Commercial Actors Research Articles

The Commercial Military Actor Database

This article introduces the Commercial Military Actor Database (CMAD), a dataset able to support research on civil war and commercial military actors. First, the CMAD covers all civil wars from 1980 to 2016 across all of the world’s regions except Europe, which enables the investigation of long-term regional and global trends. Second, the CMAD encompasses the corporate market segment and mercenary outfits, which facilitates the analysis of how those actors have impacted conflicts differently. Third, containing detailed information about the relationships behind exchanges, the CMAD allows users to disaggregate market exchanges. Using the CMAD’s new data, we examined trends in the market for force, and demonstrate the data’s added value. We re-examining Akcinaroglu and Radziszewski’s study on how private military and security companies affect the duration of civil war. The findings show that the market’s influence on conflict can only be fully understood by including corporate and mercenary actors.

Caring control or controlling care? Double bind facilitated by biometrics between UNHCR and Syrian refugees in Jordan

Abstract Biometric technologies are increasingly used by governments and international organizations in the context of refugee protection and control. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the ‘double bind’ embedded in the collection and processing of biometric data by exploring the experiences of Syrian refugees residing in Jordan. While taking biometric data is part of the UNHCR-registration, it is also used for other purposes, such as providing assistance and tracking movement. The findings are based on desk research and empirical data collected in Jordan. While stakeholders with vested interests argue for the benefits of technology, critical research is more concerned with human rights, unintended consequences of humanitarian governance or surveillance humanitarianism. Refugees, upon registration, seem to be more concerned with smooth and uninterrupted access to aid. While due to their vulnerable position they cannot really afford considering the consequences of giving their biometric data when they are asked to do so, sharing their biometric data entails a double bind situation. On the one hand, international organizations (such as the UNHCR and the WFP) in cooperation with commercial actors use iris scans as a payment method promising better food security for Syrian refugees in Jordan. On the other hand, the very same biometric data can be used for controlling, if not blocking, their free movement. The double bind logic implies that refugees registered with their biometrics can enjoy care only if they tolerate sophisticated control too.

Shipping in the era of digitalization: Mapping the future strategic plans of major maritime commercial actors

The so-called “Fourth Industrial revolution”, also termed as “Industry 4.0” in the wider literature, is associated with several cutting-edge technologies. Indicative examples in this category are advanced applications like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big Data Analytics (BDA), Cloud Computing and Internet of Things (IoT), which are already influencing the maritime industry. It is indicative of the fact that there are several construction projects of autonomous ships, such as the Yara Birkeland and the Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship (ASDS), which are heavily reliant on technologies associated with the Industry 4.0 concept. The maritime transport industry is already transitioning into a new operations paradigm, often termed as “shipping in the era of digitalization”. Shipping companies promote digitalization as the future of the maritime industry and their efforts to set up strategies are already in progress. Examining those visions and strategies in relation to digitalization would be beneficial to better understand the way towards which the maritime industry is heading. This paper is aiming to identify the characteristics of that pool of future plans via a qualitative review and with a particular focus on major maritime commercial actors, based on shipping companies' relevant action plans that were gathered online. A conclusion standing out is that major shipping companies have embraced digitalization to increase cost-efficiency, raise competitiveness and meet the needs of their customers.

When worlds collide: Non‐state actors, philanthropy and the commercial promotion of fertility control options in developing countries

