The Challenges of Global Business Authority

Democratic Renewal, Stalemate, or Decay?

Edited by Tony Porter & Karsten Ronit

Subjects: Business And Government, Democracy, Political Science, Political Economy
Paperback : 9781438431567, 336 pages, January 2011
Hardcover : 9781438431574, 336 pages, May 2010

Table of contents

List of Figures and Tables
Preface
Acknowledgments

1. Globalization and Business Authority: New Modes of Democratic Policymaking?
Tony Porter and Karsten Ronit

SECTION 1: The Firm Level: Individual Political Actions and Voluntary Arrangements

2. Private Authority Certification Regimes: A Club Theory Perspective
Aseem Prakash and Matthew Potoski

3. The Democratic Legitimacy of Private Authority in the Food Chain
Doris Fuchs and Agni Kalfagianni

4. Power, Interests, and the United Nations Global Compact
Jackie Smith

SECTION 2: The Industry Level: The Organizing Capacities of Industries and their Regulation

5. Business Authority and Global Financial Governance: Challenges to Accountability and Legitimacy
Geoffrey R. D. Underhill and Xiaoke Zhang

6. Business and Democracy? Pharmaceutical Firms, Intellectual Property, and Developing Countries
Susan K. Sell

7. The Corruption of the Public Interest: Intellectual Property and the Corporation as a Rights-Holding “Citizen”
Christopher May

SECTION 3: The General Level: Trans-industry Business Action and Policy Processes

8. Regulatory Architectures for a Global Democracy: On Democratic Varieties of Regulatory Capitalism
David Levi-Faur

9. Democratic Accountability in Global Governance: Business and Civil Society in Multiple Arenas
Aynsley Kellow and Hannah Murphy

10. Sovereign Debt Restructuring: Alliances Crossing the Financial Services Industry, States, and Nongovernmental Organizations
Kathryn C. Lavelle

11. The Complexities of Global Business Authority and the Promise of Democracy
Tony Porter and Karsten Ronit

List of Contributors
Index

An astute assessment of democratic principles and decision-making structures in the global business world.

Description

Business is being globalized with an immense speed, but are democratic practices and decision-making structures keeping pace? Contrary to those who see democracy as irrelevant or impossible at the global level, The Challenges of Global Business Authority analyzes three dimensions of democracy- participation, accountability, and transparency-in many transnational mechanisms that seek to align global business interests with the public interest. Looking beyond these mechanisms, this volume seeks to explore the fundamental issues affecting the relationship between democracy and global business authority, such as the structural power of business itself, and the contestations over the boundary between public and private. The essays in this volume provide concrete ways that business can be made more publicly accountable to allow democratic practices to take on a more permanent role in the global business world.