Civil society active in corporate accountability dataset

• Civil society has become one of the most popular concepts within international development discourses. But, what is civil society? Civil society is defined as an arena of collective social interaction situated between the state, market and household, encompassing a range of non-state organisations, groups and associations, including non-governmental organisations (NGOs). The article assesses the range of different interpretations of civil society highlighting its diverse makeup at local, national and transnational scales. • Why has civil society become so important within international development? Democracy and delivery of services. As people organised collectively against totalitarian regimes in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and the Global South, civil society emerged as a manifestation of democratisation processes. The neoliberal agenda also wanted to capture and channel civil society to foster democracy, but also to take on service delivery functions as the role of the state diminished. This article outlines how these roles relate to two theoretical viewpoints – the Marxist or Gramscian that sees civil society as a site of resistance and counterhegemony, and the liberal democratic that views it as a beneficial force for good. • Civil society in practice. In the 1990s, development agencies championed civil society from an undertheorised liberal democratic viewpoint as a saviour or ‘magic bullet’ as it channels more and more funds via NGOs. But, civil society has increasingly been criticised as undemocratic, unable to reach the poor and unaccountable. This article describes this evolution. • The emergence of global or transnational society. In these days of globalisation, global civil society is increasingly important. This is neither civil society at a global level, nor is it a unified global force for good, lobbying and challenging the neoliberal order. Instead, viewed as ‘transnational civil society’, it is a complex mix of competing, overlapping and intersecting groups that operate beyond national borders for a range of reasons. Especially important actors in transnational

This article examines the role that civil society has played in pursuing corporate accountability for international crimes. The article is divided into five main parts. Following a general introduction in Section 1, Section 2 sets forth the definitions used throughout this article and the methodology used to carry out the research. Section 3 covers cases at international tribunals, beginning with an overview of prosecutions of corporate executives at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg and proceeding to an examination of civil society engagement with the International Criminal Court in cases involving corporate actors. Section 4 analyses cases brought by civil society actors in domestic courts, focusing on criminal cases filed in France and civil cases filed in the USA. This section of the article reviews cases from the USA that have narrowed corporate liability for international crimes and compares them with similarly situated cases filed in France, which has become a forum of choice for victims seeking corporate criminal accountability. In Section 5, we conclude that civil society’s pursuit of corporate accountability in domestic courts has ensured that a greater number and a wider range of actors are held to account, thereby complementing the work of international tribunals, which comparatively can try only a small number of cases, and has offered a ray of hope to victims who wish to see accountability for international crimes.

The article begins by summarizing sociological approaches to (1) ecologically unequal exchange, and (2) foreign investment dependence and environmental load displacement. These areas of sociological inquiry consist of structural theories and cross-national statistical analyses that test hypotheses derived from both approaches. It concludes by briefly describing sociological research on global civil society and the environment, with a focus on the world society approach to environmental change. This area of theory and research provides some insights on ways in which global and transnational civil society groups, such as environmental international nongovernmental organizations, can partially mitigate the environmental harms caused by ecologically unequal exchanges and environmental load displacements.Key words: ecologically unequal exchange, environmental load displacement, foreign investment dependence

The ‘Mind the Gap’ project has created a toolkit for civil society to hold companies to account for their adverse impacts. The toolkit sets out two distinct but interlinked frameworks: harmful corporate strategies resulting in the avoidance of responsibility for adverse impacts, and civil society counter-strategies to overcome these harmful strategies. Both frameworks capture the unique experiences of the Mind the Gap project’s global consortium partners and civil society actors focused on corporate accountability. The project responds to a need to close governance gaps that arise in the context of the current global economic system. It is only by identifying and understanding harmful corporate strategies that civil society can effectively advocate for corporate accountability and the closure of governance gaps.