AbstractThe purpose of this study is an ethical evaluation of the role of transnational philanthropic and commercial actors in the promotion and implementation of fertility control and family planning programmes in developing countries around the world. In particular, we consider the application, extension and association of collective and individualist ethical justifications to these actors. Our aim is to achieve a better understanding of the rights and obligations that different stakeholders might hold in this arena. We use a critical theoretical lens to examine conventional ethical discourse and literature to develop a fresh conceptual understanding of the arguments applicable to philanthropic and commercial actors in the context of fertility control and family planning. Whilst complex multi‐stakeholder arrangements make ethical assessment challenging, caution ought to be exercised in the application and extension of conventional state‐based justifications for fertility control or family planning to these transnational non‐state actors. Collective justifications or interests cannot be automatically extended to cover the activities of these organisations and actors in this context. Potential conflicts of interest and inequalities in the power dynamics between stakeholders are all too apparent. The lack of direct accountability and transparency of action also raises questions about the building of philanthropic partnerships and the appropriate degree of state and international oversight. State and philanthropic/commercial interests are unlikely to be aligned when the transformative goals of the latter promote self‐sufficiency and individualist agendas. This paper contributes to ethical knowledge of and literacy in philanthropic activities in the arena of family planning, sexual and reproductive health and fertility control. It offers guidance for the evaluation of these contributions and the development of global philanthropic partnerships.

Commercial Military Actors and Civilian Victimization in Africa, Middle East, Latin America, and Asia, 1980–2011

Abstract The current international normative order strongly condemns strategies of civilian victimization, and actors engaging in atrocities face material, criminal, and reputational sanctions. The growth of the market for force has raised concerns about clients outsourcing atrocities to commercial military actors (CMAs), such as private military and security companies or mercenaries, and thereby circumventing accountability under international norms. This investigation explores whether interactions on the market for force are associated with an increase in the likelihood of violence against civilians. We argue that there is a variance in market interactions. While some market actors will comply with international norms, others will take advantage and circumvent normative restrictions. The crucial factor determining compliance and noncompliance are costs of norm violation, which vary across market actors. Those clients and CMAs with a higher exposure to sanctions, or an interest in the status quo of the normative order, are less likely to be associated with norm violations, and vice versa. We test our claims using a negative binomial regression and by drawing on new data from the Commercial Military Actor Dataset, which records contracting for force and force-related services. Overall, we found that there is a market segment where actors use market relations to circumvent international norms, yet mostly market interactions appear to comply with international norms.

Public Health Roles in Addressing Commercial Determinants of Health.

The shared challenges posed by the production and distribution of health-harming products have led to growing recognition of the need for policy learning and transfer across problems, populations, and social contexts. The commercial determinants of health (CDoH) can serve as a unifying concept to describe the population health consequences arising from for-profit actors and activities, along with the social structures that sustain them. Strategies to mitigate harms from CDoH have focused on behavioral change, regulation, fiscal policies, consumer and citizen activism, and litigation. While there is evidence of effective measures for each strategy, approaches that combine strategies are generally more impactful. Filling gaps in evidence can inform ways of adapting these strategies to specific populations and social contexts. Overall, CDoH are addressed most effectively not through siloed efforts to reduce consumption of health-harming products, but instead as a set of integrated strategies to reduce exposures to health-harming commercial actors and activities.

Menschenrechtliche Unternehmensverantwortung in der Lieferkette im internationalen Rohstoffrecht: Prozesse der Versicherheitlichung als Motor innovativer und global konsensfähiger Rechtsentwicklungen?

Due diligence obligations of companies to respect human rights in their global supply chains have been more recently enshrined in domestic laws of an increasing number of countries. However, respective binding international regulations addressing corporate actors in the field of human rights are still largely absent. Against this background, it is argued in this contribution that in order to facilitate the international law-making processes on this issue, closer attention should be devoted to processes of so-called securitization. Outlining the importance of securitization moves for the emergence of due diligence expectations on and obligations of private commercial actors in the field of international commodity law, in particular as far as normatively addressing the issue of so-called conflict diamonds and minerals is concerned, the contribution attempts to identify notable spill-over effects resulting from these legal developments for the realm of international human rights law.

