Accounts and Implications of Transnational Governance Interactions

‘The challenge is who rules the world’: accounts and implications of transnational governance interactions

Victoria Pagan

Abstract

Increased global interconnectivity has encouraged a prevalence of forums that seek to organise and facilitate action towards transnational governance. A body of work has examined such global forums and the theoretical contexts in which they operate but there is little which examines the dynamic interactions through these forums. This article explores the social, political and corporate struggles in the interactions through two global forums, the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the World Social Forum (WSF). These forums are pathways through which corporate, political and social actors struggle to negotiate transnational governance as a mechanism for corporate responsibility. The article shows the lived experiences of those interacting to set goals and agendas for corporate responsibility and offers an analysis of how the agenda of transnational governance is negotiated, who is involved and the drivers and shapers of this interaction.

Keywords: corporate responsibility; global forums; global governance; multi-stakeholder interactions; transnational governance; World Economic Forum; World Social Forum.

Introduction

Governance is “the explicit or implicit ‘rules of the game’ that enable and constrain domains of behaviour and the ability of particular actors to set and/or enforce them, either via formal authority relations or through other forms of power” (Bair and Palpacuer, 2015: S3) and these different corporate, political and social actors negotiate to both define and create governance of corporate responsibility transnationally (Beddewela and Fairbrass, 2015). Whilst ‘transnational’ and ‘global’ are sometimes used synonymously, this article follows the distinction offered by Eberlein et al. (2014: 3) that identifies the transnational as “systematic efforts to regulate business conduct that involve a significant degree of non-state authority in the performance of regulatory functions across national borders”, within broader legal and regulative systems operating at a global level. Governance issues have permeated analyses of international relations and affairs more or less explicitly in recent decades. It is integral to our understanding of social orderings, as Ruggie (2014: 5), explains: “governance, at whatever level of social organization it occurs, refers to the systems of authoritative norms, rules, institutions and practices by means of which any collectivity, from the local to the global, manages its common affairs.” Given this, Bair and Palpacuer (2015: 2) define different analytical levels of governance, including: corporate governance at the level of the organisation; industrial governance for recognition of the interconnections between different organisations within industries; and an emerging and contested form of global governance, defined as “the efforts of non-state actors to manage transnational processes, including via the creation of norms and rules regarding global production”. It is this recognition that, whilst governance can be conceptualised as systems for analysis in Ruggie’s (2014) terms, what is particularly important is to understand the exercise of power by actors in the creation and

legitimation of the norms and rules that have far reaching effects (Finnemore, 2014; Djelic and Sahlin-Andersson, 2006). The stakes of this are summarised in the quotation of the title of this article taken from a research participant: ‘the challenge is who rules the world’.

Ways to critically question the ways in which the world is organised in terms of relationships and activities across state and nation boundaries are continually necessary as these evolve over time (Weiss and Wilkinson, 2014a). There are representatives of international business and other interests including politics and civil society who are positioned to act and influence across societies (Barnett and Sikkink, 2008). These people have been theorised as collectively symbolising, for example, a field of transnational relations (Garsten and Jacobsson, 2007)), or contributors to transnational governance (Hale and Held, 2011; Risse, 2012). There is a range of multi-stakeholder activity that seeks to govern action on issues of corporate responsibility on a transnational scale, with literature examining the way in which people and institutions seek to govern across geographic boundaries and with unboundaried effects (e.g. Rasche and Gilbert, 2012; Voegtlin and Pless, 2014; Rasche, 2012). Power is enacted through the people who operate at a global level by virtue of the corporate, political and/or social work they do (Zelli and Van Asselt, 2013). The existing literature tells us much about the enactment of governance initiatives (e.g. Rasche et al., 2013; Ruggie, 2014; Barkemeyer et al., 2015) and the place of governance within broader public and private international relations (e.g. Barnett and Sikkink, 2008; Risse, 2012; Weiss and Wilkinson, 2014b). What is worthy of further exploration is the answer to the question: how is the agenda of transnational governance negotiated in multi-stakeholder contexts?

This article answers this by discussing processes of competition for legitimacy in practice (Fransen, 2012) through the accounts of individuals’ interactions in the setting of goals and agendas related to the transnational governance of corporate responsibility (Eberlein et al., 2014). Multi-stakeholder practices and initiatives are part of the transnational and global governance landscape, they are institutional spaces within the field with effects constructed by the actors within them. This paper explores interactions in two global forums as examples of social spaces for multi-stakeholder practice: the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the World Social Forum (WSF). Using these examples, it is argued that the contestation, debate and creation of transnational governance is enabled through such global forums. WEF, “committed to improving the state of the world, is the international organisation for public-private cooperation” (World Economic Forum, 2018) and WSF “is the largest gathering of civil society to find solutions to the problems of our time” (World Social Forum, 2016). The research on which this article is based includes a set of interviews undertaken with participants as they interact, engage in debate and create action for responsible practice across boundaries of geography and socio-economic power.

