Anti-corporate Movement Research Articles

CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE USE OF BRANDING MODELS IN APPROACHING PLACES

This article investigates in depth the characteristics of the interdisciplinary social theory of neo-Marxism, as a moderate response with socio-economic influences on the paradigm of postmodern brand management (defined by the theory of iconic brands and cultural branding - as a model by which brands become icons through creative interaction with their environment, on the one hand, and the anti-capitalist, anti-corporate and anti-branding movement, on the other), both included in a constructivist-interpretivist paradigmatic scheme. This type of critical approach, through reinterpretations and extensions of the ideas of social philosopher Karl Marx, replaces the marketing paradigm as a model of "social engineering" in the words of Douglas B. Holt and proposes new perspectives on the concept of consumer culture in which brands are seen as forms of intangible capital, with the main demands proposed by the anti- branding movement being highlighted, as well as the criticisms brought to “consumer culture”.

A CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE ON BRANDS AND SYMBOL AFFIRMATION. THE THEORY OF CULTURAL AND ICONIC BRANDING REVIEWED

The purpose of this article is to provide an in-depth approach to the theoretical issues stated about brands and branding from a cultural perspective. Following contemporary debates in defining the concept of brand and branding in relation to various marketing and organizational communication definitions, branding models that can be used in relation to places, in general, have been highlighted over time: the consumer branding model inspired by the functional tradition of the theoretical and practical marketing approaches, used and applied on products or services and the organizational or corporate communication model, from an identity approach. That is why, a different tendency is highlighted in analyzing branding models and their applicability on places, through a new proposed approach, of neo-Marxist nature, as a moderate response to the paradigm of postmodern brand management, defined by the iconic brand and cultural branding theories - presented in this article -, on the one hand, and the anti-capitalist, anti-corporate and anti-branding movement, on the other.

Articulation of Movement Demands and the Politics of Solidarity against Extractive Capital in Bangladesh

Abstract How do disparate grievances join to form an agenda for collective action? This article analyses the articulation of movement demands and solidarity building during the formative phase of a popular mobilisation against a multinational mining company in Bangladesh. Drawing on a conceptual framework derived from Laclauian discourse theory, I explain how local community resistance inspired various social groups to support an anti-corporate social movement, ultimately defeating the mining company. I explain how the construction of an empty signifier had the capacity to connect disparate groups to oppose a common enemy. This analysis is based on a set of interviews with activists and a close reading of organisational documents. The examination of how movement demands are articulated emphasises the role of movement intellectuals and enriches the theorising of social movements in the Global South.

The post-2015 landscape: vested interests, corporate social responsibility and public health advocacy.

This paper explores the tensions between UN calls for private sector engagement in the post-2015 landscape and public health opposition to those 'harm industries' that are 'corporate vectors of disease' for the mounting global non-communicable disease burden. The UN's support for public-private partnership has provided industries with 'vested interests' in the propagation of unhealthy behaviours with new opportunities for the strategic alignment of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) endeavours with the post-2015 sustainable development agenda. This has galvanised public health advocates to place pressure on the World Health Organisation to formalise their ambiguous stance towards private sector involvement in public policy formation and the resultant 'conflicts of interest'. This paper critically examines the 'gathering storm' between this 'anti-corporate movement' and the alcohol industry in the increasingly politicised domain of CSR. Drawing on the example of SABMiller's Tavern Intervention Program, the paper argues that CSR represents a profound threat to the sanctity and moral authority of the public health worldview. Questions therefore need to be asked about whether the public health-led path of industry non-association will necessarily result in health improvements or just a further retrenchment of the ideological faultlines explored in the paper.

Theorising The State (Or Its Absence?) In Anti-Corporate Protest: Insights From India

The paper explores the reasons for the difference in the outcomes of anti-corporate movements centered around land acquisition for industrial activity in India. It reveals that difference in these outcomes is explained by the role played by laws, property rights and the State. Constitutionally validated claims explain why one movement leads to locally relevant outcomes whereas the other has not been able to. The paper also argues that much literature on understanding anti-corporate protest including the critically oriented work has hitherto ignored or under theorized the State as an actor or a target of such protests. Drawing upon the history of such protests in India and the changes in the State and law the paper suggests that the cause of critique will be better served by considering the State as being made through ongoing public claim making by the citizens. Further, it also suggests that in addition to treating these movements as part of a global movement against corporate capitalism, it necessary to ...