De/colonizing OpenStreetMap? Local mappers, humanitarian and commercial actors and the changing modes of collaborative mapping

In its early days, the geodata and mapping project OpenStreetMap (OSM) was widely celebrated for opening up and “democratizing” the production of geographic knowledge. However, critical research highlights that the new socio-technical practices of collaborative mapping often also produce or reproduce patterns of exclusion, not least in the area of relative data density between the Global South and North. These findings notwithstanding, we consider it important to acknowledge the increasing number of contributions of geodata from regions outside the old European core of OSM. This expansion of geodata production in OSM is related to a diversification of OSM actors and socio-technical practices. While OSM has often been described as a crowd-based project bringing together thousands of individual craft mappers, our analysis of OSM metadata indicates new institutional actors are gaining relevance. These developments have not only resulted in new collaborations but also conflicts between local mapping communities and institutional actors. We interpret these processes in two ways. First, the expansion of mapping activities can be viewed as a decolonizing process, whereby quantitative differences in data density between the Global North and South are partly reduced and new groups of local mappers are empowered to produce geographic knowledge. Second, these new developments can also be understood as colonizing processes. The engagement of large commercial actors in OSM raises concerns that the project (and its local mappers) could be used as a new means of data extraction and that in particular new and diverse voices in the OSM community are marginalized by a fixation on economically exploitable, modernistic and universalistic epistemologies. However, this supposedly clear distinction should not obscure the fact that colonizing and decolonizing processes intertwine in complex ways.

Analisis Faktor yang Mempengaruhi Perkembangan Kegiatan Komersial Di Koridor Jalan Kedungmundu Raya dan Sambiroto Raya

Kedungmundu Raya and Sambiroto Raya goes to BWK VI, those corridors had an appeal for commercial actors in small-medium scale to invest/commercial activities. This research aims to determine and analyzed the factors affecting the development of commercial activities in Kedungmundu Raya and Sambiroto Raya streets in relations with territorial against new growth area of Kedungmundu-Sambiroto. This is a descriptive quantitative research. The road identifications showed that Segment 1 had quite rapid development indicated by land use change from non awakened into commercialized. Segment 2, had a significant changes, land use change from non awakened and occupancy into commercialized. Segment 3, had less significant changes, the changes are only functional from occupancy into commercialized. Segment 4 is the most significant development indicated by 3 supermarkets. While in the factor analysis, factors that affecting the development of commercial activity are Factor 1, accesibility, consist of majority of consumer, form of profit, main reasons and peak traffic. Factor 2, area suitability, consists of main reason and length of business. The most dominant factors is the area suitability.

“Private and personal”: Corporate political activity, informal governance, and the undermining of marketing regulation in Brazil

ABSTRACT Few studies have investigated corporate political activity by unhealthy commodity industries in low- and middle-income countries, and the significance of social and political context has been largely neglected. This study aimed to explore the stalled development of marketing restriction policies in Brazil with an analysis of strategies used to undermine the Legal Framework for Early Childhood. Using a constructivist approach based on a typology of corporate political strategies, decision-making processes were assessed to understand interference by food companies in the Legal Framework, and how this was perceived by policy actors. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with public health advocates, academics and legislature officials. Three broad strategies that contributed to the stalling of marketing restrictions in the Legal Framework were identified: relational approaches to policy influence; collective participation in formal decision-making; and specific strategy choices (information and financial incentives). Key opportunities for policy influence through informal social networks in the ‘backstage’ of policy making are found to privilege commercial sector actors. Informal policy making may have a critical function in obstructing the development of health-focused regulation in Brazil. This highlights the need for a better understanding of non-codified and hidden corporate efforts to shape the policy environment.

Conducting tobacco industry informant interviews: lessons and implications for commercial determinants of health research.

Investigating and exposing tobacco industry tactics to oppose and interfere with tobacco control policymaking is crucial to advancing public health. Whilst past investigations of tobacco industry activities have largely focused on secondary sources of information, such as publicly available tobacco industry documents, the collection of first-hand evidence from key informants has been an under-utilized method in tobacco industry monitoring. This article provides a detailed account of a methodological approach to systematically recruit former tobacco company employees as key informants for a study that aimed to gather information on the marketing tactics tobacco companies use in the Australian retail channel. Given the success of our study methodology in uncovering new information about tobacco company practices, we propose that key informant interviews with former industry employees should be a priority method for research investigating the role of commercial actors in influencing public health outcomes. To offer guidance to researchers who may wish to undertake a similar methodological approach, we also provide a reflective account of the elements of success and the lessons learned from this research.

