Corporations as Political and Unpolitical Actors

2011

This paper engages with the lively academic debate on the politicization of the firm and more specifically with Scherer and Palazzo’s recent works on a ‘political conception of corporate responsibility’. A number of critiques are formulated, in relation to both the discursive articulation of ‘political CSR’ in the way it constructs the political role of business and the normative argument advocating this politicization, focusing on possible unwanted effects. The paper then discusses how the proposed institutionalization of a political role for firms may in fact lead to an even more ‘unpolitical’ society, borrowing this ‘unpolitical’ notion to Rosanvallon in order to problematize the very te…

From the Editors: Problematizing the Power of Responsibility

2011