GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY AND

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS:
A REVIEW

Maria Alejandra Gonzalez-Perez

ABSTRACT

Purpose – This chapter on global civil society provides a definition of

global civil society, and also provides a historical and theoretical overview
of social movements. This chapter also presents a taxonomy of non-state
actors and demonstrates at the theoretical level that actions and initiatives
by non-state actors since the 1990s’ globalisation. In this chapter, the
concept of civil society is presented as a form of globalisation from below,
and its role in the participatory governance of societal processes implies
forms of soft regulation and moral authority which transcend the role of
states as enforcers.
Design/methodology/approach – This chapter is based on an extensive
literature review.
Findings – Actions and initiatives by non-state actors in the current
age of globalisation have been increasing. This increase has become
more evident with the more stringent traceability of processes associated
with the development of information and communication technologies
(ICT), and private forms of organisation networking at the local and

International Business, Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility

Advances in Sustainability and Environmental Justice, Volume 11, 37–63
Copyright r 2013 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
ISSN: 2051-5030/doi:10.1108/S2051-5030(2013)0000011007
37
38 MARIA ALEJANDRA GONZALEZ-PEREZ

transnational level. This has re-defined geographical boundaries, creating

proximity between individuals which goes beyond physical constraints,
and it has extended definitions of communities to multiple levels of
identification and convergence, but also divergence.
The concept of civil society and its role in the participatory governance of
societal processes implies forms of soft regulation and moral authority
which transcend the role of states as enforcers. The idea of civil society
opens a space for non-traditional actors to actively participate and engage
in the political processes of change in society, for the betterment of
marginalised groups, the environment or social justice in general. The
diversity of roles that single individuals have in society allows them to
participate from different angles.
Although the concept of civil society has limitations due to its breadth,
manifestations of a global civil society can be understood as forms of
globalisation that occur outside traditional institutional settings.
Originality/value of chapter – This chapter provides a general overview
on civil society, and its relevance for analysing contexts of international
business, and MNES’s relations with community and non-governmental
groups. Within this chapter, it is also conceptually describe how
multinationals as non-state actors have increasingly playing a role in
providing welfare.

Keywords: Global civil society; international business; corporate social

responsibility; social movements

INTRODUCTION

There are several definitions of ‘societas civilis’ and multiple debates on how
to include civil society organisations in societal processes. However, the
conceptualisation of civil society as a sphere of human activity and a set of
institutions outside the state and government (Castells, 2008; Cohen &
Arato, 1992; Gellner, 1995; Hall, 1995; Knudsen & Moon, 2012; Seligman,
1995; Scholte, 2011) seems to be a common denominator in the discussions.
An early approach to civil society was postulated by Rosseau (1762). In
Rosseau’s The Social Contract, civil society is conceptualised as a free and
equal relationship between the individual and the state (Matravers, 1998).
Global Civil Society and International Business: A Review 39

Keane (2005) argues that until the nineteenth century, there was no clear
separation between civil society and the state, in the same way that there was
no distinction between civil society and ‘the market’. It is important to
highlight that the pre-global form of civil society was composed of economic
actors, as well as civic organisations operating in the public sphere1
(Mazlish, 2005).
The development of the concept of civil society can be seen as a response
to the capitalist system in order to mediate conflicts between social life and
the market economy through traditional bonds of kin and community.
Alternatively, it can be seen as a universal expression of the collective life
of individuals that goes beyond the individualistic nature of capitalistic
systems and the state. The conceptualisation of civil society can also be seen
as a reflection of historical circumstances and a manifestation of public
responses to forms of inequality. The conceptualisations of civil society both
in tradition and in the literature are associated either with the market and
the private sphere (i.e. Ferguson, Smith, and Marx), or with politics and the
public sphere, but not the state (i.e. Hegel, Gramsci, and Alejandro Colas).
Currently, the term ‘civil society’ reflects a set of institutions both local
and global that mediate between individuals and the state, and whose
membership operates under the principle of voluntarism. The escalating
voluntary activity and the creation of private, non-governmental or non-
profit organisations in recent decades are evidence of what Salamon (1994)
identified as the ‘associational revolution’,2 in which state functions are
exercised and audited by apparatuses outside of traditional structures. Civil
society can also be seen as diverse forms of civic representation and
participation with which individuals identify themselves and upon which
they subsequently act. The concept of civil society is also presented as the
‘arena of contestation’ which mediates the relationship between the
individual, society and the state (Howell & Pearce, 2002). In that sense,
civil society has a role in compensating for the decline of traditional forms of
political participation such as voting, union membership and party
affiliation (Salamon, 1994). Furthermore, the evolution of the term civil
society has been facilitated by the advancement, flexibility, adaptability and
speed associated with new information and communication technologies
(ICT) (Juris, 2005).
The idea of civil society has been viewed from different positions. For
Hall, the idea of civil society diminishes the formation of social agency and
human responsibility (Hall, 1995, p. 3), since it detracts from the
institutional bases of society. It involves a historical determinism given
that, as pointed out by Gellner (1995, p. 54), ‘a man is tied to a culturally
40 MARIA ALEJANDRA GONZALEZ-PEREZ

