Fair Trade, Corporate Accountability and Beyond: Experiments in Globalizing Justice

Abstract

Fair Trade, Corporate Accountability and Beyond: Experiments in Globalizing Justice. Kate Macdonald and Shelley Marshall Ashgate, Farnham, 2010 This book, as the title suggests, tackles an emerging research agenda in identifying and examining 'experiments in globalizing justice'. It embarks on an ambitious agenda, seeking to critically examine distinct but also increasingly linked ethical initiatives like 'fair trade' and 'corporate social responsibility' (CSR), problematising the role and responsibilities of civil society, businesses, mobilised workers and the State within this discussion. These actors and initiatives, are subjected to a broad and challenging question: 'How can production and trade within transnational supply chains be governed effectively so as to protect core human and social rights and advance broader principles of justice within a global economy?' (p. 5). While this question risks being overly ambitious in scope and may overwhelm the reader initially, it is indeed pertinent for an examination of the promises and potential of initiatives such as CSR, which are gaining increasing leverage as market-based alternatives to broad-based structural change. In the context of proliferating social justice initiatives, spanning public and private, government and non-governmental actors, from corporate to civic led initiatives, to the domain of government regulation--the key question raised by the editors is a theoretical one--where should responsibility lie? The editors, Macdonald and Shelley (2010), develop and outline a conceptual framework for examining this question in the introductory chapter to this book. They use the metaphor of 'embedding' (drawing on the theoretical work of a range of scholars, notably Polanyi 1944) to frame the discussion and analysis of the ethical initiatives examined, with the argument that these serve as 'attempt(s) to re-embed capitalism in social justice norms' (p. 7). As such, the editors position these 'experiments in globalizing justice' at the interface between market imperatives and the social justice values that markets arguably reject (akin to Hayek's 1976 argument). Essentially, 're-embedding', for the editors, assumes that a process of 'dis-embedding' has occurred (a phenomenon traced to the rise of neoliberalism from the 1970s, p. 9). Some readers may question the stance taken by the editors and the literature they consult, as the process of dis-embedding which they refer to could, alternatively, reflect a contestation over social values rather than their expulsion. The conceptual framework of (dis)embedding raises two key tasks for the authors: to identify 'ethically defensible norms', by which standards capitalism should be regulated, and; to identify and evaluate the institutional arrangements which are necessary for a process of 're-embedding' to occur (p. 8). The admittedly 'hazy' 'yardstick' by which they seek to evaluate the capacity of the initiatives examined is through the concept of 'social justice' (p. 5). To add clarity to this concept, the authors derive 'norms of social justice' from relevant theoretical literature and public discourse. In examining the mix of actors and currently relatively ad hoc models for ethical change, the editors further seek to engage and contribute to scholarly discussions over regulation--particularly debates over the legitimacy of voluntary (or soft) over legal (or hard) mechanisms (p. …