inequality and exclusion/marginalization as investment partners typically come from

dominant ethnic or social groups. Further, actions like hiring ex-combatants are often not

20!

of sufficient scale to appreciably alter peacebuilding or peacemaking processes. Country-

level linkages between development, trade and peace are unproven, and the privileging of

business in the peace and development space pushes INGO agendas in fragile states

towards corporate interests, which can in turn exacerbate grievances by further

marginalizing excluded communities (Obenland 2014).

More broadly, there is an inherent difficulty in ‘solving’ root causes of political violence,

and it is questionable whether businesses are the best actors to identify and implement

solutions as their motivations can differ from or even contradict those of peace actors.

Recognizing that reducing conflict alone is not necessarily peacebuilding (it can simply

be suppression), business attempts to remake societal dynamics can create vacuums of

power that push conflict actors into even more destructive activities. Global initiatives to

eliminate market access for conflict actors are also hard to monitor and implement

(Miller and Bardouille 2014). Politically-engaged firms must pick winners and losers in

ongoing conflicts, and these tend to be pro-government, anti-insurgent in nature due to

corporate desires for security, stability and uninterrupted market access. Finally, business

can be an enabler of conflict in fragile developing countries, either through unintentional

complicity (Ruggie 2003), or through intentional exploitation of conflict for profit (le

Billon 2012).

Assertion 5: Businesses can effectively build and make peace by undertaking direct

diplomatic efforts with conflict actors

Description and proponents

This is the clearest and most specific of the five Assertions, wherein businesses offer a

vested direct stake in not simply peacebuilding but also peacemaking. This can mean

working as peace process participants, as mediators, entering into partnerships with

former conflict elites to encourage their mainstreaming or reintegration into society, or in

leveraging their influence to urge recalcitrant actors to participate in peace talks. Business

leaders who actively pursue peace are considered positive game changers in their

21!

companies and societies (BfP 2015), and their leadership prompts others to action (Oetzel

and Breslauer 2015). As Petter Furberg, head of the Myanmar branch of Norwegian

telecom firm Telenor, said at the 2016 Oslo Business for Peace event: “We are nation-

building through mobile services. I am personally negotiating with rebel leaders…in

order to operate.” These actions of corporate diplomacy engage in the social and political

realms to extended governance in conflict-prone areas (Westermann-Beyhalo et al. 2015).

Other examples include political negotiations by sponsors of prominent sporting events

including the 2016 Formula 1 in Azerbaijan and the 2022 World Cup in Qatar to

advocate for human rights issues when events are held in countries with poor rights

records.

A firm can facilitate dialogue between warring parties, as Chevron did in Papua New

Guinea by hiring mediators to ameliorate grievances through peaceful dialogue. While

Chevrons’ activities had little to do with the local dispute, they were incentivized to

contribute toward its cessation as fighting made the business environment more fragile.

In this sense, peacebuilding is also proactive risk and impact management. Other

examples include the Bogota and Nicosia Chambers of Commerce in the Colombia and

Cyprus peace processes, and the construction of dispute resolution mechanisms by South

African and international firms during apartheid. At a more basic level, businesses can

also provide logistical peacebuilding support for conflict actors looking to transit to peace,

through meeting spaces, equipment, or the like.

Challenges and challengers

Most critiques of business engagement in formal diplomacy argue that these activities are

both outside the realm of core business actions (Friedman 1970; Berdal and

Mousavizadeh 2010; Hönke 2014), and carry significant reputational and political risk

(Zandvliet and Anderson 2009). While firms can take part in peace talks (usually at the

executive level), if negotiations break down it can leave the business open to blame or

even retaliation by conflict actors (Bouillion 2004), reducing business interest in peace

for years or even decades, as in Colombia (Rettberg 2013). Even celebrated efforts like

the logistical support given by British businessman Tiny Rowland for the Mozambique

22!

peace process gloss over dirtier details; Rowland supported the liberation movement

Renamo through protection payments, and was implicated in engineering conflict and

commissioning violence for personal gain (Vines 1998).

There also remain gaps in our understandings of relationships between markets and local

conflict economies. Even though sophisticated networks of conflict actors are embedded

in many local social, political and economic fabrics, negotiating with rebels is not

typically an operational activity that firms admit to. Yet expanding to new markets means

that they are inevitably confronted with ethical dilemmas like roadblock economies,

where checkpoint payments can exacerbate local conflict through the very mechanisms

necessary to secure local market access (Bennett 2002). Fragile regions are thus subject

to a political economy of conflict (Ballentine 2005), with security forces and armed

groups controlling access and extracting money from all transitors (le Billon 2008).