defined pool’. Pérez-Dı́az (1995) identifies civil society as a combination of

continuous traditions and core socioeconomic and political institutions
framed by a specific historical experience. For Antonio Gramsci, society is
made up of the relations of production (capital and labour); the state or
political society (coercive institutions); and civil society (all the non-coercive
institutions in society) (Cox, 1983).
Several authors have noted that the 1990s concept of civil society has
moved from national to international settings and onto the global stage
(Edwards, 2004; Florini & Simmons, 2000; Taylor, 2002). In this period the
term civil society re-entered the social sciences crossing disciplinary
boundaries and focused on the relationship between society, economy and
the polity (Anheier, 2005; Anheier, Glasius, & Kaldor, 2001a, 2001b; Hall,
1995; Taylor-Gooby, 2012).
Since the 1960s there has seen an increase in the number and diversity of
social movements reflecting a range of different issues (Kelly & Breinlinger,
1996), and at the same time there has been a corresponding decline in class-
based social movements and a fragmentation of identity in post-modern
societies (Hall, 1995). A move has been observed from general categories
such class, community or union membership towards smaller scale local
interest groups reflecting particular needs and identities. An individual may
belong to several different groups each meeting different and specific needs.
This social fragmentation, along with the increasing ability of both
production systems and marketing to target niche markets, has opened up
opportunities both to corporations to target their branding at social
concerns and activists to target brands to pressure for change. In the case of
the banana industry, it can be observed how, starting from the adverse
reputation of the industry associated with negative environmental, social
and labour behaviour, banana companies tackled activist concerns with self-
initiated actions and alliances with other civil society organisations. This
point is going to be further developed conceptually in the next chapter, and
it is going to be explored in detail in the Colombian case in the findings part
of this dissertation.
According to John Keane (2003), the rise of cross-border public
demonstrations has contributed over the last decade to the idea of the
emergence of a civil society on a world-scale, which is complex, multi-
dimensional and dynamic in character due to the immeasurable plurality of
its actors and therefore its interests. When civil society networks integrate
their strength over significant lengths of time, enough to mobilise funda-
mental change, they can be classified as social movements (Castells, 1997;
Edwards, 2004). Edwards (2004) also affirms that ‘NGOs or non-profit
Global Civil Society and International Business: A Review 41

intermediaries’ provide a noteworthy part of civil society’s connective tissue

through building capacity, providing specialist support, and advocating and
supporting alliances.

WHAT IS GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY?

Global Civil Society (GCS) is defined by Anheier et al. (2001a, 2001b) and
by Florini and Simmons (2000) as ‘the sphere of ideas, values, institutions,
organisations, networks, and individuals located between the family, the
state, and the market and operating beyond the confines of national
societies, polities, and economies’. According to Anheier et al. (2001a,
2001b) the diverse activities of GCS can be organised into (i) actions against
transnational corporations (TNCs) or global capitalism; (ii) the response
based on the evidence of a need for infrastructures to spread democracy and
development, and (iii) groups based on global solidarity which provide
support for the oppressed. The term ‘global civil society’ is interpreted by
Taylor (2002) as a progressive multi-organisation field characterised by
innovative networks with a transformative purpose.
The information revolution is moving towards a society which ‘takes
global form and transcends nation states’, and expands the role of
transnational institutions such as the UN, which transcends the power of
national governments and local boundaries (Mazlish, 2005, p. 6). The
evolution of communication technologies has increased the vulnerability of
companies, and therefore the demand for transparency and the imperative
for linking environmental, social and human rights to the economic order
became an integral part of the new wave of globalisation (Welford, 2002).
Responses by civil society can be understood as a reaction to the
[perceived] demand for representation, but can also be understood as a
response to pressures to make representation a legitimate political exercise.
To illustrate this, Salamon (1994) proposed that these pressures are
generated from what he identified as ‘below’, ‘outside’ and ‘above’. Pressures
from ‘below’ reflect grass-root initiatives; ‘outside’ pressures reflect public
institutions; and pressures from ‘above’ are imposed by government policies.
It can be suggested that civil society develops its space from individual
initiatives, institutional programmes, and state/multi-state policies, which
are interrelated through a form of social tissue that acquires economic,
political, cultural, and psychological significance via networks. Therefore, in
the Information Age, the network society reflects a new form of social
organisation that has partly superseded industrial society (Castells, 2005).
42 MARIA ALEJANDRA GONZALEZ-PEREZ

Within the industrial societies, bananas were solely seen as commodities

which satisfied nutritional needs in consumer markets; within the network
society, bananas acquired new meanings and attributes linking farmers with
consumers, the south with the north, and local concerns with opportunities
to connect to global solidarities.
Initiatives to address labour practices transcending national legislative
regimes originated in the nineteenth century through international trade
secretariats, international labour mobilisations and organisations. This
culminated in the founding of the International Labour Organisation in
1919 (Haworth & Hughes, 1998; Kaufman, 2004).
In summary, for the purpose of this thesis, therefore I define GCS as
the myriad of individuals and institutions which operate under the principles
of networking and voluntarism, outside of traditional institutions, and
collectively seeking changes in the social order and inequalities, transcend-
ing individual interests and national boundaries.

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

Social movements have become a permanent feature of modern society

(Della Porta & Diani, 1999) Social movements differ from other social
forms, because they occur outside the institutional framework of everyday
life, and their focus is towards a degree of social change (Hannigan, 1985).
Another definition of social movements links them to ideologies of ‘social
engineering’, which assumes that society is a social creation and therefore its
malleability is feasible (Eder, 1993). Academic interest in the field of collective
behaviour and social movements tends to reflect the ‘levels of activity by
different movements in society’ (McAdam, McCarthy, & Zald, 1988).
It is important to draw attention to the fact that social movements,
whether political or cultural, make demands on political systems, for
example, at the public policy level. Social movements are associated with an
expression of dissatisfaction with existing policy in a given area. There is a
direct correlation between issues raised in protests and the legislation
produced as a result (Della Porta & Diani, 1999, pp. 233–236, 254).

