Corporate accountability to the poor? Assessing the effectiveness of community-based strategies

Abstract

This paper investigates how, why, and when community-based strategies are effective in promoting corporate accountability (CA) to the poor. It argues that mainstream approaches to corporate social responsibility (CSR) underestimate the importance of power in the relationship between corporations and the communities in which they invest, which limits their applicability to many developing-country contexts in particular. In addressing this neglect, the article draws on literature on power, accountability, and citizen participation in order to analyse cases where communities have attempted to hold corporations to account for their social and environmental responsibilities. The paper argues that more attention should be paid to a number of state-, corporation-, and community-related factors, which are found to be key to the effectiveness of strategies aimed at enhancing CA to the poor.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Celestine Nyamu, John Gaventa, Joanna Crichton, and Joanna Wheeler for comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

Notes

1. In October 2004, invoking the ‘polluter pays’ principle, India's Supreme Court Monitoring Committee on Hazardous Waste instructed the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board to collect a Rs50-crore (over €8.5 million) fine from HLL as a revolving bank guarantee to undertake clean-up operations in Kodaikanal. HLL was also asked to set up health clinics to assist local residents affected by mercury poisoning (Vackayil 2004).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Niamh Garvey

Niamh Garvey works with the ELDIS information dissemination service at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), University of Sussex, where she completed her MPhil in Development Studies, achieving a distinction for her dissertation on the politics of community-based strategies for corporate accountability.

Peter Newell

Peter Newell is a Research Fellow at IDS, University of Sussex. He has published widely on the politics of corporate regulation and accountability and is the author of Climate for Change, co-author of The Effectiveness of EU Environmental Policy, and co-editor of Development and the Challenge of Globalisation and The Business of Global Environmental Governance.