Varieties of corporate social responsibility (CSR): CSR meets the “Nordic Model”

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is increasingly being promoted as an instrument for global governance to address the regulatory vacuum surrounding transnational business activities and as a method for encouraging business to contribute to sustainable development at the national level. Originally a business-driven, American concept, CSR has now been adopted and promoted by a wide range of governments and multilateral institutions. However, the socio-political model underlying CSR is far from neutral and may conflict with existing models in the societies in which it is introduced. In this article a typology of possible governmental interpretations of CSR is developed, and how CSR is transformed and adapted in its meeting with Nordic governments in order to fit the “Nordic Model” of state-market-society relations is analyzed. The analysis suggests that pre-existing political-economic institutions and cultural norms deeply affect the interpretation of CSR, and that this, when combined with ongoing national political processes, leads to a highly transformed concept of CSR.     

Eating Problems and the Self-Concept: Results Based on a Representative Sample of Norwegian Adolescent Girls

The joint role of self-esteem and unstable self-perceptions for eating problems was investigated in a representative Norwegian population sample of girls in 3 age groups (N = 5287; aged 12–19 years). Three scales from the 12-item Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-12) measured eating problems: Restriction, Bulimia-food preoccupation, and Diet. Girls low on all EAT scales were most often characterized by high self-esteem combined with stable self-perceptions, whereas girls high on all EAT-scales were characterized by having low self-esteem and unstable self-perceptions. Bulimic tendencies and dieting were more common in older groups, whereas high scores on all EAT-scales simultaneously were equally common in all ages. The findings gave initial support to the continuity hypothesis in indicating that the age trends for eating problems, except for restrictive tendencies, followed those of eating disorders and in that the risk factors found for eating problems parallel those reported for eating disorders.     

Passport to Parenthood: Reproductive Pathways In and Out of Denmark

Denmark has become a destination for single women, lesbians, and heterosexual couples wanting donated sperm. At the moment, women from Sweden, Norway, Germany, Italy, and the UK travel to Denmark. Simultaneously, waiting lists for donated eggs and age restrictions are prime motivations for infertile Danish women and heterosexual couples to leave Denmark and travel to Spain, the Czech Republic, the Ukraine, and Greece for egg donation. Informed by Donna Haraway’s notion of “the apparatus of bodily production”, Marcia Inhorn’s development of “reproductive flows”, and the use of Adele Clarke’s “situational analysis”, this paper explores the question: How do global reproductive pathways in and out of Denmark emerge when fertility travellers narrate, negotiate, and cross national borders to go through fertility treatment? Methodologically, we use a multi-sited and multi-modal approach centring on interviews with fertility travellers moving to and from Denmark in combination with ethnographic observations carried out in Danish and Spanish fertility clinics and an analysis of legal regulations. The paper concludes by discussing how the concept of reproductive pathways helps to theorize transnational movements of bodies and contributes to feminist scholarship on transnational reproductive travel.     

What is a service of general economic interest?

European Journal of Law and Economics - The definition of the concept a “service of general economic interest” (SGEI) known from Article 106(2) treaty of the functioning of the European...     

Peace-building and business elites in Guatemala and El Salvador: explaining the discursive ‘institutional turn’

ABSTRACT

The local business elites of El Salvador were generally in favour of the peace agreement and supported its negotiation and implementation in 1992, while in Guatemala the private sector reluctantly supported the peace process and, after the peace agreements were signed in 1996, the private sector sought to obstruct parts of its implementation. In the aftermath of the peace accords, business elites united around an ideology espousing a minimal state and a focus on market solutions to social problems. Although welcoming the security-related measures in the peace accords, business elites have often obstructed transformations towards more inclusive and democratic societies. However, in recent years there has been a change in discourse among influential business associations towards recognition of the need for strong state institutions and the need for institutionalised mechanisms for dialogue to find solutions to social problems. In this article, we seek to shed light on the significance of this discursive turn for continued peace-building.     

Human Capital and Administrative Burden: The Role of Cognitive Resources in Citizen-State Interactions

One means by which the state reinforces inequality is by imposing administrative burdens that loom larger for citizens with lower levels of human capital. Integrating insights from various disciplines, this article focuses on one aspect of human capital: cognitive resources. The authors outline a model that explains how burdens and cognitive resources, especially executive functioning, interrelate. The article then presents illustrative examples, highlighting three common life factors—scarcity, health problems, and age-related cognitive decline. These factors create a human capital catch-22, increasing people's likelihood of needing state assistance while simultaneously undermining the cognitive resources required to negotiate the burdens they encounter while seeking such assistance. The result is to reduce access to state benefits and increase inequality. The article concludes by calling for scholars of behavioral public administration and public administration more generally to incorporate more attention to human capital into their research.     

Social Investment in Gender Equality? Changing Perspectives on Work and Welfare in Norway

In many EU countries, the so-called social investment perspective has provided new arguments for active welfare state policies. The social investment perspective is characterized by emphasizing the role of the state to increase participation in employment by investing in the working capacity of the population—particularly women—through activation programmes and social policies. In this article we depart from recent debates surrounding this perspective to explore changes in Norwegian work and welfare policies, and the role of gender equality in these changes. In Norway, both female employment and fertility levels are high, but women still have a looser connection to the labour market compared to men, for example due to the large proportion in part-time positions, which makes changes in work and welfare policies an interesting case for exploring the relevance of the social investment perspective in this context. The empirical analysis suggests that ideas of social investment indeed have permeated recent changes in Norwegian work and welfare policies. However, questions of gender equality are not addressed in the documents introducing these changes, except when the problem at hand is the employment rate of migrant women—who are the main recipients of activation policies. In conclusion, we claim that social investment is a relevant lens for analysing changes in Norwegian work and welfare policies, but that a dual-tracked vision of gender equality is emerging, making migrant women the significant target of social investment.