Historical Roots of Social Movements

It has been suggested that social movements must be understood in their

historical context, since this provides the structural conditions for their
Global Civil Society and International Business: A Review 43

emergence (Eyerman & Jamison, 1991; Tilly, 2004). For Tilly (2004), a social
movement means ‘a particular, connected, evolving, historical set of
political interactions and practices’ (Tilly, 2004, p. 7). He is critical of the
term ‘social movement’ being extended and generalised to almost all
relevant popular collective action, and its supporters. He explains that this
inflation of the term has been used as a mechanism within social move-
ments for mobilisation, recruitment and morale. However, he emphasises
that social movements began in Western Europe and North America as
a way of pursuing changes to public policies during the late eighteenth
century.
For Tilly (2004), social movements are a distinctive innovative combina-
tion of (i) campaigns, (ii) repertoires or performances and (iii) displays.
Campaigns are organised public efforts focused on collective claims directly
targeting the authorities. Social movements’ repertoires or performances are
the combination of political actions such as: public meetings, demonstra-
tions, petition drives, issue-based associations and coalitions, solemn
processions, vigils, statements to and in the public media, and pamphleteer-
ing (Tilly, 2004, pp. 3–7). Displays are public presentations of the cause,
which Tilly (2004) calls WUNC3 displays.
Tilly’s (2004) main arguments are:

1. Historically, social movements have temporally connected ‘claimants’

and the object of their claims.
2. Processes of democratisation through public consultation promote the
formation of social movements.
3. Although some social movements differ radically over who ‘the people’
are the most general claim is that public affairs should depend on the
consent of the governed; therefore, all social movements social move-
ments assert popular sovereignty.
4. As locally grounded forms of politics, social movements depend largely
on established political leaders for their scale, effectiveness and
sustainability.
5. Having been established in one particular political setting, mechanisms of
modelling, communication and collaboration may be replicated in other
settings.
6. The claims, personnel and form of social movements evolved historically,
influenced by political environments, structural change within the
movements’ spheres, and transfer amongst movements.
7. Social movements as an invented institution can disappear or mutate into
a different form of politics.
44 MARIA ALEJANDRA GONZALEZ-PEREZ

Some authors (Eyerman & Jamison, 1991) argue that post-industrial

society has observed a global shift in the international economy from
manufacturing and production to service and knowledge industries in which
information and knowledge are the main commodities. Therefore, the
dominant actors are those who process information, and thus the identity of
social actors is not necessarily exclusively class-based. For Eyerman and
Jamison (1991), contemporary social movements are new because they
occur at a specific stage of societal development, involving new identities.
They define social movements as a ‘cognitive territory, a new conceptual
space that is filled by a dynamic interaction between different groups and
organisations [y] it is through tensions between different organisations
over defining and acting in that conceptual space that the (temporary)
identity of a social movement is created’ (Eyerman & Jamison, 1991, p. 55).
Colombia is exceptional in its social movements. In fact, the history of the
country could be outlined by the action of its social movements. The
country has traditional social movements, such as the indigenous move-
ments which have continued their struggle for over 500 years, descendants
of Africans for over 400 years, the workers movement for over 110 years
and campesino movements which together with the patriot army fought
for independence from Spanish rule. Nonetheless, the country has also
developed a reputation of repression and attacks on social movements.
Since ‘la huelga del 28’4 leaders and organisers of social movements have
been persecuted (Mondragón, 2006). The country is widely recognised at the
international level as a country which lacks peace since the beginning of the
20th century. This period of unrest begins with the civil war known as the
‘Thousand Days War’,5 and it continued with the ‘Rubber War’6 in which
many indigenous inhabitants of the Amazon were enslaved. In the decade of
1940s, the period known as ‘la violencia’ started due to a new war between
the Conservatives and the Liberals. The victims of ‘la violencia’ were
campesinos who were dispossessed of their lands, socially and economically
excluded, and denied spaces for political participation in the country. As a
consequence of this socio-economic and political deprivation, campesinos
decided to organise, to arm, and to attack the Colombian government. This
was the beginning of the Colombian guerrilla movement.
Since the 1990s Colombia has witnessed the formation and development
of new social movements (NSM) linked to global concerns such as against
war, pro-peace, human rights and environmental protection. These move-
ments have been interrelated with the traditional movements (indigenous,
Afro-descendants and workers), and there also have been localised move-
ments focused on civic causes such as access to public health, free education,
Global Civil Society and International Business: A Review 45

cultural and ethnic diversity (Mondragón, 2006). On 4 February, 2008, one

of largest initiatives in the history of the country led by members of
Colombian civil society and supported by several social movements took
place. The idea behind the initiative began on the Facebook group ‘A million
voices against the FARC’, and within 4 weeks, it snowballed through the
internet and other media and resulted in simultaneous public demonstrations
in 133 cities around the world on February 4.
Some early examples of international solidarity actions by civil society are:
the British antislavery movement, the American ‘free produce’ movement
and consumer activism.

The British Antislavery Movement

The antislavery campaigns of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the
United Kingdom highlighted slavery as a morally unacceptable activity and
involved mass campaigns based on petitions, lectures, public speeches,
tours, parliamentary debates and legal cases where consumers were incited
to boycott slave-made goods (Cunneen, 2005).
In 1787, Granville Sharp and Thomas Clarkson decided to form the
Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Antislavery activists needed to
change the apathetic and indifferent public attitude to slavery. They opted
for a national network of local abolition groups using tactics of pressure,
and demonstrations such as articles in the local newspapers, public speeches
and church sermons questioning the morality of the slave trade; pamphlets
on the subject of abolition; and also collected signatures in local elections. In
the summer of 1814, one of the most extensively signed petitions in British
history resulted in the prohibition of the slave trade and become an inter-
national cause. It eventually resulted in the British Parliament passing the
Slavery Abolition Act in 1833, which gave all slaves their freedom in the
British Empire.
It is important to recognise that even though this campaign was an
undeniable historical victory for the emancipation movement worldwide, it
also helped to obscure the appalling domestic labour conditions and new
forms of exploitation by industrial capitalists at the early stages of Britain’s
industrial revolution.