Conflict actors also extort businesses, so firms become entrenched within local conflict

economies (Scudder 2013). Evidence from Afghanistan (DuPee 2012), Nigeria (Idemudia

2010) and Colombia (US State 2013) indicates that business operations exacerbate

conflict in such settings, notwithstanding explicit ambitions to instead bring a

‘development dividend’ to local populations. Deciphering how businesses navigate this

landscape by continuing the direct engagements needed to operate while simultaneously

minimizing risk accountability will constitute a core challenge for business-peace action.

Discussion

This model’s primary proposed value lies in contextualizing business-peace activity for

both business and peace scholars in the interest of improving empirical work. It can also

serve to extract common themes from different fields of study, helping us better

understand which Assertions may have the most forward value and why. Here we briefly

explore three potential consequences and limitations of this emergent literature to show

how such categorization can be beneficial in practice, and explore the ability of specific

Assertion studies to better direct peace-positive business ventures.

23!

First, businesses cannot expect to be rewarded as peacebuilders just because they

undertake activities that are called ‘peacebuilding’ by external actors – and those firms

that do so primarily as a public relations venture risk doing more harm than good to both

local communities and their own brands. For example, Furberg’s comments about

Telenor’s ‘nation-building’ in Myanmar were critically received, and helped to spur a

six-month Norwegian investigation into Telenor’s business practices throughout Asia,

uncovering unethical and possibly illegal activities in several countries. Also, few

individual firms have the capacity, internal expertise or political will engage in the types

of long-term, expansive, institutional ventures that constitute engaged peacebuilding.

Such ventures require engaging within complex grassroots political and societal entities –

and then serving as a broker to power centers or local elites. Efforts by Shell and Chevron

in the Niger delta are instructive, as they successfully built local peace for a period, but as

their projects only assisted the immediate community, they was vulnerable to national

and regional political trends towards conflict and ultimately collapsed.

For forward conceptual clarity, it will likely be valuable to remove those business actions

that are peripheral to, but ultimately separate from, peacebuilding. Ganson (forthcoming)

lists four categories of such, including ‘doing good but not building peace’ (generic

health, education, or employment initiatives), ‘small wins that don’t add up to peace’

(micro-community ventures that have no impact on broader societal peace), ‘program

failures’ (well-intended ventures that fail due to local fragility), and ‘perverse impacts’

(well-intended ventures that create more harm than good by skewing local resource

dynamics). It may also be a question of scale. A business-peace project that works on

community reconciliation in 3 villages is unlikely to make a true peace contribution,

while one that works in 3,000 villages, as was done by the Federacion Nacional de

Cafeteros in Colombia through their ‘Footprints of Peace’ project, may indeed have

significant long-term positive peace impacts (Miklian and Bickel 2017). Linking business

and management scholars more strongly with their peacebuilding counterparts will likely

offer a wealth of cross-disciplinary guidance as concerns what is more (or less) likely to

work in such realms.

24!

Second, economic opening often only brings as much peace as a local regime will allow.

Firms that enter fragile new markets should not overstate their positive peace and

development contributions unless they are willing to also shoulder blame for political

conflict events that may be outside their control or sphere of influence later. The lessons

of Assertion 1 are instructive here, as participation in economic opening alone is often

claimed by firms to provide a core peace-positive development benefit for local societies

(and usually presented when starting new expansions to shareholders and the public), but

it is rarely coupled with an engaged effort to improve local societies. Peacebuilders have

problematized this space extensively, asking questions like ‘development for whom?’ and

‘economic growth for whom?’ when considering new engagements (Miklian et al. 2011).

Also, there are significant business benefits to partnering with the ‘best, most connected’

partner to ensure project success, but such decisions may merely exacerbate local conflict

dynamics by giving legitimacy and funding to a local conflict actor in the name of

stability and growth (Miklian 2012).

