The micro-politics of corporate responsibility: How companies shape protest in communities affected by mining

Abstract

Abstract This article analyzes how corporate social responsibility (CSR) affects individual incentives to engage in protest against mining companies. The study finds that CSR practices provide selective incentives to individuals that increase the perceived costs and reduce the benefits of engaging in collective action against the firm. This individual cost-benefit calculation is affected through discursive, institutional and distributive mechanisms. When CSR practices function to reduce perceptions of uncertainty and risk associated with the mining project, channel public participation through legitimate institutional forums, and distribute material benefits broadly, they increase individual perceptions of the costs of protest against companies. The study is based on a comparative analysis of eight cases of firm-community relationships in Argentina and Chile, and provides strong empirical evidence for the role of CSR in the everyday depression of incentives to protest in mining communities. The article offers a novel framework for understanding corporate social responsibility that theorizes the social practices of companies in terms of their effects on individual incentives to engage in collective action, which is fully compatible with the contentious politics approach, and adds analytical power and nuance to existing efforts to understand social conflicts.