The article is structured as follows. The following section introduces the context of transnational and global governance theories and the relationship with corporate responsibility. It argues the place of global forums as pathways to global governance and describes those who participate therein. The methodology for the research is then shown, followed by a presentation of the empirical material to support the argument, and conclusions in answer to the question posed previously.

CSR, transnational governance and multi-stakeholder activities

It is shifts in international, transnational and/or global thinking that have promoted a subsequent shift in the locus of authority to include actors other than states, with authority derived from expertise as well as politics and other sources (Barnett and Sikkink, 2008). Governance of issues with significance for people, places and goods has therefore had to take account of remade institutions, geopolitics, and players whose interests may not always be in support of global prosperity (Bevir and Hall, 2011) but existing interdependently (Zürn, 2012). Corporations are no longer subject to governments in the way that they have been in the past and as such, governance is negotiated between those who have power at transnational levels, which is fragmented across states, businesses and civil society actors (Bair and Palpacuer, 2015; Finnemore, 2014). It is possible to see three themes in the transnational governance literature – explanations of rule emergence, selection and adoption (Roger and Dauvergne, 2016) – and underpinning these themes are revelations of a multiplicity of interactions and actors from public and private fields through which these rules are legitimated (Barkemeyer et al., 2015). Multi-stakeholder activities demonstrate characteristics of deliberative capacity, inclusiveness, authenticity and consequentiality, all to varying degrees/levels of quality (Schouten et al., 2012).

Arguably, corporations are in a position of high power and responsibility (dominance) particularly in relation to governing their own standards of responsibility through their responses to regulation (Zürn, 2012) and/or voluntary adoption of reporting frameworks (Scherer and Palazzo, 2011). However, Ruggie (2014) identifies three systems affecting the ways in which corporations behave transnationally. These are: legal systems at national and international levels; voluntary systems of compliance and ‘good’ practice; and systems of corporate governance at the level of the organisation. This demonstrates both fixed and fluid elements and what is interesting is the intersection of these in producing two distinct, albeit interrelated, conceptualisations of governance in relation to corporate responsibility: firstly, the governance of corporate responsibility, for example, through various frameworks and agreements of the rules of behaviour (e.g. UN Global Compact); and secondly, corporate responsibility as transnational governance, that is, it is in itself an institution comprising subjectively constructed practices, subject to contestation in terms of the relationships between business, society and the environment (Levy and Kaplan, 2008; Brammer et al., 2012). Those activities that set standards can benefit from flexibility and democracy and/or they can support dominant interests rather than directly addressing CSR issues (O’Rourke, 2006; Fransen and Kolk, 2007).

The actors participating in transnational governance processes can be defined by formal structure (including multinational corporations, international non-governmental organisations, and networks) and by purpose (for themselves and/or for a global common good) (Risse, 2012) and it is perhaps in purpose where the greatest contestation is evident in their interactions (Bair and Palpacuer, 2015). For example, there are different factors influencing the definitions of ‘responsible’ including profit drivers, socially responsible capitalism, economically responsible environmentalism, environmental protection, moral / social imperatives and economic imperatives. These factors are not necessarily mutually exclusive but are differentially privileged and represented by different social actors whose interests intersect at a global level and require negotiation and compromise. This is potentially problematic as governance processes may include influence from those without democratic portfolio and so minimal accountability (Risse, 2012). People with competing interests and different rationalities are present and struggle to promote their worlds (Scerri,

2012). All are operating in a landscape of possibility for multi-stakeholder practice to shape the governance of CSR at a transnational level (Vives, 2004; Moog et al., 2015; Grosser, 2016).