Further, ‘win-win’ business logics can have deeper consequences than the benign

buzzword suggests, especially if encouraging an econometric understanding of peace

reduces peacebuilding to whatever numbers can express. This risks silencing voices

whose perspectives might not be articulated within technocratic discourses,

disfranchising those who should be the principal business-peace benificiaries. Without a

clear, locally-sourced definition of peace, it will be difficult to measure empirically if

business-peace ventures truly succeed. The 5 Assertions intend to provide clarity and

assist in forward guidance for this growing field, but if businesses are to become ethical

peace actors, operationalizing peacebuilding must be contextualized through grounded

fieldwork for each specific setting, making explicit the concrete outcomes associated with

peace by different stakeholders. While this complicates business-peace tasks, it is much

more likely that long-term results will be more robust for firms and of deeper value to the

local communities who should always be regarded as the ultimate beneficiaries (Miklian

and Hoelscher 2017).

Third, truly courageous business-peace choices are rarely made in fragile contexts. There

exist only a handful of cases where a firm made a conscious decision to forego profit in

25!

the interest of ameliorating conflict drivers (as did Talisman), and even then such choices

are usually due to external public pressure from human rights or advocacy groups. To

give a counter example, since Myanmar’s 2011 economic opening hundreds of MNCs

have entered the country, and most require a government-affiliated joint venture partner

by law. However, the government has since begun and expanded an ongoing ethnic

cleansing program against one million ethnic-minority Rohingya people (BBC 2016). As

of publication, no foreign firms have so much as issued a statement of concern about their

partner’s actions, let alone left the country because of it.

Why are firms in Myanmar silent on the ethnic cleansing, and where is the leadership

from the dozens of firms operating there who are signatories to the UNGC, Business and

Human Rights framework, and other similar business-peace ventures even as the UN

confirms the atrocities? It speaks to the significant limitations of action that we can

expect from corporations under the 5 Assertions, as well as the recognition that large

elements of this agenda remain deeply aspirational. It is unrealistic to hope that firms will

unilaterally pull out of Myanmar precisely due to the “unprecedented opportunities for

hypergrowth” (and corporate career-making) that exists for firms in just these sorts of

settings around the world (Musacchio and Werker 2016:23; Miklian 2017), coupled by

the fact that few firms have interest in engaging in the types of political interventions that

are needed for peace action. However, the international community is arguing for just

such an expansion, typified by John Ruggie’s keynote argument at the UN Business and

Human Rights council that “for business to maximize its contribution…it must put efforts

to advance respect for human rights at the heart of the people part of sustainable

development.” (UNBHR 2016).

Directions for Further Research

To bridge this widening gulf, more exact calculations of how profit, risk, and sustainable

peace and development promotion must be made (and metrics established for such) for

firms that wish to justify lofty claims of working towards peace. Concurrently, claims by

the international community of what businesses can and should do in the peacebuilding

26!

space should be tempered to the realm of the realistic and possible, drawing upon the

strengths of business knowledge in conflict (like rule of law, systems thinking, risk

mitigation and infrastructure development) instead of their weaknesses (like deep

understanding of complex socio-political dynamics). Linking to business self-interest and

offering firms a specific complementary (as opposed to primary) role in peace is also

likely to be beneficial, and a key way in which business, management, and peace scholars

can find common ground. Empirical research of and within the above Assertions can help

to better define and frame research questions for such. Meanwhile, promoting peripheral

good through CSR or philanthropy while ignoring active corporate harm through

operations that support repressive regimes risks the business-peace community being

used to simply ‘peacewash’ corporate activities in conflict zones, endangering the

business-peace agenda while at this critical nascent stage.

27!

Compliance with Ethical Standards:

Funding: This study was funded by the Norwegian Research Council

(AIDEFFECT)

Ethical approval: This article does not contain any studies with human participants

performed by any of the authors.

28!

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i Our discussion is most relevant for western multinationals, but many dynamics also hold for Global South

firms and local businesses.

ii The morality of profitmaking has long been contentious. Friedman himself was supportive of CSR if it

could be directly linked to profitable outcomes.

iii Selected examples only scratch the surface of business-peace interactions, and were chosen upon two

criteria: 1) best-fit, and 2) new examples are used where possible to further enrich our cumulative example

base.

iv While Hayek is often presented as an anti-intervention minimalist abhorring the concept of social justice,

his repeated support of a social safety net could be considered as amenable to certain business-peace

activities from an ethical standpoint.

v One could consider ‘political’ to be a misnomer, as all CSR projects are inherently political in their efforts

to change local societal dynamics.!

