The Binding Dynamics of Non-Binding Governance Arrangements : The Emergence and Development of the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights

While International Relations has for a long time been informed by state-centric approaches, processes of globalization, the emergence of transnational actors and their increased cross-border activities have contributed to a disciplinary opening in terms of which actors are considered to be important. Both transnational networks and private actors such as NGOs and multinational enterprises (“MNEs”) interacting within these networks have become popular research topics. However, research on MNEs and their contributions within transnational networks suffers from two conceptual shortcomings as corporate rationality and interests are essentialized and parsimony is favored over complexity. Due to this essentialization and complexity reduction, research questions on transnational networks are limited to legitimacy, efficiency and external effects. Instead of conceptualizing MNEs as having clear and exogenously defined interests, the paper considers enterprises as social actors, constituted through and influenced by interaction. Such a perspective informed by a pragmatist theory of action implies that corporate action is context-bound, creative and thus contingent. If MNEs are conceptualized as socially constituted actors, corporate participation within both binding and non-binding networks influences their meanings and roles. The theoretical argument is empirically illustrated by analyzing the emergence and development of the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights. Thus, the paper looks at one particular transnational network and its meaning for two participating enterprises