This is What a Police State Looks Like: Sousveillance, Direct Action and the Anti-corporate Globalization Movement

Activists across the globe have increasingly incorporated digital communication technologies into their repertoire of direct action tactics to challenge state and corporate power. Examining the anti-corporate globalization protests at the September 2009 Group of Twenty (G-20) meetings in Pittsburgh, this paper explores how activists used sousveillance and counter-surveillance as direct action tactics to make excessive force by police more visible to the public. Collaborative endeavors such as the G-20 Resistance Project, the Tin Can Comms Collective and independent media centers provided activists with the necessary tactical and strategic communication networks to coordinate direct actions during the G-20 protests. Through the use of surveillance technologies widely available to the public such as video cameras, cell phones and the internet, activists created an environment of permanent visibility in which the behaviors of police were subjected to public scrutiny. The images captured by anti-globalization activists raises a salient question: Is this what a police state looks like?

Movements as Political Conditions for Diffusion: Anti-Corporate Movements and the Spread of Cooperative Forms in American Capitalism

Addressing the spread of cooperatives in the early 20th-century US economy, this study analyzes the role of anti-corporate movements in the diffusion of politically contested organizational innovations. It finds that institutional change can rest fundamentally on the combination of standard diffusion processes and collective mobilization in support of new practices. Specifically, it finds that the Grange, a leading anti-corporate social movement, was a political condition for the diffusion of cooperative alternatives to corporations in American capitalism. Cooperatives evoked fierce opposition by corporate forces, suppressing the diffusion of cooperative forms. When the Grange was weak or absent, cooperative organization in states or sectors had weak or no effects on cooperative organization in other states or sectors. But when the Grange was present and increased in strength, it amplified and even made possible the diffusion of cooperatives across states and industries. These findings shed new light on the contentious transactions between movements, corporations, and non-governmental organizations, expanding existing work on the trajectories, tactics, and organizational effects of anti-corporate movements.

Social Movements and Organizational Form: Cooperative Alternatives to Corporations in the American Insurance, Dairy, and Grain Industries

How do social movements promote diversity and alternative organizational forms? We address this question by analyzing how cooperative enterprise was affected by the Grange—a leading anticorporate movement in the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. State-level analyses across three industries yield three findings. First, the Grange had positive effects on cooperatives and mutuals during the nineteenth-century populist struggles over corporate capitalism. Second, these effects were stronger where corporations counter-mobilized to block challengers' political efforts. Grangers pursued economic organization as an alternative to politics and in response to blocked political access. Third, the Grange continued to foster cooperatives even as populist revolts waned. It did so, however, by buffering cooperatives from problems of group heterogeneity and population change, rendering them less dependent on supportive communities and specific economic conditions. These findings advance research at the movements/organizations interface by documenting movement effects and by isolating different causal pathways through which mobilization, countermobilization, and political opportunity shape economic organization. The results also provide economic sociology with new evidence on how social structure moderates economic forces, and help revise institutional analyses of American capitalism by showing how cooperatives emerged as significant, rather than aberrant, elements of the U.S. economy.

The rise of the anti-corporate movement: corporations and the people who hate them

Against the backdrop of Enron and other high-profile cases of corporate malfeasance, it is easy to paint today's executives as villains--to blame big business, and corporations generally, for a wide array of social ills. Is the criticism warranted? Not quite, says Evan Osborne. In this provocative book, Osborne pulls back the curtain to illuminate how corporations have evolved as an essential element of society, and how opposition to them is out of proportion-a fire fanned by anti-business activists, the media, and other groups. He sets the record straight, explaining how corporations work and how they have evolved in the context of other institutions. He outlines the net benefits that corporations provide and where increasingly strident antibusiness arguments fail to stand up to scrutiny. The text investigates corporate influence over politics and the government; corporate influence in the media; corporate influence through marketing; some of the pros and cons of globalization; the extent to which business has responded to public demands for social responsibility; and the extent to which free commerce improves society. The result is a fascinating commentary on our love-hate relationship with business.