American Free Produce Movement

The American free produce movement set the basis for international
solidarity in the agriculture sector. In the 1820s in the United States,
Quakers and slavery abolitionists encouraged consumers to avoid goods
made by slave labour and to purchase products made by free labour
46 MARIA ALEJANDRA GONZALEZ-PEREZ

(Glickman, 2004). This movement adopted the strategies of the British

antislavery sugar7 movement of the 1790s (idem). The first free produce store
was opened by activists in 1826 in Baltimore, and over time more than 50
‘free produce’ stores appeared in another eight states in the United States
(Glickman, 2004). The range of products offered in free produce stores was
primarily clothing and dry goods, especially cotton and sugar. The idea
behind free produce was to depart from the slave labour system using
alternative commercial models. Free produce activists ‘treated the market as
a contested terrain, and an important arena of moral influence subject to
their agency’ (Glickman, 2004, p. 893), suggesting that consumers are agents
of moral and economic change. This movement was given a lot of support
by abolitionists; nevertheless, despite such support, free produce stores were
short-lived enterprises and associated with frustrating experiences for
those who ran them due to high cost , a low quality of goods and demands
as to the authenticity of the free produce goods by ‘hyper-conscientious
consumers’ (Glickman, 2004, p. 891). The free produce movement had as an
objective to create an understanding of consumers’ responsibility for the
perpetuation of slavery. Therefore, it interpreted the system of slavery as a
distribution of guilt from slave-owners through the slave-made goods onto
the consumer with the claim that the sale of slave-made goods finances
slavery. In that sense, by considering markets as a powerful channel for
moral change, the free produce movement promoted the power of the
consumer to play an active role in the alleviation of the suffering of slaves
through the exercise of agency in market relations.
Abolitionists adopted a consumerist strategy in 1834 and began to
organise antislavery fairs. This strategy involved selling fashionable
products with the aim of raising funds for abolitionist organisations so
that, through buying practices, antislavery organisations were able to
flourish (Glickman, 2004). Critics of the time took different views. On the
one hand, a defeatist criticism claimed that because the system of slavery
was embedded in every aspect of life and the economy in the United States,
buying free produce was a useless action (idem). On the other hand, class-
based arguments claimed that the price of free produce goods made them
unaffordable to the poor (Glickman, 2004). However, free produce was the
first movement in the United States that invoked the concept of long-
distance solidarity and consumer responsibility in buying practices.

Consumer Activism
‘However far removed we may be from the scene of their suffering in the physical world,
in the moral world we are standing beside them’ (Glickman, 2004, pp. 896–897).
Global Civil Society and International Business: A Review 47

Historically, consumer movements are a particular kind of social movement

that attempt to transform elements of the social order around marketing
and consumption through raising awareness about the ability to make
decisions in buying practices (Kozinets & Handelman, 2004).
Piore and Sabel (1984) suggest that the nature of consumption has
changed, from mass to niche markets, which has helped to sustain
consumption as one of the defining features of our identity.

Boycotts. The term ‘boycott’ was coined in Ireland in 1880 to describe the
ostracism by the Irish Land League of Captain Charles Cunningham
Boycott, an English land agent of an absentee land owner in County Mayo,
who refused to reduce the land rents of Irish tenant farmers. As a result of
the ostracism he was forced to withdraw from his position and return to
England (Ernst, 1992; Marlow, 1973). By 1885, the word boycott was
commonly used in the United States to describe the whole spectrum of
labour activism: picketing, strikes, social ostracism of non-union workers,
and demands to close down shops (Marlow, 1973). Historical evidence has
demonstrated that although the term boycott was coined in 1880, boycotts
were used in United States since the National Negro Convention in the
1830s encouraged the avoidance of slave-produced goods (Browne, 1997;
Lee, 1913).
Since the nineteenth century, boycotts have been a controversial weapon
used by organised labour and their sympathisers (Ernst, 1992). Ernst (1992)
found that in the nineteenth century most boycotts were employed against
local businesses which served local working-class markets and so were
susceptible to collective actions by trade unions. Large oligopolistic
businesses were rarely the target of boycotts (idem).

Theoretical Approaches to Social Movements

Although the historical evidence for social movement action dates back a
few centuries; current analytical approaches to the understanding of social
movements date back to the mid-1970s (Della Porta & Diani, 1999). Before
that the only two theoretical approaches for the understanding and inter-
pretation of social conflict were the Marxist model and the structural-
functionalist school.
Marxist models are inclined to see social movements as bases for social
change and furthermore as symptomatic of a movement towards the crisis of
the capitalist order and its replacement by a socialist system. The emphasis
48 MARIA ALEJANDRA GONZALEZ-PEREZ

