Corporate accountability and the politics of visibility in ‘late modernity’

Abstract

It is generally held that because of developments associated with late modernity large corporations are now much more visible and therefore more accountable. In this article, we challenge this idea and propose contrary and position: that precisely because of late modernity global corporations have become less accountable to their stakeholders. In particular, we argue that because of globalization, the explosion of scientific knowledge and the nature of risk in late modernity, it has in some respects become easier for corporations to conceal their unethical practices (making them less accountable). Drawing on sociological theory concerning late modernity, we seek is to demonstrate how the fashionable ‘ideology of visibility’ habors an insidious anti-democratic tendency apropos wider accountability. In light of this position, the article concludes by discussing the political implications and possibilities for rendering business corporations more democratically accountable.