Revisión sistemática de literatura correspondiente a la Responsabilidad Social Empresarial (RSE) en la construcción de paz: lecciones para Colombia

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2023

Carlos Arturo Tellez Bedoya

El objetivo del documento es evaluar la producción académica en el contexto internacional y nacional, reflexionando acerca de cómo las empresas colombianas pueden realizar acciones de responsabilidad social orientadas a la construcción de paz. La metodología empleada fue primordialmente de carácter cualitativo, aproximándose a través del método inductivo al análisis de la literatura. Este documento es relevante, evidenciando la existencia de múltiples casos de participación empresarial en la construcción de paz, por ende, en el escenario actual del país se recomienda fortalecer la sensibilización, formación e integración entre los actores para llevar a cabo iniciativas sostenibles que tengan alto impacto en el tejido social y que sean opuestas a la generación de nuevas violencias.

Corporate social responsibility: A contributor to peace in conflict-ridden destinations?

Chapter

Jan 2024

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been argued to contribute to the reconciliation and peacebuilding efforts of destinations that have or are experienced conflict. Even so, little academic attention has been paid to the examination of the interface between CSR and peace within tourism settings. To this end, the aim of this study is to examine the potential of tourism companies to contribute to peace through their CSR activities. Specifically, we draw from the case of the Stelios Philanthropic Foundation, which was established by Stelios Hadjioannou (founder of Easy Group). We focus on the peace awards that the Foundation offers for bi-communal entrepreneurial activities in Cyprus, an island that has long been tormented by conflict. Through semi-structured interviews performed with awardees, this study illuminates the peace through tourism literature by evaluating the effectiveness of their CSR activities in peacebuilding. The chapter concludes that there are various exogenous factors that negatively impact the effectiveness of CSR on peacebuilding stemming primarily from a lack of awareness among interested parties and the little support provided from the government and makes recommendations on the improvement of related schemes.

Hoteles, responsabilidad social empresarial y paz en la Macarena, Meta

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Apr 2024

Carlos Arturo Tellez Bedoya

ENFOQUE MULTIDISCIPLINARIO MÉXICO COLOMBIA ECUADOR

Chapter

Full-text available

Apr 2024

Carlos Arturo Tellez Bedoya

Framing the Fragmentation of Peace: an analysis of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2020

Maurício Vieira

This article aims to discuss the concept of fragmentation of peace in order to understand how the concept proposed by Galtung (1969) is being operationalized, implemented and disseminated as an international agenda. Taking the Millennium and Sustainable Development Goals implemented by the United Nations as parameter, this article embeds in a framing perspective, arguing that positive peace is more than a concept, rather a pragmatic common and global strategy.

Trade–peace conundrum in Africa: The moderating effects of poverty and inequality

Article

Full-text available

Nov 2023

This paper examines the trade–peace nexus in Africa and ascertains how poverty and inequality tilt the relationship in the eight regional (economic) blocs in Africa, viz. the Arab Maghreb Union (UMA), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the Community of Sahel–Saharan States (CEN–SAD), the East African Community (EAC), the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), from 1998 to 2020 using the Driscoll–Kraay estimate. The study contributes to the literature by disaggregating the peace effect of trade in Africa by the regional (economic) blocs to allow for in‐depth and context‐specific analysis. The paper also expands the scope of existing studies by examining the direct effect of poverty and inequality on peace in addition to the indirect effect that is revealed through their interactions with trade integrations. The findings reveal that trade promotes peace in Africa, while wide income inequality and a large poverty gap increase the likelihood of conflict. The interaction of poverty and inequality with trade integration shows that while the poverty level does not improve the effect of trade on peace, inequality reduces the impact of trade on peace. The study concludes that poverty and inequality play significant roles in the trade–peace nexus in Africa. Policy recommendations are discussed.

The business of sustainability as a governance tool

Chapter

Full-text available

Oct 2023

In this chapter we survey the rapidly shifting landscape of how companies operationalize environmental, social, and governance (ESG) activities into their operations, and the wide array of social impacts of these activities. We explore how the private sector understands and employs sustainable development concepts, both as governance tools and in its role as a social actor, particularly in areas of reduced governance and societal capacity. Our opening window into this discussion is in what businesses often call their ESG portfolios, which are rapidly growing components of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives by firms around the world and provide a strong conceptual pin for our discussion. This chapter provides an overview of global developments on business and sustainable development, focusing on the most significant advances since 2018, and then presents an analytical discussion of what this global shift means for development and governance actors in development spaces. We take as a starting point that for most of the private sector today, their engagement in society means that they are indeed governance actors whether they profess to be or not, and this recognition can serve to deliver a new perspective on their societal actions for sustainable development.

