Corporate Responsibility and Transnational Governance
Is my T-shirt made in a sweatshop? How were workers treated who assembled my smartphone? Is my chocolate bar made from cocoa won by slave labor? Do coffee farmers receive a fair price for the coffee I buy and drink? Are tropical forests destroyed for my new furniture? These are questions that arise on a daily basis for consumers that are sensitive to issues of sustainable development and fair trade.
In the absence of enforcement by governments and inter-governmental organizations, transnational governance organizations arise that oversee social, environmental and human rights standards in the production of global consumer goods. In these new non-state types of governance, multinational firms participate on a voluntary basis, often with civil society organizations, and monitor and enforce these standards in their production chains, answering to pressures for so-called Corporate Responsibility.
This course will introduce students to the theory and practice of Corporate Responsibility and transnational governance. It will discuss how transnational governance arrangements have evolved and why Corporate Responsibility has surfaced as a leading concept in governing global standards. In addition it will familiarize students with academic and political discussions of the legitimacy, effectiveness and impact of these transnational governance arrangements. Finally it will discuss how transnational governance and Corporate Responsibility intersect with contemporary national and international governmental arrangements.
In this way, students are trained to develop their own empirically and theoretically informed perspective on the promise and perils of the transnational governance of social, human rights and environmental standards, and its evolving relationship with national and international public governance.
Lecturer dr. Luc Fransen
Course Material
Selected articles on Blackboard
Examination
Working paper, participation, take-home exam
Goals
This course will contribute to three objectives of the education programme of the Institute of Public Administration: orientation in core debates in Public Administration, contribution to academic skills and contribution to professional skills.