of analysis in Marxist models tends to be on the class composition of the

social movement, rather than on the processes of formation, interaction and
structure (Eyerman & Jamison, 1991).
The structural-functionalist school (see, e.g. Neil Smelser, 1962) considers
social movements to be a side-effect of rapid and large scale tensions due to
social transformations. Some authors (Della Porta & Diani, 1999; Della
Porta, Andretta, Mosca, & Reiter, 2006) argue that collective behaviour for
the structural-functionalist school has a double significance. First, collective
behaviour can be a response to the inadequacy of the current institutions
and the lack of social control mechanisms to maintain social cohesion. And
second, collective behaviour can be understood as a societal reaction to
crisis, in which shared beliefs are developed and in which collective
solidarity is established.
Psychodynamic approaches have explained social movements as expres-
sions of individual aggression as a consequence of accumulated deprivations
and frustrations experienced by individuals in relation to more powerful
actors. From this perspective, the agglomeration of individual behaviours
situated in a social crisis produces collective behaviours or revolutions,
which bring about some kind of identity and social transformation.
Resource Mobilisation (RM) theory emerged in the 1970s as an analytical
framework to study social movements (McCarthy & Zald, 1977). Social
movements were defined as a form of political struggle by means other than
conventional politics. Therefore, they could be analysed from the point of
view of conflicts of interest, and organisational dynamics could be used as a
starting point for analysis. Buechler (1993) explained the emergence and
development of RM theory in the 1970s and 1980s as a part of the cycle of
protest in the 1960s and early 1970s in the United States, which involved the
active engagement of many scholars, particularly from sociology. Previous
to RM, social movements were assumed to be anomalous forms of collective
actions. Thus, RM emerged as an alternative theoretical approach in
sociology which included elements of psychological models of collective
behaviour, and which provided analytical leverage for the understanding of
contemporary social movements as normal phenomena which required
analysis. Issues such as recruitment, mobilisation and strategy and its tactics
were analysed using the RM framework. For the RM framework social
movements were defined as ‘conscious actors making rational choices’8
(Della Porta & Diani, 1999, p. 9).
NSM was a label coined in Germany the 1970s and 1980s to define social
movements which departed from the previous paradigm of social movement
(based on economic concerns), to concerns over the environment, peace,
Global Civil Society and International Business: A Review 49

feminism and ‘collective movements which combine ideological bonds with

political style’ (Dalton & Kuechler, 1990). The NSM approach proposed a
logic of understanding collective actions based on the politics, ideology and
culture which define collective identity. Buechler (1995) identified the main
NSM theorists as Manuel Castells and his analysis of the role of urban
social movements in the process of urban space transformation (Castells,
1983, 2008); Alain Touraine9 and his ‘action theory’ in ‘post-industrial’ and
‘self-produced society’ in which social actors construct a system of technical
tools and knowledge that allow them ‘to intervene in their own func-
tionality’; Jürgen Habermas (1989) argues that there are processes of media,
of money and of power which alter the intersection between the politico-
economic system and the life-work. Alberto Melucci (1996) argues that
NSM are responses to new forms of control, information processes and
pressures towards conformity (Buechler, 1995; Della Porta & Diani, 1999;
Hannigan, 1985).
Alain Touraine (quoted in Castells, 1997) defines social movements using
the principles of identity, adversary, and identification with a vision or social
model. The principle of identity is what Castells (1997) refers to as self-
definition. The principle of the adversary is that movement may be identified
as against a particular enemy. Finally, the principle of the social model is
what Castells identified as the societal goal, and it refers to the historical
vision of the social order members of society wish to attain with their
collective actions.
Castells (1997) noticed that the main tool of the NSM is networking,
which is characterised by a multi-centric form of organisation and
intervention. NSM networks are for him ‘the actual producers and
distributors of cultural codes’ (Castells, 1997, p. 362). Castells (1997) recalls
an ‘old law of social evolution’: ‘resistance confronts domination, empower-
ment reacts against powerlessness, and alternative projects challenge the
logic embedded in the new global order, increasingly sensed as disorder by
people around the planet’ (Castells, 1997, p. 69). He suggests that the
practices, dynamics and terms of social movements should be understood
based on their self-definition, meaning this that ‘they are what they say they
are’ (Castells, 1997, p. 70).
Della Porta and Diani (1999) compare NSM with Marxism, pointing out
that NSM placed the importance on actors (individuals), highlighting
that its definition of identity is no longer in relation to the system of
production, as some forms of Marxism suggest. They identify four common
characteristics in the major theoretical approaches to the study of social
movements: (i) informal interaction networks; (ii) shared belief and
50 MARIA ALEJANDRA GONZALEZ-PEREZ

solidarity, which means that social interactivity requires a set of beliefs and a
sense of belonging; (iii) collective action focusing on conflict, expressed as
promotion or opposition to social change either at a systemic or non-
systemic level, and (iv) use of protest as forms of non-conventional indirect
channels of influence developed through the intervention of collective
actors.
As with technological or scientific innovations, it is possible to identify in
social movements a process of diffusion of ideas, tactics, and organisational
structures. This diffusion can be expressed in geographical terms, but also
from sector to sector, centre to periphery, periphery to centre.10 It also can
also be direct or indirect depending on the mediation of the social
movements by forms of mass media11 (Kriesi, 1995, p. 185, quoted in Della
Porta & Diani, 1999, p. 246). Diffusion can also happen either through
conscious/rational or unconscious imitation (Della Porta & Diani, 1999,
p. 246). This can be seen in the example of the 4 February 2008 march
against the FARC in Colombia. The campaign was widely and rapidly
disseminated using a social networking internet-based facility. Those
millions who supported the campaign either by marching or displaying in
their ‘facebook profile’ did not necessarily choose to do so on an entirely
rational basis. In Colombia, the 4th of February was taken up almost
unanimously by public and private institutions as a public duty, and
therefore not participating in it would have been perceived as a form of
social disobedience, and an action showing a lack of national solidarity.