The informal governance of public-private partnerships in UK obesity policy: Collaborating on calorie reduction or reducing effectiveness?

Collaboration between governments and non-state actors has emerged as the dominant mode of policy making to address a wide range of public and global health issues, particularly via public-private partnerships and multi-stakeholder platforms. Despite its paradigmatic status in contemporary health governance, political claims and promises of partnership approaches as more effective than state regulation have received limited attention. This study addresses this gap by tracing negotiations over a calorie reduction ‘pledge’ within the Public Health Responsibility Deal: a public-private partnership between the UK Department of Health, food industry and civil society organisations focusing on obesity policy. It demonstrates how political claims-making by the Department of Health that a public-private partnership as an effective substitute for legislation, contrasted with protracted and conflictual negotiations with food industry business associations. Employing Erving Goffman's distinction between frontstage and backstage interaction and the concept of informal governance, this study traces a shift to informal back stage governance as a mechanism to cope with acute tensions between economic interests and nutrition policy goals. The study illustrates how this shift to the back stage had substantive public health implications, privileging commercial sector perspectives and marginalising civil society participation. Informalization served to reframe calorie reduction from industry-focused to personal responsibility for lifestyle behaviours, in the process reducing its effectiveness. The results suggest that, while partnership and multi-stakeholder approaches are widely promoted as a legitimate tool in health governance, visible tensions between commercial sector and public health interests challenge political claims about public-private collaboration as consensus-oriented and effective. Informal governance, when used as a coping mechanism to manage tensions public health and commercial sector interests, may be symptomatic of wider dysfunctions and conflicts of interest in partnership approaches. This suggests that there may be limited scope for effective policy innovations where commercial sector actors perceive core interests as threatened.

Obesity, public health ethics and the nanny state

Unhealthy dietary patterns are an important contributor to obesity and related non-communicable diseases (NCDs). As with any public health challenge, as well as providing care to affected individuals, whole-population interventions are required to mitigate the environmental determinants of population dietary patterns. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has established recommendations, including a set of low-cost, high-impact ‘best buys’ for governments seeking to implement these strategies. The Irish government has stated that it wishes to make ‘the healthy choice the easy choice.’ Yet, in marked contrast to its approach to tobacco- or alcohol-related harms, the Irish government has shown reluctance in implementing those WHO-endorsed strategies or other population-level measures to address unhealthy dietary patterns. Meanwhile, commercial interests work to discredit these measures as “paternalism” or more commonly as “nanny state” violations of individual liberty. We conducted a narrative review of the philosophical literature on paternalism, particularly the work of the 19th century philosopher John Stuart Mill, who originally formulated what became known as the ‘harm principle.’ Though an ardent defender of free trade and individual liberty, Mill argued that governments have a responsibility to limit the activities of commercial interests (such as taverns or gambling houses) where they encourage ‘excess’ that might harm the individual or society. The philosophical literature on paternalism gives strong arguments that government measures to limit potential public health harms arising from the consumption of unhealthy diets are not violations of individual liberty. On the contrary, governments are ethically obliged to make such interventions as are necessary to protect the liberty of individuals who are being misinformed and manipulated by industry. Rather than public health measures representing nannying by the state, we argue that they serve to counteract the ‘nefarious nannying’ by commercial actors, thus enhancing individual liberty rather than diminishing it.

Powerful Allies and Weak Consensus: Towards a Deeper Understanding of how Health-Harming Industries Seek to Influence Global Health Governance Comment on "Competing Frames in Global Health Governance: An Analysis of Stakeholder Influence on the Political Declaration on Non-communicable Diseases".