Industrial epidemics, public health advocacy and the alcohol industry: lessons from other fields

Industrial epidemics, public health advocacy and the alcohol industry: lessons from other fields

New Collaborations for International Development

The international community has put economic and poverty at the top of its agenda. The of the private sector in is-after many years of neglect if not outright hostility-receiving serious attention. Private sector development offices spring up within donor agencies and intergovernmental organizations; civil society groups are partnering with business on all manner of projects; conferences now address, for instance, the role of business in poverty alleviation and how business should engage in the millennium goals.Engaging the private sector in has often meant partnerships with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)-the corporation funding social and community infrastructure projects or undertaking certain codes or standards of corporate behaviour. For many corporations, such initiatives have fallen under the label of corporate social responsibility (CSR). This article will argue that such partnerships gave cross-sector collaboration a useful start, but there is mounting evidence that such tactical relationships are vulnerable to both rising expectations and shortfalls in delivery. Some NGOs now call for legislative change, arguing that the voluntary nature of CSR work is insufficient; conversely, business leaders maintain that the CSR agenda has in fact gone too far, while producing scant returns to the bottom line.Multiparty collaboration is vital for development, but traditional forms of partnership between NGOs and business are not typically structured to build trust as well as enhance learning and understanding. We should not discard the collaborative model, as some would suggest, but rather invest in types of strategic collaboration. Such deeper associations are admittedly difficult, but they are more feasible than ever before, given fundamental changes in operating environments for each side. There is mounting evidence for NGOs that lasting progress on must rely at least in part on the private sector-aid is simply not enough. For business, there is mounting evidence that the social license to operate-both domestically and abroad-is being threatened. These developments open more space for a dialogue based on the overlap of interests. This paper concludes with two case studies highlighting that next generation collaborations based on such strategic overlap are indeed possible.INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND INTERNATIONAL BUSINESSCorporate social responsibility became enmeshed in international as a result of the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Structural upheavals within the international system privileged developed states, heightening the and power of western multinational corporations (MNCs). Former socialist states rushed to emulate the capitalist economic system and with the Soviet collapse came the collapse of alternative economic models, not to mention alternative sources of financing, for developing countries. Western MNCs moved into markets and exploited resources. So globalization, as we often characterize the change, came into its own. Free markets and neoliberal macroeconomic policies, no longer held back by the divisions of the Cold War, were harnessed to the rapid growth in both the breadth and depth of technology.1The rising power of the multinational corporation engendered a backlash, documented in a seminal book by Naomi Klein. An anti-corporate movement came into being, one that vigorously challenged the corporate agenda, arguing that the pursuit of profit at any price was aided and abetted by a new global economy that impoverished entire nations.2 In attracting attention to these underdeveloped economies, NGOs found it useful to adopt a name and shame strategy. Activists, claimed one member of Greenpeace, discovered gunpowder-that the power of the brand could also be a source of corporate weakness. Having expended tremendous resources building a brand, a corporation was vulnerable to public relations catastrophes damaging to a brand's image and intangible value. …

Public health and the anticorporate movement: rationale and recommendations.

Institutions and informal networks have formed a movement that is challenging the growing power and pervasive influence of large corporations. The movement's analyses show that the historical development and current function of the corporate entity requires production of a profit regardless of consequences to health, society, or the environment. As a result, public health professionals frequently address health problems related to products, services, or practices of corporations. There are possibilities for links between public health and the anticorporate movement. Public health research and the professional preparation curriculum should focus on the corporate entity as a social structural determinant of disease.

Anti-corporate movements and public relations

This paper develops a theoretical framework of the anti-corporate movement. We argue that previous accounts in the public relations literature, including theorizing around stakeholders, publics, activist groups and issues management, are limited and provide only a partial conceptualization of anti-corporate movements. In order to address this shortcoming, we draw upon social movements theory to develop a grounded and enriched theoretical framework of anti-corporate movements.