ABSTRACTFaced with the growing influence of multinational corporations on global politics and economy, civil society organizations play an increasing role in holding corporations accountable for human rights violations and environmental degradation. However, the effectiveness of global civil society in this role and the consequences of power dynamics between donors and funded organizations for corporate accountability (CA) strategies are still disputed. This article uses original data on 290 civil society actors to examine the role of funding sources for the organizations’ repertoires and aims. The main findings reveal that receiving funding from state or government authorities reduces the probability of using contentious strategies, whereas funding from charities has no such effect. Funding from state or government authorities also diminishes the likelihood of organizations to pursue more radical claims such as economic reforms. Such funding, then, becomes an impediment to seeking structural change and to employing more radical repertoires. The article concludes that CA initiatives, while using the tools and resources that the current legal, economic and political system provides, can, at least potentially, fail to have the intended effect. Rather than challenging power and provoking structural change, they can contribute to cementing existing power structures and legitimizing dominant discourses.

This chapter reviews the role of civil society and human rights defenders in holding corporations to account. Civil society plays numerous roles in corporate accountability. It is civil society that is often first to take heed of a situation, first on the ground, and first to expose the issue to the wider public. The mobilization of civil society therefore often foreshadows shifts in both legal and business practices. Civil society uses a wide variety of tactics, from engagement in multistakeholder regulation and intracorporate consultancy and collaboration, to exposing wrongdoing and organizing protests. The chapter takes a broad understanding of the definition of civil society, allowing it to introduce a range of actors including, inter alia, benchmarking organizations, labour movements, public interest law groups and shareholder activists. Human rights defenders are viewed more narrowly to focus on those at the dangerous frontlines of human rights protection. Case studies of Pavel Sulyandziga in Russia and Berta Caceres in Honduras are used to demonstrate the evident risks from both state and private sector actors. The chapter also discusses some of the tactics business uses to weaken civil society participation, and concludes with a discussion of the rationales and possibilities for more positive engagement by businesses in protecting the protectors of human rights.

This chapter reviews the role of civil society and human rights defenders in holding corporations to account. Civil society plays numerous roles in corporate accountability. It is civil society that is often first to take heed of a situation, first on the ground, and first to expose the issue to the wider public. The mobilization of civil society therefore often foreshadows shifts in both legal and business practices. Civil society uses a wide variety of tactics, from engagement in multistakeholder regulation and intracorporate consultancy and collaboration, through to exposing wrongdoing and organizing protests. The chapter takes a broad understanding of the definition of civil society, allowing it to introduce a range of actors including, inter alia, benchmarking organizations, labour movements, public interest law groups and shareholder activists. Human rights defenders are viewed more narrowly to focus on those at the dangerous frontlines of human rights protection. Case studies of Pavel Sulyandziga in Russia and Berta Caceres in Honduras are used to demonstrate the evident risks from both state and private sector actors. The chapter also discusses some of the tactics business uses to weaken civil society participation, and concludes with a discussion of the rationales and possibilities for more positive engagement by businesses in protecting the protectors of human rights.

This chapter starts with the liberal conception of a "global civil society". The globalization of the concept of civil society is one aspect of the emergent global civil society, for it shows how civil society ideas and languages and institutions are spreading beyond their place of origin into new contexts. There are two problems in the predominantly liberal conception of global civil society, arising from its emphasis on rule and space. The chapter argues for a critical approach to (global) civil society that reveals how the concept is used as a justificatory discourse in making new political spaces and distributing power. It focuses on dominant international legal thinkers and the entangled history of sovereignty-property. In particular, the chapter traces the entangled history of sovereignty/property in the context of European colonial expansion, when the idea of civil society gained traction as ideology and apology for European colonial expansion and occupation.

