ABSTRACT
The pressures on transnational businesses, and business in general, to behave in a 'responsible' manner come less from protestors in streets and from formalised, private institutions specialising in the management of corporate social responsibility (CSR). This chapter traces ascendancy of these new demands on business and their attendant challenges in terms of the increased need for transparency and democratic accountability. This is particularly crucial today as firms and these civil-society groups together negotiate and implement de facto public policy, divvying up responsibility when it comes to the provision of public goods in places around world. It identifies examples of formalised civil-society institutions that have risen up to define, negotiate and manage these corporate responsibilities. The chapter explains what this increasingly private and voluntary regulation of company behaviour means in terms of the overall transparency and democratic legitimacy of such a process from which important public policies emerge as a result of a growing flurry of CSR initiatives.