The Effects of Organizational Stress Sources on Quality of Work and Work Peace According to Provincial Managers of the Ministry of National EducationThe Effects of Organizational Stress Sources on Quality of Work and Work Peace According to Provincial Managers of the Ministry of National Education

Article

Sep 2023

Emre ÇALIŞKAN

This study aimed to examine the effects of organizational stress sources on the quality of work life and work peace, according to the provincial administrators of the Ministry of National Education. The study utilizes a qualitative case study model, aiming to examine the perspectives of provincial organization managers working in Antalya during the 2022-2023 academic year with an in-depth and holistic approach. The research study group included ten provincial organization managers working in Antalya Data were gathered using an interview form. Five semi-structured questions on the interview form were devised based on expert opinion. The data were analyzed by descriptive and content analysis. According to the research results, the participants mentioned many factors , such as individual differences in terms of lifestyles and cultural backgrounds, political pressure, or anything related to the work environment can cause organizational stress. For this reason, if it is desired to ensure work peace and increase the quality of work life, the factors that may cause organizational stress should be eliminated first. This should be the primary task of top managers or leaders and the element that needs attention.

The business of peace: understanding corporate contributions to conflict management

Article

Feb 2020

Molly M. Melin

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 role of business in sustainable development and peacebuilding: Observing interaction effects

Article

Full-text available

Sep 2019
Bus Polit

Jason Miklian

How can we better understand the complex interaction effects that are triggered when businesses and international government agencies become partners in social development? To answer, this article presents field experiences of Heineken in the Democratic Republic of Congo, ethnic cleansing in Myanmar, and the United Nations Global Compact in Dubai, to show the impact of key multi-stakeholder business-development policies as experienced by millions of people. These cases help us understand business and sustainable development interactions by exploring existing research gaps regarding issues of discourse, guidance, and legitimacy. This article has four aims: (1) to show that business-development interactions are much more complex than most case studies are able to encapsulate; (2) to explore how unintended ripple effects of even the most promising “win-win” business-development policies can carry catastrophic consequences; (3) to illustrate the potential benefits of a novel methodology for future research on business, global governance, and sustainable development; and (4) to show how business and development concerns interconnect across and through the macro- and meso-levels of analysis down to local livelihood interactions and impacts. I contextualize these experiences to emerging scholarship, opening avenues for building theory and improving policy on business, development, and peace.

The business-peace nexus: 'business for peace' and the reconfiguration of the public/private divide in global governance

Article

Full-text available

Feb 2018
J INT RELAT DEV

This article explores the implications of ‘business for peace’ (B4P), a new global governance paradigm that aims to put international businesses at the frontline of peace, stability and development efforts in fragile and conflictaffected states. This article argues that B4P entails a shift in the balance between public and private authority across what we coin the ‘business–peace nexus’ and which comprises corporate peacebuilding activities across different spatial scales and institutional settings. We explore B4P’s agency across two distinct nodes in this nexus—in global peacebuilding and development architectures, and in local peacebuilding settings in the Democratic Republic of Congo—to articulate the B4P paradigm’s multiple and contradictory effects on the balance between public and private authority in contemporary peacebuilding. On the one hand, B4P tips institutional scales towards the public by embedding corporations within public accountability structures. On the other hand, by legitimising businesses as peace actors, the B4P framework risks institutionalising asymmetrical encounters between firms and people affected by their operations. We deploy the term ‘asymmetrical governance’ to explain how the amalgamation of global and national, public and private into the operational presence of corporations skews the balance of power in their encounters with local populations.