Taking an interpretive view of the management of global governance suggests an acceptance of dynamic interrelationships between people in their practice as they make and remake governance on a continuous basis (Bevir, 2011; Mele and Schepers, 2013). Slaughter and Hale (2011) described a need for future research to understand the participation of private and non-state organisations in global governance and indeed, reflecting it as a multifaceted intersection of economic, legal, political and social forces that mean actors cannot operate in isolation(Wogart, 2015). This article takes account of the politics of these interactions and the outcomes of these processes in the context of corporate responsibility (Scherer et al., 2014). Transnational governance is a distributed and plural process (Scherer and Palazzo, 2011) and, as such, it is possible to examine the social spaces or pathways that enable the deliberative activity from which the artefacts of governance (for example, frameworks, regulations, agreements) may emerge (Levy and Kaplan, 2008). This article contributes by showing the processes of negotiation and compromise from the perspective of those multiple stakeholders who are interacting towards legitimating their interests in corporate responsibility through multi-stakeholder activities (Rasche, 2012; Eberlein et al., 2014). It recognises the potential for critiques of accountability given the interests of those participating; however, example contexts of deliberative democracy are used as a way to illustrate the inclusion of multiple voices that may learn from one another and engage with one another’s critics (Risse, 2012; Fransen, 2012; Scherer et al., 2014). Multi-stakeholder activities both define norms and result from behaviours – actors define the behaviour and the behaviour stems from the definitions. They benefit from participating as well as it being ‘good’ in itself, ‘police’ each other, also potential to benefit for very little input (Zeyen et al., 2016).

There are a number of opportunities for individuals to formally congregate in locations that cross fields, with the common goal of addressing issues of corporate responsibility and sustainable development. These have been characterised as: multi- stakeholder networks; MSpartnerships; MSprocesses; MSplatforms; MSregulation initiatives; and MSgovernance arrangements (Moog et al., 2015). Some of these are institutions formally constituted in relation to nation states, for example, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Others are less structured and informally constituted, with less transparent membership and discussion, for example: Bilderberg, a private annual conference between leaders and experts from Europe and the USA (Bilderberg, 2016); Trilateral Commission, a group of private sector representatives from the USA, Europe and Japan (The Trilateral Commission, 2015); and Königswinter, a forum for elites from the UK and Germany to meet (The Deutsch-Englische Gesellschaft (German-English Society), 2015). These are mechanisms of transnational space through which governance may emerge (Eberlein et al., 2014). Such transnational forums are important social spaces through which powerful actors can address issues of far-reaching concern. The following section introduces the specific research context for this article.

Research context

The two examples offered here as the context for this article aim to be locations through which the multi-stakeholder debate can be broadened. These are the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the World Social Forum (WSF). A summary of their characteristics can be found in Table 1.

Table 1: WSF and WEF

World Social Forum World Economic Forum Origins Established in 2000 as an idea of Founder and current Executive Brazilian activist and politician Chairman, Klaus Schwab, Chico Whitaker and entrepreneur established it in 1971 originally Oded Grajew (Caruso, 2013) as the European Management Forum (Zwick et al., 2009) Main purpose A mechanism through which Membership organisation to normative practices are challenged foster partnership working and resisted towards shaping global agendas Main Individual activists, academics, Key stakeholders from business, participants representatives of grassroots politics, INGOs, academia, the NGOs and the charitable sector. arts and culture. Paid Open attendance apart from party membership and participation by political representatives and invitation only. military organisations (World Social Forum, 2002) Main activities Annual congregations, regional Annual meetings (Davos, China, and thematic meetings run in UAE), regional meetings, relation to the Charter of reporting on issues related to the Principles (World Social Forum, global agenda (World Economic 2002) Forum, 2012; World Economic Forum, 2014) Governance International Council comprising A formally organised central approximately 200 members structure, including managing (Caruso, 2013), local/regional directors, senior directors and committees (Scerri, 2012), Charter directors and administrative staff of Principles

These global forums are important locations because they: offer an opportunity for the elite of different social fields of the world to congregate; and are themed for debate and action in relation to issues of global importance, including the governance of corporate responsibility. They have multi-issue agendas (Moog et al., 2015). The Charter of Principles that structures the ethos of WSF demonstrates a commitment to sustainability and equality throughout each of its points. Two specific examples demonstrate commitment “to building a planetary society directed towards fruitful relationships among Mankind and between it and the Earth” (Principle 1) and to “respect universal human rights, and those of all citizens - men and women - of all nations and the environment and will rest on democratic international systems and institutions at the service of social justice, equality and the sovereignty of peoples” (Principle 4) (World Social Forum, 2002). These are situated as being alternative to the current perceived dominance of neoliberal capitalism. Some of the shared alternatives sought

5 by participants in WSF activities include a common focus against corporate capitalism/neoliberal globalisation, economic domination, imperialism, and male (white), cultural imposition (Ponniah and Fisher, 2003). Specifically, there is a commitment towards a more plural, ground-up process to meet the needs of the many rather than the few (Ponniah and Fisher, 2003; Mele and Schepers, 2013).