The article gives a scientific analysis about the nature of civil society, which is the case in the works of the philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome; lit conceptual and categorical apparatus of the essence of civil society and the rule of law in the works N.Makivelli, D.Lokk, T.Hobbes, J.-F . Rousseau, C.-L.Monteske, I. Kant, G.V.F.Gegel, A.Gramshi. The evolution of theories of civil society as a set of natural forms of social activity of people who are called non-political means to provide for the needs of the citizens and their interests, discloses the structure of civil society and its beginning, based on self-realization of rights; notes that only in a democratic society is possible the development of civil society in Ukraine and the transition to a global civil society. The purpose of the article - to form the theoretical basis of civil society in the history of social and philosophical thought, the conditions of civil society, the nature and structure, which is important for further analysis of authentic civil society as a major concept study. It is noted that the first experience of scientific analysis regarding the nature of civil society has a place in the writings of the philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome, where you can find the concept of the idea of civil society that emerged in the polis democracy, Roman law, of the later ideas of John Locke's natural law and Hobbes. In ancient Greece the term included all the important areas of society: family, religion, education, literature, and art. Being a member of civil (civil) society meant to be a citizen, that is, to live and act in accordance with the laws, do not bring harm to other citizens. It was then that the understanding of society as totality citizens should be free to dispose of their property and their abilities. Civil society - a set of individuals, classes, groups, institutions, whose interaction is governed by civil law, and which is directly related to public policy. Civil society, according to Hegel, is a system of different needs that are based on private property and universal formal equality of people. Such a society appears with the emergence of bourgeois society in the historical arena. That is why civil society is a step in the development of the state but also depends on it. The foundation of civil society is private property, property interests and the formal equality of citizens. Higher interests of civil society are kept by law, court and police and therefore can not be realized without the participation of the state. Excessive development of some elements of civil society to the detriment of others can lead to unjust oppression of others. Maintenance of civil society - is the realm of the everyday interests of the individual methods of implementation - beliefs, legal and moral norms, traditions and customs. It reveals that the basis of civil society - is the free development of the individual with inalienable rights and political organization in which the individual realizes himself as a person. Characteristic features of civil society - the presence in society of free producers production methods, developed democracy, legal security of citizens, high level of civic culture, individual freedom and autonomy of citizens, freedom of forming and consistent expression of interest. It is noted that civil society serves as an area of economic, political, social, cultural, religious and other interests. Civil society is the foundation of the state, which, in turn, protects the principles of self-management of all NGOs that form civil society. Of civil society is a continuous process improvements citizen, society, government, politics, law, covering all areas of society without exception, providing conditions for the establishment of human personality, its national dignity. Only in a democratic society possible formation of civil society in Ukraine.

PurposeThis paper aims to focus on corporate accountability, analysing the case of Rosia Montana Gold Corporation (RMGC) from the perspective of civil society, acting as a significant stakeholder.Design/methodology/approachThe authors ground the research on legitimacy theory, as the paper presents the company’s efforts to obtain the approval/legitimacy from one of its main vocal stakeholders: civil society. The paper presents the historical background of the Rosia Montana region, and then explains the stages of the RMGC project development, together with the company’s actions to be recognised by the local environment. They also investigate the corporate reports issued by Rosia Montana Gold Corporation, especially in and after 2010.FindingsThe results show that RMGC failed to gain the legitimacy of the Romanian society, and the authors discuss causes and implications.Originality/valueThis research brings a valuable contribution to the corporate reporting literature, being one of the first studies on the state of reporting in Romania in the mining sector, analysing the implications of the relationship between corporate accountability and civil society.