Hard Times but No Hard Words: A Rejoinder

“From Syndicalism to Seattle” was first delivered to ILWCH late in 2000, conceived during the highpoint of post-Seattle euphoria and before the events of 9/11. In some obvious ways the anticorporate movement in North America and Australia has since fallen on harder times due to: the necessary diversion of radical energies into the antiwar movement and opposition to inept and authoritarian counterterrorism initiatives; a reluctance on the part of some NGOs to continue campaigning in the prevailing conservative political climate; increased surveillance and repression of all forms of dissent and protest; and greatly reduced media coverage due to obsession with the “war on terror.” However, in Europe, South America, Asia, and Africa, gigantic mobilizations and/or spectacularly stubborn day-by-day forms of resistance have continued and grown. Obituaries to anticorporate activism, invariably focused on the United States, are generally ignorant of these important struggles. In any case, despite the harsher political environment in the United States since 9/11, there are also positive developments that reveal the extent to which the critique of corporate power has gained public attention and political traction. Consider, for instance, the recent emergence of anticorporate blockbuster movies, such as Super Size Me, Fahrenheit 9/11, The Corporation, and Outfoxed. This new cinematic genre bears the imprint of Seattle: it builds upon the radically democratic anticorporate analysis brought to prominence by the worldwide movement that burst upon the political scene late in 1999; and it provides a valuable and previously unavailable avenue for dissemination of anticorporate ideas. Rather than dying—as those who pen its obituaries fervently wish—the anticorporate movement in the heart of Empire is instead assuming new forms and finding new ways to promulgate its message.

Corporate Reputation and Crisis Management: The Threat and Manageability of Anti-corporatism

Advances in technology and communication have rendered corporate reputations more vulnerable than ever to criticism and attack from anti-corporate pressure groups, which now have the capacity to reach a global audience and mobilize their protests at a multinational level. This paper will discuss the increasing value of corporate reputation as a source of differential advantage in the global marketplace, and the threats that exist to even the most reputable organizations. Based on this analysis, the paper will investigate the role of reputation in crisis management, and the extent to which the actions of the increasingly influential anti-corporate movement can be managed successfully.

How Free Became Open and Everything Else under the Sun

How Free Became Open and Everything Else under the Sun

Fox and Its Friends: Global Commodification and the New Cold War

Fox and Its Friends:Global Commodification and the New Cold War Dennis Broe (bio) Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, the Fox Network's parent entity, is, of the nine major media conglomerates (along with Viacom, Bertelsmann, Warners, Sony, Liberty Media, AT&T, GE, and Disney),1 the most global in scope—"the only real global media company that covers the world"2 —and often seen as the model global media conglomerate. What are the characteristics of this model? First, a drive toward accumulation expressed as either a desire to gain total control of a market or to link with other conglomerates and share control. Second, an almost frenzied fetishization of the value of "entertainment," extended both to news and fictional forms. Third, where possible, an expression of open support for the current paradigm of ruling [End Page 97] elite hegemony, neoliberalism. Neoliberalism consists of government opening of foreign and domestic markets to corporate control accompanied by rhetoric endorsing the formal trappings of democracy. Fox's support of these policies took form initially in the backing of Thatcher-Reaganite deregulation, with an attendant attack on government. Post-9/11, Fox has also directly supported the addition to this agenda of global warfare. With respect to each characteristic, Fox often led the way, but the other media conglomerates have followed suit. This article will employ an extrinsic/intrinsic method of reading both the Fox Corporation and one of its most visible products, the Fox Television series 24. The goal is to describe the significant shift that has occurred at Fox post-9/11, a shift that might be characterized as an acceleration detectable both in the global monopolistic policies of the corporation and in the form and content of its media representations. This shift occurring at Fox is in line with the sector of U.S. capital that is determined to span the globe in search of the lowest wage possible, in a "race to the bottom."3 This economic offensive is coupled with increasing militarization in a series of both "cold" and "hot" confrontations. The News Corporation has taken the lead among major media conglomerates in supporting this link, most recently when Fox Cable News trumpeted the war in Iraq and, subsequently, during the war, when Fox passed CNN in the ratings and became the most watched cable news network. To examine the Fox network itself, the extrinsic industrial environment in which 24 is produced, I will deploy the techniques of what is now an extensive body of work on the media in the field of political economy. This holistic approach enables us to describe the structure of any media conglomerate in relation to the process of capital accumulation within the wider network of power relations in the society as a whole.4 Switching gears, I will then examine 24 from the inside, concentrating first on, in Theodor W. Adorno's terms, how the series displays through its form the productive processes of the era of globalization5 and, second, how the series yokes these processes through its content to the new cold war by eliciting alliance with a vigilante lead character and promoting a regime of fear. The reading of the so-called war on terrorism as similar in scope and aim to the anticommunism of the former cold war is, of course, denied by media outlets such as the Fox News Channel, which operate in a perpetual present or in a historical moment that began on September 11, 2001. The promotion of an external enemy for the purposes of global domination and of quelling domestic dissent, coupled with the revival of a faltering economy through military spending, are characteristics in common with the Cold War. The current endless war is a global civil war fought by an apparently triumphant capitalist system against both a new, more ethnically diverse and predominantly female working class and a global anticorporate movement. At the center, this war takes the form of attacks on wages and curbs on civil rights, while at the periphery, war is more openly declared against states with natural resources (oil, natural gas, water). The capitalist system may dominate space and time, but it confronts both an increasingly more resistant...