WEF has aimed to contribute towards transnational governance of CSR by promoting specific activities partnering multiple stakeholders towards improved, more sustainable practices, including through policy making and specific solutions (Fougner, 2008). Examples of actions include the production of The Davos Manifesto, written in 1973 and representing a type of ‘code of conduct’ for managers (Zwick et al., 2009) signed by 400 signatories. The Manifesto outlines responsibility to clients, workers, investors and society, but crucially this is predicated on the ongoing existence of the firm (that is, profitability) (Lozano, 2001), so reinforcing its business-first economic grounding. In 1997, comments were made by George Soros, billionaire investor and philanthropist, which lamented the focus on commercial values to the detriment of interest in other values (social, environmental). Following this time, WEF began to instigate additional, more socially-focused projects and initiatives (Carroll and Carson, 2003). In 1999, Kofi Annan (former secretary general of the UN) used the meeting at Davos as an opportunity to launch the Global Compact between the United Nations and business (Fougner, 2008; Garsten, 2003). This demonstrates the profile of WEF activities in promotion of particular agendas on the relationship between different stakeholders and economic, social and environmental responsibility.

What differentiates these forums from other global meetings is that participants are not elected or expected to attend by virtue of their role, rather they attend voluntarily (Mele and Schepers, 2013). The two forums have varying structures, memberships, participation and purpose (e.g. Maguire and Hardy, 2006; Eberlein et al., 2014). WEF activities, for example, also have very clear boundaries between who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’ and participants frequently pay for the privilege of participation (Graz, 2003). Through both of these locations, multiple participants can discuss and agree shared parameters for appropriate responsibilities, conduct and responsible practice (Garsten and Jacobsson, 2007; Scherer and Palazzo, 2011). As such, the participants represent a range of stakes (for example, business, political, those of civil society, religious) configured alongside one another and each has the opportunity to set agendas towards their own interest or position (e.g. Bevir and Hall, 2011; Scherer and Palazzo, 2011; Eberlein et al., 2014) outside of formal or institutionalised contexts. Participants attend these forums to effect change, but the mechanisms for doing so may include confrontation, collaboration, reform and/or direct challenge and transformation (de Bakker et al., 2013). These are certainly social spaces where individuals are acting in a world making capacity in ways that are not accountable to the public (Graz, 2003) and with significantly imbalanced representation, particularly in terms of gender (Elias, 2013; Conway, 2013). As such, it is important to be clear that this article does not offer a case study or meso-level analysis of these settings as actors in themselves (Eberlein et al., 2014). Instead, it situates them as example locations through which individuals may interact with one another at a global level and offers a micro-level analysis of the interactions therein. They offer opportunities for individuals to have relatively low frequency interaction, with high dispersal of power among people and places, but also opportunities for tighter coupling to develop (Rasche, 2012). The following section describes the methodology on which the analysis for this article is based.

Methodology

This article is based on qualitative research that included a set of 38 interviews with a range of individuals undertaken between September 2013 and August 2014. Table 2 summarises those interviewees who are quoted in this paper.

Table 2: List of quoted interviewees

Anglicised pseudonym Main organisational role descriptor Claire International officer Declan Senior director Helen Academic Joshua Executive director Katherine Associate Vice-president Lucy Civil society organisation employee Nathan Executive director Riley Director Susanna Vice-chair Taylor Chief executive Tristan Religious leader Victoria Chief executive Vincent Civil society organisation employee

The steps undertaken during the research are outlined as follows.

Selection of participants

A master spreadsheet was compiled from which to begin making approaches to individuals who had participated in WEF and/or WSF activities. The spreadsheet was compiled from four main sources as follows.

1. Websites that compiled the lists of attendees at each of the most recent annual meeting of each forum (The Guardian, 2013; World Social Forum, 2013). 2. Websites that detailed additional activities and commentary on each forum. 3. In the course of reading journal articles, newspaper articles, web pages and watching news and other television material, other research participants were identified and approached. 4. Snowballing, that is, interview contacts and colleagues made suggestions and introductions to additional research participants not previously identified through the methods described above.

An analysis was undertaken of the roles and organisations of participants in the annual congregations in 2013 of each forum to take this into account when potential research participants were being approached. The aim was to engage with a range of individual and organisational representatives from the private sector, public sector and civil society organisations to gather a range of perspectives (Rapley, 2007). Where known, priority was given to contacting those with job titles or organisational responsibility related to

‘sustainability’, ‘environment’ or ‘social’ issues. Drawing on these sources offered a pool of contacts to approach, and those invited were selected purposively to reflect: variation in participation (e.g. across different forum activities); different organisational representation; different roles; and language match, given the English language limitation of the author (Lincoln and Guba, 1985). As such, the selection was not intended to be in any way representative or generalisable but to capture the accounts of participants’ lived experiences of activity in these forums (Alvesson, 2011). Participants included chief executive officers, directors, senior academics, religious leaders and trade union representatives.