Theorizing Business and Local Peacebuilding Through the “Footprints of Peace” Coffee Project in Rural Colombia

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2018

Despite emerging study of business initiatives that attempt to support local peace and development, we still have significant knowledge gaps on their effectiveness and efficiency. This article builds theory on business engagements for peace through exploration of the Footprints for Peace (FOP) peacebuilding project by the Federación Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia (FNC). FOP was a business-peace initiative that attempted to improve the lives of vulnerable populations in conflict-affected regions. Through 70 stakeholder interviews, we show how FOP operationalized local peace and development in four conflict-affected departments of Colombia, and examine FNC’s motivations for and effectiveness of its peacebuilding activities. Our main finding is that FOP’s success supported several existing theories on business engagement in peace both in terms of peacebuilding by business and for local economic and societal development, providing evidence in support of development–business collaborations and local peacebuilding by business under certain targeted circumstances. We relate these findings to existing literature, highlighting where existing business-peace theory is supported, where FOP challenged assumptions, and where it illuminated new research gaps. These findings serve to take business-peace theory forward and improve our understandings of what can constitute success for business-peace initiatives in Colombia and possibly other conflict-affected regions.

A Blueprint for Pro-Peace Innovation

Article

Full-text available

Oct 2016

Peace and conflict studies knowledge has dramatically expanded over the last 25 years. Scholars know much more about why conflicts start, and how they can be prevented. In parallel, innovation and technology actors have begun to engage with issues of peace and conflict. Yet cooperation between these actors is still relatively rare. We argue that there are important synergies that can foster peace-positive innovation in order to develop mechanisms and technologies to support human security and peacebuilding. We outline five steps to move the peace innovation agenda forward. Innovators and scholars can meaningfully collaborate to shape peaceful societies. We offer five steps they can take together. Jason Miklian and Kristian Hoelscher are Senior Researchers at PRIO. Their research examines broadly how politics and commerce affect peace and conflict, security and development.

Mining Companies and Governance in Africa

Chapter

Full-text available

Jan 2011

In this chapter we contribute to the overarching theme of this book with a focus on the African context, arguing that corporate responsibilities can be better understood and acted upon when seeing corporations as part of a broader governance system. Recognizing, of course, that the African continent provides for a wide array of circumstances (as is the case in Latin America), we use illustrative case studies from South Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to highlight common themes in the interplay between mining corporations and governance. These two countries can be seen as representing, in the African context, polar extremes of socio-economic development (see, for instance, UNDP, 2010), as well as the extent to which the state is able to implement and enforce commonly binding rules, which we call ‘statehood’ following Boerzel and Risse (2010).1

Wars of Plunder: Conflicts, Profits and the Politics of Resources

Book

Jan 2014

Philippe Le Billon

Getting it Right: Making Corporate–Community Relations Work

Book

Sep 2017

Corruption and the role of natural resources in post-conflict transitions

Chapter

Apr 2016

The Peace Business: Money and Power in the Palestine-Israel Conflict

Book

Jun 2004

Markus E. Bouillon

The Peace Business is a study of the evolution and consequences of business cooperation in the Middle East in the years of the peace process. Markus E. Bouillon examines how the engagement of entrepreneurs and businesspeople in the peace process, as well as how the nature of business ties between Israelis, Jordanians, and Palestinians, failed to strengthen and advance peace in the Middle East. In this important contribution to the Israel-Palestine debate, he argues that private business interests undermined economic and political stability domestically and thus contributed to the failure of the peace process.

Mapping frontier economies

Article

Jan 2016

Corporate Social Responsibility in Developing Countries as an Emerging Field of Study: CSR in Developing Countries

Article

Jul 2016

Given the rising interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) globally, its local expressions are as varied as they are increasingly visible in both developed and developing countries. This paper presents a multilevel review of the literature on CSR in developing countries and highlights the key differentiators and nuanced CSR-related considerations that qualify it as a distinctive field of study. This review entails a content analysis of 452 articles spanning two-and-a-half decades (1990–2015). Based on this comprehensive review, the authors identify the key differentiating attributes of the literature on CSR in developing countries in relation to depictions of how CSR is conceived or 'CSR Thinking' and depictions of how CSR is practiced and implemented or 'CSR Doing'. The authors synthesize from there five key themes that capture the main aspects of variation in this literature, namely: (1) complex institutional antecedents within the national business system (NBS); (2) complex macro-level antecedents outside the NBS; (3) the salience of multiple actors involved in formal and informal governance; (4) hybridized and other nuanced forms of CSR expressions; and (5) varied scope of developmental and detrimental CSR consequences. The paper concludes by accentuating how the nu-anced forms of CSR in the developing world are invariably contextualized and locally shaped by multi-level factors and actors embedded within wider formal and informal governance systems.

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