NON-STATE ACTORS/TRANSNATIONAL ACTORS

Academic literature has argued that the increasing interconnection of

different movements at the global level has been based on the fact that
certain problems can be only attacked at the international level (Della Porta
& Diani, 1999). This justifies the creation of a series of international
organisations which have the power to exercise influence over agenda setting
at the national and international levels.
The tendency to see states as the sole providers of collective goods as
commented on by Florini (2000) is increasingly viewed as simplistic and
moreover inappropriate. Since the 1970s, the debate on foreign policies and
world politics has increasingly moved away from state-centred approaches
with more attention being paid to the impact of non-state actors (Risse-
Kappen, 1995; Willetts, 2001). The concept of ‘non-state’ implies that the
states are dominant and the other actors are secondary, explaining the
Global Civil Society and International Business: A Review 51

replacement of the term in some of the literature and in general and

academic debates with ‘transnational actors’. Willetts (2003) points out that
in the study of international relations, the term ‘transnational’ was adopted
to refer to any relationship across country boundaries in which at least one
of the actors was not a government.
However, these semantic representations (non-state actors/transnational
actors) illustrate a political and economic debate between a state-centred
approach, and other approaches which include further levels of pluralism
and complexity. One of the criticisms of the state-centred approach is that it
reduces world-relations into the interactions between 19212 units. In the
international arena, institutions such as Non-Governmental Organisations
(NGOs), Intergovernmental Organisations (IGOs), and Transnational
Corporations (TNCs) are increasingly becoming involved in global matters.
In my definition, transnational actors are those actors who are not direct
representatives of states but potentially operate in the international sphere.
Risse-Kappen (1995) argues that the impact of transnational actors and
coalitions on states varies according to the differences in domestic structures
or arrangements which structure society, form the ‘state’, and link together
the polity, and the degree of international institutionalisation measured by
the extent that an area/issue is regulated by multilateral agreements,
bilateral agreements and/or international organisation. He concludes that
‘the more fragmented the state and the better organised civil society, the
easier should be the access for transnational actors’ (Risse-Kappen, 1995,
p. 5). On the other hand, Higgott, Underhill, and Bieler (2000) suggest the
nature and scope of both state and non-state actors will be little changed
even under new conditions.
The concept of governance has also gained ground over recent years. The
relationship between governance theory and non-state actors is structured
according to Stoker (1998) into five propositions:

1. Governance refers to the institutions and actors which are drawn from
government but also from beyond it.
2. Governance identifies the blurring of boundaries and responsibilities for
tackling social and economic issues.
3. Governance identifies the power dependence involved in the relationship
between the institutions involved in collective action.
4. Governance is about autonomous self-governing networks of actors.
5. Governance recognises the capacity to get things done which does not
rest on the power of government to command or use its authority. It sees
government as able to use new tools and techniques to steer and guide.
52 MARIA ALEJANDRA GONZALEZ-PEREZ

TAXONOMY OF NON-STATE ACTORS

Arts (2003) developed a taxonomy of Non-State Actors based on the

existing literature dividing them into five groups: (i) Non-Governmental
Organisations (NGOs); (ii) Intergovernmental Organisations (IGOs),
(iii) Transnational Corporations (TNCs), (iv) epistemic communities and
(v) a remainder category (non-legitimate actors).

Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs)

Higgott et al. (2000) classify Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) into

social/civic sponsored NGOs found principally in western countries, and
state-sponsored NGOs. Further divisions are indicated by acronyms such
as INGOS (International Non-Governmental Organisations), BONGO
(Business Oriented Non-Governmental Organisation), GONGOs (Govern-
mentally Organised Non-Governmental Organisations), RONGO (Religious
Oriented Non-Governmental Organisations), MANGOs (Manipulated
Non-Governmental Organisations), QUANGOs (Quasi-autonomous Non-
Governmental Organisations) or GRINGOs (Government Regulated and
Initiated Non-Governmental Organisations).
The phrase ‘non-governmental organisation’ was made official with the
establishment of the United Nations in 1945 under Article 71 of Chapter 10 of
the United Nations Charter (UN, 1945) which defines the role of organ-
isations which are non-governmental (Willetts, 2001; Willetts, 2003). The
Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) defines NGOs under six principles:
1. NGOs should support the work of the UN.
2. An NGO should be a representative body, with an identifiable head-
quarters and identifiable officers.
3. NGOs cannot be profit-making bodies.
4. NGOs cannot advocate or use violence.
5. NGOs should respect the norm of ‘non-interference in internal affairs of
states’.
6. INGOs are not established by intergovernmental agreements.
Another feature associated with globalisation is the increasing role of
NGOs in international environmental institutions, in activities such as
negotiation, policy advice, monitoring and implementation. Raustiala (1997)
notices how early environmental agreements rarely contained provision
for NGOs. He analyses the reason for the increasing involvement of NGOs
Global Civil Society and International Business: A Review 53

in environmental issues and concludes that states have externalised and

coordinated their regulatory powers with NGOs, whose participation
enhances their technocratic and political abilities.

Intergovernmental Organisations (IGOs)

An IGO is conceptually an organisation whose members are nation-states,

whose decision-making mechanism is based upon the requirement for
unanimity among its members. Historically IGOs deal exclusively with
[international] relations between states. However, their scope was been
widened. Nowadays amongst their members are economic bodies, groups
with particular interests such as the environment and women’s issues and
private organisations such as banks and corporations (Willetts, 2001).
IGOs can be classified into:
1. Global IGOs, such as the United Nations (UN), its specialised agencies,
subsidiary bodies and commissions, the World Trade Organisation
(WTO), the International Criminal Police Organisation (INTERPOL).
2. Regional IGOs such as the European Union (EU), North American Free
Trade Area (NAFTA), Mercosur, Andean Community, North Atlantic
Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the Organisation of American States
(OAS).
3. IGOs with various membership criteria, such as the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Organisation for
Petroleum-Exporting Countries (OPEC), Arab League, Intergovermental
Group of Twenty Four (G24).
4. Financial IGOs, such as the World Bank Group, the International
Monetary Fund (IMF), the Bank for International Settlements, Asian
Development Bank (ADB), Inter-American Development Bank (IABD,
IDB).

