Corporate Instrumentalization of Deliberative Democracy in Global Governance (original) (raw)
2018, In Statu Nascendi Journal of Political Philosophy and International Relations
In recent decades, processes of multistakeholder deliberation based on Habermas' concept of deliberative democracy have increasingly been implemented by corporations as part of their efforts to address the negative social and environmental impacts of their activities. These efforts to engage in corporate self-regulation have led to the development of multistakeholder initiatives (MSIs), which constitute governance institutions largely outside the scope of the traditional nation state. The deliberation employed by MSIs ostensibly aspires to consist in an inclusive ideal discourse not subject to power or domination in which the participants are committed to the consideration of all available evidence and alternative conceptual schemes. This article seeks to clarify the role of corporations in multistakeholder deliberation as a form of governance. An examination of existing research focusing primarily on MSIs involving small, local stakeholders as well as corporations demonstrates that the processes of deliberation fall short of the criteria for Habermasian ideal discourse. Problematic aspects of the implementation of multistakeholder deliberation include the reinforcement of local power asymmetries, lack of access to discourse, exclusion from discourse and the hegemony of corporations through mutual accommodation. Rather than seeking to engage in a discourse free from domination, corporations actively seek to dominate by maintaining power asymmetries and excluding other stakeholders from discourse. Moreover, within MSIs the processes of communicative rationality themselves are increasingly instrumentalized. Corporations' strict adherence to instrumental economic rationality furthermore prevents the consideration of alternative ideas. Corporate self-regulation through processes of multistakeholder deliberation, ostensibly meant to mitigate the negative social and environmental impact of corporate activities, thus instead appears to support the continued hegemony and exterritoriality of multinational corporations while strengthening the existing economic order.
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