Corporate Social Responsibility & Development: A Knot of Disempowerment

Sortuz: Oñati Journal of Emergent Socio-Legal Studies, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 43-71, 2008

29 Pages Posted: 21 Dec 2009 Last revised: 4 Dec 2013

See all articles by Luis Eslava

Luis Eslava

University of Kent - Kent Law School

Date Written: November 21, 2008

Abstract

This paper presents a discursive analysis of the arrival, operation, and effects of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) on international development from a socio-legal perspective. CSR has become a priority on the international development agenda as frameworks for development promote the contraction of the state's role and seek to encourage corporate participation in addressing social issues. It is argued here, however, that CSR discourse represents an expansion of development as an antipolitics machine. As a discourse, CSR possesses a powerful capacity for selfperpetuation, allowing it to appropriate and rephrase social dissent in its own terms, and cancelling genuine political contestation. Through institutionalization, regularization and managerial capture, CSR exemplifies how discursive practices and structures embody a constellation of power relations that constrain action and obscure the intrinsically political nature of development.

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR, Development, Anti-Politcs Machine, Ferguson, Escobar, Foucault, Discoursive Analysis, Socio-Legal, Law

Suggested Citation

Eslava, Luis, Corporate Social Responsibility & Development: A Knot of Disempowerment (November 21, 2008). Sortuz: Oñati Journal of Emergent Socio-Legal Studies, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 43-71, 2008, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1524544

Luis Eslava (Contact Author)

University of Kent - Kent Law School ( email )

Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NS
United Kingdom

HOME PAGE: http://https://www.kent.ac.uk/law/people/academic/Eslava,_Luis.html

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