Transnational Corporations

Corporations are generally divided into two categories: public13 and

privately owned. Marc T. Jones (2000) defines a TNC as a hierarchical
social organisation with technological, social, political, economic and
cultural dynamics, which incorporates both the competition and cooperative
social relations of stakeholders, which functions in the production of goods
54 MARIA ALEJANDRA GONZALEZ-PEREZ

and services at a profit, whose profits are the private property of its owners
and which operates in multiple host countries (Jones, 2000).
It is widely acknowledged that TNCs have an increasing role in governing
the global economy (Higgott et al., 2000). In 1980, O’Brien and Helleiner
observed that ‘the power of major transnational firms now rests as much
upon their capacities to marshal information and knowledge as upon their
traditional role in directly productive activities [y] There is every indication
that the sharpest aspects of competition in the future may be based more on
the efficient use of specialized knowledge, information, and new techno-
logical capacity for its communication and use than on more traditional
factors’ (O’Brien & Helleiner, 1980, p. 445). Building upon their statement,
it could be said that the increasing role of TNCs in every aspect of world
dynamics stems from their ownership of the means of creation of
information, the capacity to transform it into knowledge and the ability to
administer it systematically. Nevertheless, it has been argued that the source
of ‘TNC’s institutional superiority’ (Jones, 2000) arises from the ability
of TNCs to extract rents from stakeholders such as the state and workers
through reducing the bargaining power of these groups. The fact that TNCs
operate in multiple host countries enhances their structural bargaining power
versus states and workers through putting states and workers in competition
for jobs, technology, revenue, tax and capital provided by TNCs.

Epistemic Communities

Scholars, academics and technical experts have historically participated in

political processes at both local and international levels reflecting their
discipline and area of expertise, their interest in the public good and their
political values.
Peter M. Haas (1992, p. 3) defines an epistemic community as a ‘network
of knowledge-based experts or groups with an authority claim to policy-
relevant knowledge within the domain of expertise’. The scope of action of
epistemic communities transcends technical expertise and disciplinary
boundaries. They are vehicles for the diffusion of norms, beliefs, values
and notions of validity; and overall they are often policy enterprises.

Remainder Category (Non-Legitimate Groups)

This remaining category of non-state/transnational actors can be classified

as non-legitimate groups engaged in cross-country criminal or violent
behaviour. Examples of this are terrorist organisations and drugs traffickers.
Global Civil Society and International Business: A Review 55

LABOUR ORGANISATIONS

International forms of labour organisation are not a new phenomenon. In

1919, at the end of the First World War, the International Labour
Organisation (ILO) was established at the Versailles Peace Conference with
the objective of undertaking humanitarian joint action to improve labour
conditions worldwide (ILO, 2012). However, the establishment of the ILO
was also politically motivated in so far as it makes provision for avoiding
social unrest and revolution, as set out in the Preamble of the ILO
constitution.14
In fact, the establishment of the ILO can also be seen as one of the two
strategies that the international labour movement has traditionally
employed: dialogue and revolution. The strategy of pressure through
revolution was exemplified in the October revolution; and the strategy based
on dialogue and conciliation culminated in the ILO.

NSM, Civil Society and Unions

The consequences of globalisation for industrial/labour relations, specifi-

cally with regard to such matters as the diminishing power of trade unions
(Andersen, 2006; Foley, 2006; Frundt, 2002; Raess, 2006), declining trade
union membership (Dreher & Gaston, 2007; Lee, 2005; Piazza, 2005;
Slaughter, 2007), deteriorating labour conditions (Korovkin & Sanmiguel-
Valderrama, 2007; Yeoh, 2006), reduction of employment (Reinecke, 2006);
gender and other labour inequalities (Baliamoune-Lutz, 2007; Rahikainen,
2007; Wood, 1998) and more unequal income distribution (Roy, 2007) have
been given extensive and deep consideration by various authors. On the
other hand, processes such as the transition from an industrial to an
information and services capitalism, the collapse of communism, transna-
tionalisation of production, markets and actions, the decline of labour
membership, the social and economic policies associated with neo-liberalism
have been seen by less pessimistic authors as opportunities for reinventing
the trade union movement (Burgoon & Jacoby, 2004; Stillerman, 2003;
Walker & Creanor, 2005; Wills, 2002; Wolf-Powers, 2007). This reinvention
has already partially occurred through coalition, partnerships, alliances and
networking with other social and political movements with common
agendas which include economic, political, social and foreign concerns.
As presented previously, NSM are built on multiple identities with flexi-
ble networks connecting local forms of organisation and individuals, and
enabling direct actions in a broad range of contexts. Social movements can
56 MARIA ALEJANDRA GONZALEZ-PEREZ