Project Summary: The book for which this data collection was generated seeks to explain why democracies and authoritarian regimes have emerged and then survived or fallen in Latin America from 1945 to 2005. The more specific goal of the data collection is to assess the impact of normative orientations towards democracy and radical policy preferences on the likelihood of democratic transitions and democratic breakdowns. Most theories postulate that regimes survive or fall depending on the behavior of political actors. As the authors tested hypotheses based on competing theories, they became convinced that actors’ normative preferences about democracy and dictatorship and their policy preferences were indeed crucial variables to understand why democracies and dictatorships emerge and then survive or break down. They found that normative regime preferences and radicalism, together with international conditions, are the most important predictors for democratic emergence and survival in Latin America. Data Abstract: The absence of systematic historical measures of normative regime preferences (ideological support for democracy or authoritarianism) and of policy radicalism for major political actors led the authors to commission a set of reports covering all Latin American countries after World War II up to 2010 The reports were produced between 2008 and 2013 with the help of 19 research assistants (RAs) by archival research and synthesis of existing material (notes based on secondary sources subsequently integrated into country reports). The data collection includes all of these reports as well as the coding rules guiding their production. For eighteen of the twenty countries, the coding of political actors covers the period from 1944 until 2010; for Argentina and El Salvador reports reach back to 1916 and 1927, respectively. The data are organized by country (documents for Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela) and by administration (sections within documents). For most administrations, a limited number of actors (between two and ten) were the decisive political players. The list always includes the president (except for a few puppet presidents), political parties, trade unions, military factions, social movements, and other powerful organizations. For 290 presidential administrations, the dataset has 1460 actors including 573 parties, party coalitions, and party factions; 327 presidents and the organizations that are relatively subordinate to them (such as their parties under democracies and almost always the military under military dictatorships); 175 militaries, military factions, and military organizations; 82 business organizations; 56 guerrilla organizations; 53 popular and civil society organizations; 52 labor unions and federations; 52 powerful individuals who were not the president; 27 churches; 22 social movements; 16 paramilitary groups; and a smaller number of other kinds of actors. The authors identified the actors’ political alignments vis-a-vis the incumbent president by coding whether they were the government or government allies, members of the opposition, or neutral or divided with regards to the administration. Based on multiple historical sources, country reports discuss and code three variables for each political actor: its normative preference for democracy, its normative preference for dictatorship, and its policy radicalism/moderation. The coding rules for normative preferences for democracy and dictatorship are designed to distinguish between instrumental and normative reasons for supporting regimes. Files Description: Twenty country reports, divided into sections corresponding to the administrations in office during 1944-2010, with additional administrations for Argentina (1916-1930) and El Salvador (1927-1943). Each section (administration or period for long-lasting administrations) contains a sub-section for the actors mentioned above. An additional table summarizes the profile of all political actors discussed for each administration period. For each actor, the report provides brief narratives involving qualitative assessment of three attributes: (1) The actor’s normative support for democracy. The actor’s normative support for dictatorship; (2) The actor’s degree of radicalism on policy issues; (3) Historical sources referenced for each document are listed at the end of each respective country report.

PurposeThe purpose of this research is to seek to understand and explain the non‐governmental organisation (NGO) and its location in civil society in order to provide a basis for future research work. The paper aims to explore and develop understandings of accountability specifically in the context of the NGO and then extend these insights to the accountability of all organisations.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is framed within a theoretical conception of accountability and is primarily literature‐based. In addition secondary data relating to the issues of concern are collated and synthesised.FindingsThe research finds that the essence of accountability lies in the relationships between the organisation and the society and/or stakeholder groups of interest. The nature of this relationship allows us to infer much about the necessary formality and the channels of accountability. In turn, this casts a light upon taken‐for‐granted assumptions in the corporate accountability and reminds us that the essence and basis of success of the corporate world lies in its withdrawal from any form of human relationship and the consequential colonisation and oppression of civil society.Research limitations/implicationsThe principal implications relate to: our need to improve the analytical incisiveness of our applications of accountability theory; and the possibility of the accounting literature offering more developed insights to the NGO literature. The primary limitations lie in the paper in being: exploratory of a more developed understanding of accountability; and a novel excursion into the world of the NGO and civil society – neither of which feature greatly in the accounting literature.Practical implicationsThese lie in the current political struggles between civil society and capital over appropriate forms of accountability. Corporations continue to avoid allowing themselves to be held accountable whilst civil society organisations are often accountable in many different and informal ways. Ill‐considered calls from capital for more oppressive NGO accountability are typically, therefore, hypocritical and inappropriate.Originality/valueNGOs are introduced in a detailed and accessible way to the accounting literature. The concept of accountability is further developed by examination of relationships and channels in the context of the NGO and, through Rawls' notion of “closeness”, is further enriched.