Interview style, conduct and content

The interviews ranged in time from 30 to 90 minutes, driven largely by the availability of each research participant. Participants were all provided with an information sheet and consent form in advance. 28 were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim (1,806 minutes of material). 10 interviews were not audio recorded because of participant preference and/or available technology for recording, but points were noted contemporaneously during the interview. All transcripts and notes were shared with and agreed by the interviewees for checking and amending as they saw fit, along with a debriefing note about the research and permission was given by the interviewees to use them in the research. In this article, anglicised pseudonyms (see Table 2) are used to protect the identity of research participants.

Credibility is achieved through the validation of my research participants (internal validity); potential transferability through comparison with other contexts in the global arena (external validity); dependability as the material can be audited; and confirmability through acting in good faith (Guba and Lincoln, 1994; Lincoln and Guba, 1985). The interviews were relatively unstructured (Brinkmann, 2014) and generally followed the conventions of question-answer. One of the aims of the underpinning research was to explore interactions between individuals from a range of fields at a global level, to understand how they perceive and respond to issues of sustainability in our world and it was this general starting point that began the interview discussion.

Data organisation and analysis

An NVivo project was used as a material management tool, with transcripts stored here for ease of reference, but data reduction was undertaken manually on hard copies. The transcript material was read and re-read with the focus of this article in mind, situating thinking within existing literature in terms of how the research may contribute. In particular, meaning was sought in the material using hermeneutic principles: to analyse the interviews in order to recognise how interviewees understand their participation in governance-making; to acknowledge that these are expressed accounts; and to recognise that this article presents one interpretation of the interviews out of a potential many (Kvale and Brinkmann, 2009). With regard to interpretation and findings, this article presents one set of material to the reader (Doz, 2011). The analytic framework offered by Eberlein et al. (2014) helps in the specific identification of the focus of this article, that is the micro-level interactions in the goal- and agenda-setting component of governance. The analysis of the empirical material can be structured by the framework as shown in Table 3.

Table 3: Data structure

Question structuring First order analysis Second order themes the research How is the agenda of Micro-level analysis of the Character of interaction of transnational governance accounts of individual multi-stakeholders negotiated? participants. Drivers and shapers of the Accounts of multiple and transnational governance of overlapping competitive, CSR coordinated, coopted, and/or chaotic interactions Example transnational governance effects of multi- Multiple interests, problems, stakeholder activities ideologies present in the accounts of participants Adapted from Eberlein et al. (2014: 7)

The following sections are presented to demonstrate the findings.

How the agenda of transnational governance is negotiated

Character of multi-stakeholder interaction

A key element of the interaction to negotiate the agenda of transnational governance is the face to face engagement between individuals, as Tristan, a religious leader, describes: ‘when you have an eyeball to eyeball challenge, it’s another human facing another human in the face and then you can actually talk about these things’. Tristan’s ‘eyeball to eyeball challenge’ reinforces the humanity-based focus that often disappears in rational, economic arguments and they do this through acts of deliberation. This illustrates the contested nature of the interactive process (Bair and Palpacuer, 2015; Eberlein et al., 2014) but that the contestation can be confronted constructively when participants can see each other in the physical setting offered by these multi-stakeholder forums. These are not always formal, but informal, as Lucy, a civil society organisation employee, describes: ‘I think what is crucial usually is who are the participants…for me the most powerful thing were the informal conversations that I had with people that I met there.’ Beyond the importance of the face to face is also the volume and variety of whose faces are interacting with whose. Claire and Helen explain further.

I think that, to bring so many people together and so many experiences together and so many realisation and different views and, I think there is not such a thing like this on the social level, thinking about you know social movements, or civil society organisations, something so global, there’s not much. Claire, International Officer

The extent to which that massive deliberation actually happens, on a practical level, I mean I think it’s more indirect in a way…of exposure to new ideas and

new people and it’s a lot about affect and embodiment and being in the same sort of space as other people from all over the world, and really just seeing and hearing and listening, probably maybe the most powerful thing about it. Helen, Academic

These example accounts illustrate common patterns in the character of interaction towards the successful negotiation of the agenda of transnational governance: the volume of people participating; different views being represented; different types of interactions including informal conversations, deliberation, seeing, hearing and listening; and geographical spread of participants. Claire’s comments echo the notion of points of view (‘so many people’, ‘so many experiences’, ‘different views’) and being ‘global’ in nature. Helen’s comment particularly references the value of ‘exposure to new ideas and new people’, ‘embodiment, being in the same space’ and ‘seeing and hearing and listening’. The implication of this is the opportunities for social actors to interplay, negotiate and collaborate in the promotion and governance of corporate responsibility (Fransen and Kolk, 2007; Fransen, 2012; Schouten et al., 2012; Wogart, 2015). Susanna, a Vice-chair, explains further.

