5 - How Contestation Shapes Access to Non-Judicial Remedy Mechanisms

Summary

Chapter 5 explores the same pathways but draws on different scholarship, as non-judicial remedy mechanisms represent a much broader set of administrative or mediation-based activities that can be initiated by state or non-state actors. The Institutional Strength pathway explores how rule of law influences access to non-judicial remedy. To inform the mechanisms that drive the Corporate Characteristics and Elevating Voices pathways, this chapter employs slack resource theory to explain why profitable firms might be more likely to engage in socially responsible practices, such as non-judicial remedy. This approach suggests that when firms have the slack, or extra resources to do good deeds, they will do so. Other scholars explore how firm size can also shape firm involvement in such activities; larger firms are more vulnerable to civil society pressure and, thus, may be more likely to engage in non-judicial remedy mechanisms. Detailed vignettes provide concrete illustrations of victims’ efforts to access to non-judicial remedy mechanisms.