Suzuki et al have identified commonalities in the policy positions adopted at a global forum by commercial sector actors and high-income countries (HICs), on the one hand, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), on the other, in ways that may allow commercial sector actors to block or delay evidence-based policies through the creation of political controversy. The ability of industry actors to draw on the support of the most politically and economically powerful countries for their favoured policy agenda is an important contribution to understanding the dynamics of global health governance in the area of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and beyond. Here we assess the relevance of this paper for the field of corporate actors' research and the potential avenues this opens up for further study. More specifically we emphasize the need for comparative, cross disciplinary research to examine the power of heath-harming industries and the relevance of these findings for decolonizing global health.

Open Data Ecosystems — An empirical investigation into an emerging industry collaboration concept

Software systems are increasingly depending on data, particularly with the rising use of machine learning, and developers are looking for new sources of data. Open Data Ecosystems (ODE) is an emerging concept for data sharing under public licenses in software ecosystems, similar to Open Source Software (OSS). It has certain similarities to Open Government Data (OGD), where public agencies share data for innovation and transparency.We aimed to explore open data ecosystems involving commercial actors. Thus, we organized five focus groups with 27 practitioners from 22 companies, public organizations, and research institutes. Based on the outcomes, we surveyed three cases of emerging ODE practice to further understand the concepts and to validate the initial findings. The main outcome is an initial conceptual model of ODEs’ value, intrinsics, governance, and evolution, and propositions for practice and further research.We found that ODE must be value driven. Regarding the intrinsics of data, we found their type, meta-data, and legal frameworks influential for their openness. We also found the characteristics of ecosystem initiation, organization, data acquisition and openness be differentiating, which we advise research and practice to take into consideration.

ANYONE FOR A GAME OF MONOPOLY™?* A CRITICAL EVALUATION OF THE EVERINCREASING COMMERCIALIZATION OF MAJOR SPORTING EVENTS PART 2: EXAMINING THE LEGITIMACY OF THE CREATION AND MAINTENANCE OF COMMERCIALLY-DRIVEN MONOPOLIES IN SPORTS EVENTS

This is the second part of an article published in three parts that critically examines the commercial monopolisation of sporting mega-events such as the FIFA football World Cup, and of commercial rights protection of such events. The first part of this article contained mainly a descriptive overview of ambush marketing and of the legal and other measures available to event organisers and sponsors to combat such practices. This second (and the forthcoming third) part of the article will continue to critically evaluate the legitimacy of a prime source of protection for these commercial actors, namely anti-ambush marketing legislation, with a specific focus on the SouthAfrican jurisdiction and the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa.

‘FAKE NEWS’ AND OTHER PROBLEMATIC INFORMATION: STUDYING DISSEMINATION AND DISCOURSE PATTERNS

Encompassed by the disputed term ‘fake news’, a variety of overtly or covertly biased, skewed, or falsified reports claiming to present factual information are now seen to constitute a critical challenge to the effective dissemination of news and information across established and emerging democratic societies. Such content – variously also classifiable as propaganda, selective reporting, conspiracy theory, inadvertent misinformation, and deliberate disinformation – in itself is not new; however, contemporary digital and social media networks enable its global dissemination and amplification, by human and algorithmic actors (Woolley & Howard 2017), ordinary users and professional agents, outside of, in opposition to, or sometimes also in collusion with, the mainstream media (Shao et al. 2017; Vargo et al. 2017). Various political, commercial, and state actors are suspected to have exploited this ‘fake news’ ecosystem to influence public opinion, in major votes ranging from the Brexit referendum to national elections, and/or to utilise discourse around ‘fake news’ to generally undermine trust in media, political, and state institutions. This panel brings together a number of perspectives that combine systematic, large-scale, mixed-methods analysis of the empirical evidence for the global dissemination of, engagement with, and visibility of problematic information in public debate with the study of the public discourse about ‘fake news’, and the operationalisation of this concept by politicians and other societal actors to downplay inconvenient facts or reject critical questions. In combination, its five papers present a substantive collection of innovative approaches to the ‘fake news’ concept, exploring the dissemination of problematic information itself at larger and smaller scales as well as examining the operationalisation of the idea of ‘fake news’ in pursuit of specific ideological aims. This produces a new and more comprehensive picture of the overall impact of ‘fake news’, in all its forms, on contemporary societies.