Radical Activism in the “Information Society”

A Review of: Starr, Amory. 2000. Naming the Enemy: Anti-Corporate Movements Confront Globalization. London & New York: Zed Books. Holloway, John. 2002. Change the World Without Taking Power: The Meaning of Revolution Today. London & Sterling, Virginia: Pluto Press. Dyer-Witheford, Nick. 1999. Cyber-Marx: Cycles and Circuits of Struggle in High- Technology Capitalism. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

Globalization, Transnational Corporations, the State and Democracy 37-48

In this article I argue that TNCs are the most powerful actors under globalization. Additionally, I contend that the contradictory relationship between TNCs and the state represents one of the most important aspects of this era. The core of this article, however, probes the issue of future outcomes of globalization. My point is that, while globalization is a response of the dominant groups to the gains and status that subordinate classes obtained under Fordism, it contains important contradictions that allow the possibility for the democratization of contemporary society. Under Fordism, subordinate classes’ gains established never-reached-before levels of substantive democracy. Globalization represents a dominant class’ response to this situation and, above all, an attack on labor and class based movements and the historical Left. Under globalization, the historical Left’s ability to organize and find strength in the factories and agricultural fields has been significantly diminished. Resistance emerged from new social movements. The environmental and consumer movements are two among these new social movements. Because of their focus on quality of life and consumption, they have the possibility to counter TNCs and establish substantive forms of democracy. My point is that these new social movements represent new emancipatory actors in the era of globalization. New emancipatory actors are accompanied by spaces of emancipation. I identify one of these spaces in the state. Because of its contradictory relationship with TNCs, the state is called to support and legitimize corporate actions in a situation in which TNCs tend to by-pass state demands and consequently limit the state’s ability to assist them. This situation opens up a crisis of legitimation in which the state is called to justify actions that it cannot fully control and regulate. I further argue that the contradiction of realization experienced by TNCs is another space of emancipatory action. I argue that TNCs’ need to realize their production – i.e., to sell the commodities they produce in order to transform them into money – makes them vulnerable to new social movements’ demands and create the possibility for more ethically and socially acceptable forms of production. I conclude the article by arguing that, in spite of the above mentioned contradictions and anti-corporate movements, TNCs remain firmly in control of contemporary society. This situation makes the attainment of more democratic conditions a contested terrain whose outcome will be decided by the ability of alternative forces to exploit globalization’s contradictions and use available spaces of emancipation.

Naming the Enemy: Anti-Corporate Movements Confront Globalization

Naming the Enemy: Anti-Corporate Movements Confront Globalization