The Dynamics of Citizenship in the Post-Political World

Workshops

GLOBAL ECONOMY AND CITIZENSHIP focuses on shifts in the division of labor between governments (the parliamentary or public sphere) and business (the economic sphere) and how these shifts are reshaping citizenship relations. It seeks papers that explore corporate citizenship and the idea of corporations as “governors of citizenship” and “private governments.” Papers should use the notion of citizenship to investigate and critique the roles and responsibilities currently given to business actors and institutions in the field of welfare provision, human rights, and global environmentalism.

An important focus is the relationships between soft law governance (e.g., corporate codes of conduct), global environmental problems, and human rights. This focus concerns corporations as administrators (providers or ignorers) of citizenship entitlements (the civil, political, and social rights of citizenship), as actors and institutions involved with closing or perpetrating the citizenship gap (inclusion and exclusion of people from citizenship status), and their ability as market-based political participants to exercise power over governments either to uphold and honor or to infringe and neglect the rights of citizens. It asks if, how, and why corporations are engaged with enabling ecological citizenship.

Workshop organizers:

Professor and Head of Department Ulrika Mörth, Stockholm University, Professor Andrew Crane, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and Associate Professor Lars Lindström, Stockholm University (for information and questions on the workshop).

Photo: Steven Gerencser

The workshop in action on the last day of the conference. Photo: Steven Gerencser.

Last update: November 15, 2010