At all the forums I’ve been to, there’s been significant local participation from people who are in many senses…‘outside’ the global justice movement (or at least not deeply embedded within its cultures). This might include business students working as volunteers at the Karachi forum; ordinary Kenyans and slum-dwellers let into the Nairobi forum as a result of activism by people…who didn’t want the gates closed to those not paying; teenage Tunisians who came to the forum excited at the prospect of music, a gathering, and meeting people from around the world.

Susanna’s account suggests that wider participation by those ‘outside’ has positive impact, particularly demonstrating those who are impacted by business in different ways and that they will also have a view on what governance and corporate responsibility looks like. Volunteers in Karachi will have a very different perspective to Kenyan slum-dwellers, who will have a very different perspective to those who work for the World Bank or WHO. Taylor, a chief executive, introduces one of the implications of involvement in these negotiations – that the exercise of power is acute (Finnemore, 2014, Djelic and SahlinAndersson, 2006) - as follows.

‘There’s a hilarious thing whereby people have an ability in Davos to look at your badge and process it as they walk towards someone, in a nano-second what your badge says about you and whether it’s even worth looking up, so it is a bit of a power-fest…’

Taylor’s account illustrates a further example of the character of interaction, that participants will consider strategically the extent to which engagement is worthwhile and in their interests. Helen’s view unpacks this further, that there are ‘multiple epistemologies, multiple forms of knowledge, multiple forms of political practice and at least in principle them all being equally valid’ and it is this latter comment that demonstrates that there are still political elements to the negotiation; that complete validity is only ‘in principle’(Scherer et al., 2014). Overall, Victoria, a chief executive, believes that it is the people in the room who are key to the development of the processes to ‘change the world’, they have the ‘power and the

10 capacity’ to create systems that would have legitimacy and authority: ‘I think the energy, the room fills up with energy, of power and the capacity that these people can actually, if they want to, could really change the world’.

Drivers and shapers of transnational governance of CSR

Joshua, an Executive Director, introduces the different pathways available through these two forums from his perspective as follows.

The WEF [offers] very strong articulations of that core, the power of [economic] capital to determine the future development of humanity. And if that is the founding principle of WEF and all of the other bits and bobs around it, the WSF is an explicit challenge trying to say no, it is not [economic] capital that should have that lead role, it’s not [economic] capital that is seen as the lead agency in the process of historical development, it should be social forces.

Joshua’s point illustrates the potentially competitive character of positions of participants in the negotiation of transnational governance and corporate responsibility in these forums. He sees them as representing different interests and ideologies in terms of defining and legitimating the rules of corporate responsibility (Finnemore, 2014; Djelic and Sahlin- Andersson, 2006). Joshua’s comments explain two examples of the different approaches to corporate responsibility and its governance. He positions them as opposing and, indeed, they have a historical oppositional relationship (Caruso, 2013). Firstly, he suggests that participants in WEF focus on economic capital as the driving force for corporate responsibility. Secondly, he suggests that participants in WSF offer a direct counter position to this, that social capital should instead be the driving force for corporate responsibility. Riley, a Director, develops this further in his description of a form of ‘peer pressure’ that illustrates how the agenda may be negotiated (Moog et al., 2015), as follows.

leaders can go ‘here is an opportunity where we can share with lots of others and try and drive the agenda forward to where we see it needing to be’… You have to deal with this issue by issue, item by item and the forum is a useful vehicle to drive those agendas and share those examples which means CEOs either go back feeling ‘bugger, I better get on with some stuff’, or empowered and pleased with their own performance that spurs them on to do more.

Riley’s account demonstrates the close relationship between who is participating (leaders) and what happens between them in their interactions that may affect corporate responsibility (Risse, 2012; Fransen, 2012). Riley describes exchanging ideas in terms of sharing ‘with lots of others’ and either feeling good about what they are already doing or feeling ‘pressured’ to do better. Within this, however, there may be different drivers and shapers of the interactions (Eberlein et al., 2014). For example, the definition and value of corporate responsibility:

fair economy, solidarity economy, organic stuff, non-GM crops…alternative currency…community radios… landless movement, homeless movement, jobless movement. Vincent, Civil Society organisation employee

local Brazilian businesses…working with constituencies to decrease inequalities…the economic driver is the most impactful as most people want a job, a sense of security, and be able to look after their families, this is the context. Declan, Senior director

Vincent and Declan show that there are different definitions of corporate responsibility and the sorts of things that ought to be governed for more equal benefits transnationally. There are different values, including large-scale structural change (Vincent’s macro-economics of ‘fair economy, solidarity economy’) and drivers based on individual needs (Declan’s ‘sense of security’ and ‘looking after families’) based on different types of economic policy. Riley offers an example of the tensions between environmental protection, profit, and employment, and the practical responses towards responsible practice that corporations are willing to make.