The chapter illustrates our methodological choices for investigating the extreme right. It justifies the adoption of an empirical strategy of methodological triangulation that combines methods developed within social movement analysis and rarely applied to the extreme right. Social network analysis, frame analysis, and protest event analysis are used to shed light on different characteristics of the extremist right: frame analysis looks at the cognitive mechanisms that are relevant in influencing organizational and individual behaviour; network analysis looks at the (inter-) organizational structural characteristics of the right-wing organizations; and, finally, protest event analysis allows for an empirical survey of the actions undertaken by right-wing extremists over the last decade. Triangulation strategy allows therefore to identify different properties of the life of extremist groups.

Since the 1990s, international and regional organisations have responded to calls to open up to civil society. Some, however, remain relatively inaccessible. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is one of those regional organisations that seems to have resisted opening up, making it a “tough test” for civil society engagement. Yet, even in this difficult regional context, we observe the existence of transnational civil society networks that aim to engage and influence regional governance, although there are notable differences across policy sectors. It is likely that the characteristics of these civil society networks have an effect on civil society participation in, and engagement with, regional governance. Against this background, this paper asks: How do the characteristics of transnational networks contribute to civil society engagement in regional governance in SADC? The paper employs a comparative case study design focussing on civil society engagement in two policy sectors: gender, and employment and labour. Using an interview-based approach to social network analysis (SNA), we map the two policy networks surrounding the implementation of Article 8 of the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development, which aims to end the practise of early marriage, and the ongoing ratification of the SADC Protocol on Employment and Labour. We complement the social network analysis with semi-structured interviews with a variety of stakeholders, including civil society, donors, researchers, and national and regional policy-makers in Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa and Zambia. The findings reaffirm the state-centric nature of SADC and the difficulties for civil society to engage meaningfully. We also find notable differences in the civil society networks involved in the two policy sectors: The gender sector is driven by civil society organisations (CSOs) and financed by donors, with member states playing a relatively minor role, whereas member states are central players in employment and labour. The gender network is highly centralised, with one central CSO performing a coordinating role, whereas the labour and employment network is very dense and shaped by many interactions between different actors with diverse political aims. The findings suggest a trade-off between a hierarchical, centralised network that is efficient when it comes to sharing resources, versus a dense, consensus-finding network that mitigates potential conflicts. The networks for both policy sectors also suggest that the SADC Secretariat is more accountable to donors than CSOs, a reflection of SADC’s dependence on donor funds. We find that many of the challenges to civil society found at the national level in developing countries are replicated at the regional level. Questions surrounding the extra-regional funding of CSOs, their representativeness and their legitimacy pose great challenges to civil society networks. Nevertheless, civil society networks have the potential to act as drivers of people-centred regionalism, but so long as the institutions and organisational culture of SADC remain a “closed shop”, their potential will go unrealised.

Since the mid-1970s, the Western Saharan conflict has defied both resolution and understanding, as an entire people, split between refugee camps in the Algerian desert and the Moroccan occupied territory, has been waiting for the international community to effectively enforce its right to self-determination. Through a combination of legal and geopolitical perspectives on the issues related to the exploitation of the rich natural resources in the last African territory still to be decolonised, this research paper will argue that transnational corporations (TNCs) can directly affect the welfare and the self-determination of a people, while the means to enforce corporate accountability remain limited and poorly adapted to the current global realities. The recent media campaigns led by NGOs against TNCs active in this area demonstrate the key role of global civil society in the emergence of corporate accountability and in reminding individuals, corporations and governments of their ethical and legal obligations towards indigenous peoples such as the Saharawi’s. This paper will first consider the historical and socio-economic context of the conflict and the importance of natural resources in this dispute (chapter I) before addressing the legal dimension of the exploitation of these resources by the occupying power and third parties (II). I will then argue that the decision of Morocco to involve Western oil and gas TNCs in the Western Sahara represents a complicating factor to the conflict and has created a new, corporate playing field for the conflicting parties (III). The last chapter of this analysis will address the current political and legal mechanisms for ensuring the accountability of such TNCs and assess whether campaigns by global civil society actors provide an effective, alternative avenue for corporate accountability (IV).Published online: 11 December 2017