Business economic impacts: The new frontier for corporate accountability

Economic issues associated with poverty are complex and require holistic responses in order to realise the goals of sustainable development. While business alone may have significant economic impacts, the link between business-level behaviour and macro-level development aspirations is unclear. By developing a sound grasp of how companies understand and manage these impacts, we are better placed to understand how corporate responsibility clusters, or partnerships with other companies, civil society organisations, and governments, can harness corporate impacts to bring about more sustainable development at the macro level.     

Liberty, equality, sorority: Contradiction and integrity in feminist thought and practice

This paper provides an analysis of the inherent contradictions in and the essential integrity of feminist thought and practice. It is argued that three of the central concepts in feminist thought are liberty, equality, and sorority. By their very nature, these concepts conflict with each other and it is argued that the divisions within feminist thought and practice have specific roots in the inherent contradictions of these three concepts. It is also argued, paradoxically, that while these concepts tend to contradict each other, they are each necessary for the definition and integrity of the others. They act as limits towards each other. It is suggested that it is the balanced juxtaposition of these three concepts which maintains the integrity of feminism. Finally, it is suggested that the balancing of these three concepts provides the framework for a feminist ethic.     

Whose Europe is it anyway? The 1998 Stein Rokkan lecture

Abstract. This article addresses the issue of whether a model of deep European integration might be envisaged in a continent–wide process that might accompany eastern enlargement of the European Union. The paper argues that deep integration in Western Europe has been built on three dimensions: the functional; the territorial; and affiliational. The articulation of these three dimensions has evolved through not only the EU, but also a dense pattern of other transnational linkages, including those between immediate neighbours. Moreover, different west European countries have been linked into this process through varied patterns for 'domesticating' Europe. Efforts to develop an EU polity require the interplay of all three dimensions of integration, a tough goal for post–cold–war Europe in the western part of the continent, let alone in 'pan–Europe'.