There is the thing that says I run an airline and flying is bad. OK if I take that argument as CEO to its ultimate what I do is shut down tomorrow…but then everybody who works for [it] and its associated businesses would be out of a job…Actually we have a social responsibility to provide employment and returns on people’s pensions investments which is as important.

Riley’s illustration shows that CEOs may believe that the product/service of their organisation (here: air travel) is detrimental to the environment. However, if they stopped operating, it would be socially and economically detrimental to those employed, thereby conflicting with a value base that seeks to protect their employees. His example illustrates a multiplicity of dilemma – between the organisation to be responsible, the responsibility of global environmental responsibility and socioeconomic responsibility. These positions are not mutually exclusive and make the governance of CSR extremely complex; they exist in relation to one another and stand in tension with one another depending on the social context in which the individual is acting (Zürn, 2012).

Effects for transnational governance of CSR

These actors operate across geographic and social boundaries in multi-stakeholder activities that position them to influence many lives in economic (for example, through employment), environmental (for example, through the appropriation of natural resources) and social terms (for example, in terms of community and identity). Recognising the intersections between positions at a global level is important for understanding the bounds within which transnational governance practice occurs through global forums and in globally-focused work more generally. Katherine, an associate vice president, illustrates a specific example of the effect of participating in WEF’s multi-stakeholder activities.

[At the first meeting] an industry person was really sort of hammering… ‘no, you’re wrong, you don’t need this’ to the point where last year that person seemed like they were coming around…to this year the person saying ‘it’s really, it’s been really good to have you involved over these few years because you’ve really helped us understand something that we wouldn’t have understood’.

Katherine suggests an outcome of such pressure; that by being there and being able to speak, her colleague (the ‘you’ in her quote) has been able to influence another participant – part of a pathway towards agreeing transnational governance grounds (Barkemeyer et al., 2015). Vincent reflects on how this happens at WSF, as follows.

During the Forum we had many different initiatives, alternatives, new ideas to look globally and think locally, it was a two ways movement because the people from around the world come together they share their experiences and they went back to their places and there they make the changes…the [WSF] was doing something like from the micro to the macro and back again, it was like a feeding the ideas and spreading is more like capillary structures into the society.

Vincent’s account describes the pathway to transnational governance as being: 1) the ideas; 2) the sharing; 3) the enactment outside of WSF of what has been learned through WSF activities. He uses the simile of ‘capillary structures’ to describe the conduit through which meaning travels between these forums and wider global society. Nathan, an executive director, illustrates this with the specific example of fracking.

Fracking is a big issue here in the United States…now it also happens to be a big issue in Tunisia…because the Tunisian government and various North African governments and various governments around the Mediterranean rim have now been discussing fracking and there’s some push by corporations etc. to engage in that and to get governmental support…and the fact that there were people from the United States and Canada that participated and could inform the discussions and share the strategies and the information and the challenges that people here were facing certainly helped in the process… I think that is a very, very valuable piece and facet of the Social Forum process, is that learning across geographies, across continents. And across sectors.

By defining what needs priority attention in a world where there are multiple CSR issues, it is possible to see what happens as a result to address issues with far-reaching impacts, including the governance of environmental (fracking) and health activities, as Taylor describes:

… take the meeting on Alzheimer’s, that was chaired by [former UK Cabinet member] there was literally everybody there from top researchers from the top medical universities, practitioners, someone from the [US health department], there were pharmaceutical companies, there were people who invest capital or lend capital to pharmaceutical companies…it was very important to hear what worked and what doesn’t.

In Taylor’s view, the WEF meeting in Davos is perceived as an ‘opportunity’ that ‘brings everybody together’ to gain a ‘full perspective’. At Davos, he describes a specific meeting regarding Alzheimer’s disease and describes meeting participants by a range of resources including political (‘UK Cabinet’, knowledge (researchers, practitioners), business (pharmaceutical companies), economic (investors, lenders), and civil society (his own charitable organisation). Bringing together all of these people from different perspectives to a meeting resulted in ‘hearing what worked and what doesn’t’ – new knowledge that he considers valuable (Barnett and Sikkink, 2008).

