Business Strategy and International Environmental Governance: Toward a Neo-Gramscian Synthesis

Abstract

This paper develops a political economy approach to explaining the role of business in international environmental governance. The framework bridges micro and macro-levels of analysis and combines theories of International Relations with perspectives from management and organization. The uneven and fragmented nature of international governance is viewed as the outcome of a process of bargaining, compromise, and alliance formation among a range of state and non-state actors. Negotiated regimes are constitutive of the broader structures of global governance, but are also constrained and shaped by these wider configurations of power. We apply Gramscian concepts to understand processes of contestation and accommodation, and to locate corporate political strategy within the wider system of states, civil society, and international institutions. The Gramscian approach suggests the dominant yet contingent position of business, and points to a strategic concept of power that highlights the dynamic and somewhat indeterminate path of regime evolution.