NGOs as Legitimate Partners of Corporations

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxiii

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2. Getting to the Core

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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3. Getting to the core

   1. NGOs as Representatives of Public Claims

      • Dorothea Baur

      Pages 3-17

4. Actors: Civil Society and NGOs in the Postnational Constellation

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 19-19

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5. Actors: Civil society and NGOs in the postnational constellation

   1. The Postnational Constellation: A Broad Conception of Democracy

      • Dorothea Baur

      Pages 21-35

   2. Normative Orientation from Political Theory

      • Dorothea Baur

      Pages 37-43

   3. Civil Society: Coming to Grips with an Elusive Term

      • Dorothea Baur

      Pages 45-52

   4. Insights from Part II

      • Dorothea Baur

      Pages 53-54

6. Institutions and Processes: A Normative Framework for Legitimate Partner NGOs

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 55-55

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7. Institutions and processes: A normative framework for legitimate partner NGOs

   1. The Public Sphere

      • Dorothea Baur

      Pages 57-69

   2. Public Reason

      • Dorothea Baur

      Pages 71-82

   3. The Political Process

      • Dorothea Baur

      Pages 83-96

   4. Legitimacy

      • Dorothea Baur

      Pages 97-110

   5. Insights from Part III

      • Dorothea Baur

      Pages 111-112

8. Drawing a Typology for Legitimate Partner NGOs

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 113-113

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9. Drawing a typology for legitimate partner NGOs

   1. NGOs, Interest Groups and Activists

      • Dorothea Baur

      Pages 115-121

   2. Substantive Characteristics of Legitimate Partner NGOs

      • Dorothea Baur

      Pages 123-125

   3. Structural Characteristics of Legitimate Partner NGOs

      • Dorothea Baur

      Pages 127-140

   4. Procedural Characteristics of Legitimate Partner NGOs

      • Dorothea Baur

      Pages 141-163

   5. Insights from Part IV

      • Dorothea Baur

      Pages 165-165

The interaction between corporations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has become an important topic in the debate about corporate social responsibility (CSR). Yet, unlike the vast majority of academic work on this topic, this book explicitly focuses on clarifying the role of NGOs, not of corporations, in this context. Based on the notion of NGOs as political actors it argues that NGOs suffer from a multiple legitimacy deficit: they are representatives of civil society without being elected; the legitimacy of the claims they raise is often controversial; and there are often doubts regarding the legitimacy of the behaviour they exhibit in putting forward their claims. Set against an extended sphere of political action in the postnational constellation this book argues that the political model of deliberative democracy provides a meaningful conceptualization of NGOs as legitimate partners of corporations and it develops a conceptual framework that specifically allows distinguishing legitimate partner NGOs from two related actor types with whom they share certain characteristics but who differ with respect to their legitimacy. These related actor types are interest groups on the one hand and activists on the other hand. In conclusion it argues that a focus on the behaviour of NGOs is most meaningful for distinguishing them from interest groups and activists.

• Business Ethics
• Business-NGO partnerships
• CSR
• Civil Behaviour
• Civil Disobedience
• Civil Society
• Communitarianism
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Deliberative Democracy
• Democracy
• Legitimacy
• Liberalism
• NGOs
• Oppression
• Political Action
• Political Process
• Political Theory
• Postnational Constellation
• Public Sphere
• Republicanism

• Jubilee Campus, ICCSR, Nottingham University Business School, Nottingham, United Kingdom

  Dorothea Baur

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