Discussion and conclusion

This article has explored how the agenda of transnational governance is negotiated in multi- stakeholder contexts. WEF and WSF are two sites of multi-stakeholder activity that operate without geographic boundaries and participants therein aim to impose meaning and the ‘labels’ that equate to the authorised governance of corporate responsibility (Beddewela and Fairbrass, 2015). Those who participate in these forums have knowledge and expertise that is valuable across fields and geographies (Zelli and Van Asselt, 2013). This may include health, communications and political understanding from a variety of perspectives and there is value in having a location available to draw all of these together. These forums can be considered spaces for the development of transnational governance of CSR and this can perhaps be conceptualised as experimental, testing ideas for the potential global good. They can both be seen as nexuses that facilitate reproduction and subversion of a social trajectory for international practices, that is, where social actors can act and interact to protect their interests and dominance or to promote shifts and with potential benefits and drawbacks for impacting global issues, selected as examples to explore debates and discussions of corporate responsibility as they happen at a transnational level (Bevir and Hall, 2011).

Despite conflicts and contradictions, having locations through which these can be aired, with connections built and new knowledge gained, is important towards the governance of corporate responsibility (Rasche, 2012). There is a debate as to whether these forums should exist at all; for example, that WEF is a forum where destructive practices and values are perpetuated, or that WSF is an ineffectual place and does not enable positive change. Engagement in both forums is subject to deep critique from a range of participants on different ‘sides’ of the responsible business argument. These are countered by those who do see value in these forums as places where worlds can be made. This debate is live and important because the activities of these forums could be negative and/or positive in terms of addressing corporate responsibility (Levy and Kaplan, 2008, Brammer et al., 2012). However, this article rests on the assumption that sufficient forum participants believe in what each forum stands for and does enough to participate in them. This article does not focus on a value judgment as to whether they are good and/or bad in their own right, but as examples of manifestations of practices as pathways to transnational governance (Scherer and Palazzo, 2011, Rasche and Gilbert, 2012). Crucially, such forums enable participants to ‘act globally’. What becomes particularly interesting is the struggle that is represented through these settings. These forums are not simple binaries but power complexities that rely on one another for their existence as global social actors interact in different positions (Finnemore, 2014).

Despite the positive accounts of these participants, the interrelationships between social actors in the global context are complex and contested in terms of the achievement of corporate responsibility (Bair and Palpacuer, 2015). It is argued that different agendas play out through multi-stakeholder activities, making transnational governance of CSR complex and multiple. The interplay of social actors from multiple fields is complex and difficult. For example, corporates are subject to economic drivers by virtue of their role (for example, economic policy, profit motivation). In other words, certain corporates are responsible to other organisational ‘economic masters’ (as managers and shareholders), all of whom are operating within the environment, expectations and values of global economic systems. The implication of this is that social actors may be subject to the forces of different social contexts

14 and in the global arena, there must be negotiation and compromise (Levy and Kaplan, 2008). These tensions are difficult to reconcile.

The point here is that transnational governance is complex because of myriad interests that somehow need to be reconciled (or not – some interests will become dominant) (Finnemore, 2014). This article has shown accounts of how transnational governance is negotiated through the social pathways offered by global forums. It is theorised that governance emerges through people with appropriate expertise and resources gathering to deliberate the big issues of our world. This process is contested and one of struggle, which makes singular goals and agendas difficult to achieve. This struggle is over the definition and execution of how responsible international business is, could and/or should be governed across the world. Despite this, there are indicators of emerging consensus towards shared values, perhaps as a result of the experiential nature of engaging personally in the interactions (Ruggie, 2014, Eberlein et al., 2014). The boundaries of business, politics and civil society are transcended as social actors interact and interplay as they struggle to drive forward their preferred rules of governance (Scherer and Palazzo, 2011). Those individuals that participate in these global forums can use their participation to shape agendas of global significance (Garsten, 2003), in this instance corporate social responsibility.

This article contributes by: showing actors’ accounts of deliberation and the development of legitimacy (Rasche, 2012); examining the accounts of discussion and co- production (Doz, 2011) to broaden our understanding of the relationships between social actors as they negotiate the governance of corporate responsibility (Finnemore, 2014); and exploring outcomes of their interactions (Eberlein et al., 2014). The accounts illustrate examples of how the agenda is negotiated in the process of the interactions in terms of: the relationship between local and global contexts; the movement of ideas and messages in and out of these particular interactive contexts; the presence of voices not usually heard; and change in thinking that can be achieved over time through deliberation. The examples show that participants have the power to ‘change the world’ in terms of the transnational governance of corporate responsibility, but that this power is subject to pressures from different interests and the struggle between these interests has implications for the achievement of consensus.

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