Can corporations be citizens ? Corporate citizenship as a metaphor for business participation in society ( 2 nd Edition )

This paper investigates whether, in theoretical terms, corporations can be citizens. The argument is based on the observation that the debate on ‘corporate citizenship’ (CC) has only paid limited attention to the actual notion of citizenship. Where it has been discussed, authors have either largely left the concept of CC unquestioned, or applied rather unidimensional and decontextualized notions of citizenship to the corporate sphere. The paper opens with a discussion of the nature and role of metaphors for business and of the contestable nature of the political concept of citizenship. It considers corporations as citizens in terms of (a) legal and political status; and (b) participants in civic processes. These issues are addressed through a four-dimensional framework of democratic citizenship offered by Stokes (2002). The analysis suggests that corporations do not easily fit the liberal minimalist model of citizenship. It finds, however some possibilities for fit with the three more participatory models. There is fit with the most important of these, civic republicanism , through the activity of participation in social affairs. The paper finds that corporations can share in two levels of participation (by acting as pressure groups and by participating in governing). There are also possibilities of corporations sharing the characteristics of developmental and deliberative citizenship, though these raise particular evaluative issues. The paper concludes by refuting the notion of corporations having citizenship by virtue of legal and political status, but maps out specific criteria by which we might determine whether corporations could be considered as citizens by virtue of their participation in processes of governance. The authors: Jeremy Moon is the Director of the International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility (ICCSR) at the Nottingham University Business School and a Professor of corporate social responsibility, Andrew Crane is a Senior Lecturer in business ethics at ICCSR and Dirk Matten is a Principal Research Fellow at the same centre. Address for correspondence: Prof Jeremy Moon, International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility, Nottingham University Business School, Nottingham University, Jubilee Campus, Wollaton Road, Nottingham NG8 1BB, United Kingdom, Email [email protected] ‘[A] totally uncontested and uncontestable concept of citizenship appears to be particularly problematic.’ (Parry 1991)