mobilise support on issues compatible with the interest of local unions (and
vice versa), and create unconventional and participatory alliances to maxi-
mise pressure towards achieving social changes (Cohen & Rai, 2000).
NGOs are increasingly covering areas which were historically focused on
by labour movements. Gallin (1999, 2000), shows that the overlapping
between trade unions and NGOs over workers’ rights gives rise to a
relationship that is both conflictive and cooperative and which requires
mutual understanding and acceptance of workers as human beings, of
workers’ rights as human rights, and of workers’ rights as union rights. NGOs
can be allied to trade unions; however, they may also work against the
interests of labour, undermining local unions (Justice, 2003; Riisgaard, 2005).
Munck and Waterman (1999) suggest that the form of ‘social unionism’
associated with the ‘network society’ has analogies with the ‘popular front’
in the 1930s. However, they emphasise that in contrast to the movement of
the 1930s, the new social unionism is a social movement, rather than a
political movement, as it operates in the context of civil society. Another
characteristic of this new social unionism is that it is open to networking
both internally and with other social movements.
It can also be observed that trade union representation should be
understood not just in its local manifestations as it has been traditionally.
It can also be understood as a global phenomenon that transcends national
frontiers, and is composed of networks, strategies and objectives with
multiple forms of connection into civil society.
As presented in the chapter on globalisation, it can be argued that the
crisis in societal governance associated with the perceived decline of the
influence of the authoritative institutions of the public sector, combined
with a lack of predictability in the working of market institutions, could
explain the renaissance of a redistribution of social responsibilities across
different actors in society, and therefore could explain the rising influence of
NGOs (Doh & Guay, 2006).

SUMMARY

The definitions of civil society reflect the diversity of both the discourses and
actors that are part of it. On the one hand, civil society consists of the social
institutions that structure and facilitate the governance of democratic forces
and lead towards meeting public needs. On the other hand, civil society
represents autonomous forms of resistance outside the state sphere and
marketplace, at the local and the transnational level.
Global Civil Society and International Business: A Review 57

Actions and initiatives by non-state actors in the current age of

globalisation have been increasing. This increase has become more evident
with the more stringent traceability of processes associated with the
development of ICT, and private forms of organisation networking at the
local and transnational level. This has re-defined geographical boundaries,
creating proximity between individuals which goes beyond physical
constraints, and it has extended definitions of communities to multiple
levels of identification and convergence, but also divergence.
The concept of civil society and its role in the participatory governance of
societal processes implies forms of ‘soft’ regulation and moral authority
which transcend the role of states as enforcers. The idea of civil society
opens a space for non-traditional actors to actively participate and engage in
the political processes of change in society, for the betterment of margina-
lised groups, the environment or social justice in general. The diversity of
roles that single individuals have in society allows them to participate from
different angles.
Traditional forms of industrial relations were generally driven by initia-
tives led by trade unions which represented worker’s interests. Changes such
as the worldwide decline of union membership and the fragmentation of the
trade union movement call for the emergence of more inclusive solidarity
groups beyond the workplace in which non-traditional industrial relations
actors can play complementary roles in labour relations.
Although the concept of civil society has limitations due to its breadth,
manifestations of a GCS can be understood as forms of globalisation that
occur outside traditional institutional settings.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The author would like to thank feedback received by reviewers and by Prof.
Dr. Terrence McDonough at the National University of Ireland, Galway.

NOTES
1. In this sense, Multinational Corporations (MNCs/MNEs) would be part of the
public sphere, and the move towards corporate social responsibility ratifies this
notion.
2. Salamon (1994, pp. 109, 114) postulates that the rise of ‘civil society’ might
signify to the 20th century what the rise of ‘nation-state’ meant to the 19th century.
58 MARIA ALEJANDRA GONZALEZ-PEREZ

3. WUNC is the acronym for worthiness, unity, numbers and commitment. (Tilly,
2004, pp. 4–5). In my interpretation what Tilly (2004) summarises as WUNC are the
formal and informal attributes of identity which strengthen group membership
through mechanisms of making evident patterns of identification or emblems of
identity.
4. La huelga del 28, denotes the strike in 1928, which is also known as the
massacre of the banana plantations. The facts of this strike are highly contested. The
most widely disseminated account of the event is given in Nobel Prize winner Gabriel
Garcia Marques novel ‘Hundred Years of Solitude’.
5. La Guerra de los Mil Dias took place in Colombia between 1899 until 1902
between the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party over land tenancy.
6. La Guerra del Caucho took place in the Amazon jungle in the border with Peru
at the beginning of the 20th century.
7. Sugar produced by free labour.
8. Italics in original (Della Porta & Diani, 1999, p. 9).
9. Touraine (1992) located NSM within two logics, a system endeavouring to
maximise production, money, power and information, and that of subjects seeking to
defend and expand their individuality.
10. For example, in the case of union organising in the United States, it has been
found that the techniques of popular education from central American countries
play an important role in the development of tactics and strategy for the U.S. labour
movement organising immigrant workers (Milkman, 2000).
11. If the diffusion is through personal interaction it is direct diffusion.
12. This is the number of United Nations members.
13. Publicly traded corporations are those whose shares are freely traded in the
public share market.
14. ‘Whereas universal and lasting peace can be established only if it is based upon
social justice; And whereas conditions of labour exist involving injustice hardship
and privation to a large number of people, as to produce unrest so great that the
peace and harmony of the world are imperilled; and an improvement of those
conditions is urgently required; as, for example, by the regulation of the hours of
work including the establishment of a maximum working day and week, the
regulation of labour supply, the prevention of unemployment, the provision for an
adequate living wage, the protection of the worker against sickness, disease and
injury arising out of his employment the protection of children, young persons and
women, provision for the old age and injury, protection of the interests of workers
when employed in countries other than their own, recognition of the principle of
equal remuneration for work of equal value, recognition of the principle of freedom
of association, the organisation of vocational and technical education and other
measures;
Whereas also the failure of any nation to adopt humane conditions of labour is an
obstacle in the way of other nations which desire to improve conditions in their own
countries;
The High Contracting Parties, moved by sentiments of justice and humanity as
well as by the desire to secure the permanent peace of the world, and with a view to
attaining the objectives set forth in this Preamble, agree to the [following]
Constitution of the International Labour Organization’ (ILO, 1919).
Global Civil Society and International Business: A Review 59

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