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Talk Ain’t Cheap: Political CSR and the Challenges of Corporate Deliberation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 March 2017

Cameron Sabadoz  and
Abraham Singer
Cameron Sabadoz
Affiliation:
Carleton University
Abraham Singer
Affiliation:
University of Rochester
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Abstract:

Deliberative democratic theory, commonly used to explore questions of “political” corporate social responsibility (PCSR), has become prominent in the literature. This theory has been challenged previously for being overly sanguine about firm profit imperatives, but left unexamined is whether corporate contexts are appropriate contexts for deliberative theory in the first place. We explore this question using the case of Starbucks’ “Race Together” campaign to show that significant challenges exist to corporate deliberation, even in cases featuring genuinely committed firms. We return to the underlying social theory to show that this is not an isolated case: for-profit firms are predictably hostile contexts for deliberation, and significant normative and strategic problems can be expected should deliberative theory be imported uncritically to corporate contexts. We close with recent advances in deliberative democratic theory that might help update the PCSR project, and accommodate the application of deliberation to the corporate context, albeit with significant alterations.

Keywords

political corporate social responsibilitydeliberationdeliberative democracylegitimacydeliberative systemscritical theory
Type
Articles
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , April 2017 , pp. 183 - 211
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 2017 

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