Corporate political activity in the context of unhealthy food advertising restrictions across Transport for London: A qualitative case study.

BackgroundDiets with high proportions of foods high in fat, sugar, and/or salt (HFSS) contribute to malnutrition and rising rates of childhood obesity, with effects throughout the life course. Given compelling evidence on the detrimental impact HFSS advertising has on children’s diets, the World Health Organization unequivocally supports the adoption of restrictions on HFSS marketing and advertising. In February 2019, the Greater London Authority introduced novel restrictions on HFSS advertising across Transport for London (TfL), one of the most valuable out-of-home advertising estates. In this study, we examined whether and how commercial actors attempted to influence the development of these advertising restrictions.Methods and findingsUsing requests under the Freedom of Information Act, we obtained industry responses to the London Food Strategy consultation, correspondence between officials and key industry actors, and information on meetings. We used an existing model of corporate political activity, the Policy Dystopia Model, to systematically analyse arguments and activities used to counter the policy. The majority of food and advertising industry consultation respondents opposed the proposed advertising restrictions, many promoting voluntary approaches instead. Industry actors who supported the policy were predominantly smaller businesses. To oppose the policy, industry respondents deployed a range of strategies. They exaggerated potential costs and underplayed potential benefits of the policy, for instance, warning of negative economic consequences and questioning the evidence underlying the proposal. Despite challenging the evidence for the policy, they offered little evidence in support of their own claims. Commercial actors had significant access to the policy process and officials through the consultation and numerous meetings, yet attempted to increase access, for example, in applying to join the London Child Obesity Taskforce and inviting its members to events. They also employed coalition management, engaging directly and through business associations to amplify their arguments. Some advertising industry actors also raised the potential of legal challenges. The key limitation of this study is that our data focused on industry–policymaker interactions; thus, our findings are unable to present a comprehensive picture of political activity.ConclusionsIn this study, we identified substantial opposition from food and advertising industry actors to the TfL advertising restrictions. We mapped arguments and activities used to oppose the policy, which might help other public authorities anticipate industry efforts to prevent similar restrictions in HFSS advertising. Given the potential consequences of commercial influence in these kinds of policy spaces, public bodies should consider how they engage with industry actors.

Russia, transition and poland’s energy security: a retrospective view

ABSTRACT This article asserts that debates concerning Poland’s energy security should be analysed in the context of transition politics and domestic politics. Most importantly, domestic politics reveal the corrupted environment of the 1990s and early 2000s, which allowed Polish and Russian political, commercial and private actors to engage in rent seeking activities. The collusion between the two sets of actors had a detrimental effect on the way in which the debate concerning Polish energy security has developed. Furthermore, corruption scandals that brought to the open murky dealings between the Russian oil and gas sectors and Polish political actors, have not only kept generating interest around the question of the country’s energy security but also further fuelled concerns about Russia’s real intentions.

Lacking Clarity or Strategic Ambiguity? Comment on "Competing Frames in Global Health Governance: An Analysis of Stakeholder Influence on the Political Declaration on Non-communicable Diseases".

This commentary engages with Suzuki and colleagues' analysis about the ambiguity of multi-stakeholder discourses in the United Nations (UN) Political Declaration of the 3rd High-Level Meeting of the General Assembly on the Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases (HLM-NCDs), suggesting that blurring between public and private sector in this declaration reflects broader debates about multi-stakeholder partnerships (MSPs) and public-private partnerships (PPPs) in health governance. We argue that the ambiguity between the roles and responsibilities of public and private actors involved may downplay the role (and regulation) of conflicts of interest (COI) between unhealthy commodity industries and public health. We argue that this ambiguity is not simply an artefact of the Political Declaration process, but a feature of multi-stakeholderism, which assumes that commercial actors´ interests can be aligned with the public interest. To safeguard global health governance, we recommend further empirical and conceptual research on COI and how it can be managed.