SOCIAL AFFAIRS - GOVERNANCE FOR A NORMATIVE ECONOMY

Abstract

Economic rationality and social responsibility do not always go hand in hand. The logic that characterizes market transactions are often in conflict with other kinds of logic, that are more concerned with social, ethical, and environmental considerations. The growth of a global economy has placed these challenges in the limelight. The difficulties of governing market actors through political means and at national level have stimulated discussions around how market forces are to be regulated, and by whom. Social movements as well as representatives of states and multilateral organizations are expressing demands for what is often referred to as a normative economy. Corporations are finding ways to combine economic priorities with social responsibility, through e g voluntary codes of conduct. 

The research programme investigates how new forms of governance for organizational activities are created and put to work. Special focus is placed on forms of governance that are intended to meet public demands for a normative economy – an economic order where consideration of social, ethical and environmental factors are an integrated part of corporate strategic activity. More precisely, models for social responsibility that are expressed through codes of conduct, norms, policies and other voluntary agreements between parties are of interest. How is authority for new forms of governance for social responsibility created and maintained? On what grounds are voluntary forms of governance given legitimacy? What may partnerships between private and public between organizations mean in terms of democratic legitimacy? 

The research programme has engaged researchers from social anthropology, economic history, political science, and business management, and has been located at Score (Stockholm Centre for Organizational Research) at Stockholm University and Stockholm School of Economics. 

AIM AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS 

The research programme has studied the emergence of new forms of governance for organizations, and how these are put to work in different organizations. Our focus has been placed on forms of governance that are intended to meet public demands for a normative economy – an economic order where considerations of social, ethical and environmental factors are an integrated part of corporate strategic activity. More precisely, models for social responsibility that are expressed through codes of conduct, norms, policies and other voluntary agreements between parties have been of interest. Guiding research questions have been: How is authority for new forms of governance for social responsibility created and maintained? On what grounds are voluntary forms of governance given legitimacy? What may partnerships between private and public between organizations mean in terms of democratic legitimacy? 

One of our aims was to strengthen the multidisciplinary research in the area of global governance, an area that was at the time of the start of the programme, making strong headway. We wanted to do so by working thematically together, with interlinked theoretical frameworks and in different empirical fields. 

The relation between society and economy has since long been a central research area spanning several disciplines. It mirrors a renewed interest in political economy, actualized not least through the enhanced globalization of markets (Higgott et al 2000, Hoogvelt 1997). In our research, we have had as a common denominator a wish to understand contemporary relations between politics, economy, and society and how a degree of social co-ordination and change come about in a system of fragmented political authority (Palan 2000: 17). Precisely the discontinuity between politics and economy has been seen as a central point of departure for an understanding of the organization of modern society at a global level. An important problematic has been if, and in that case how, processes of globalization change, shape, or undermine the capacity of states to function as central arenas for collective action and a base for community and legitimacy (Cerny 2000: 21). As a point of departure, we were interested in whether the structural conditions for the expansion of the capacity of the state, outlined by Polanyi in The Great Transformation (1944), are drastically changing, and if this change could be traced to processes of globalization or processes within states – an issue that has been dealt with in the field of political economy (Weiss 2003). 

SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY THROUGH SOFT FORMS OF GOVERNANCE

The traditional point of departure in the study of international cooperation, in which international regimes have been seen as islands of order in a sea of disorder, is to a large extent misleading. It is rather a relative degree of disorder that is the rule in contemporary forms of governance (Young 1999, Hirst 2000). But, in several respects this can also be seen as a new form of order. In regional and global processes of regulation, non-state actors have assumed a more significant role. Private actors, primarily corporations, have gained access to authority structures and instruments of regulation that were previously only in the hands of states (Chinkin 2000, Hall et al 2002). This emerging private authority structure raises fundamental questions about the relation between states, corporations, and civil society, and about democratic accountability procedures. 

The concept of accountability itself is rooted partly in political science and the study of public administration and partly in streams of organization theory. Whereas accountability traditionally refers to a formal relationship involving someone in a position of authority assigning to others or negotiating with others the performance of certain responsibilities, the term is now frequently used to describe situations in which the core features of an authoritative relationship and a formal process of enforcement are not necessarily present (Thomas 2003:550). New perspectives on accountability quite dramatically extend its meaning, and scholars innovatively provide their own wider typologies. Traditional forms of accountability, such as ‘hierarchical accountability’, ‘vertical accountability’, ‘legal accountability’, ‘democratic accountability’, and so forth, are supplanted or supplemented by ‘professional accountability’, ‘horizontal accountability’, ‘multi-stakeholder accountability’ ‘negotiated accountability’ ‘market accountability’, ‘moral accountability’, ‘external accountability’ and several more variants (e.g. Romzek, 1998; Keohane 2003; Considine 2002; Kearns 2003; Thomas 2003; Lovan et al. 2004; Benner et al. 2005; Newell 2005). The field of accountability has, to say the least, become more complex to deal with. Whereas conventional forms generally rely on mechanisms such as supervision, directives, monitoring, fiscal control and inspection, the recent development implies a shift in favour of output, outcomes, deference to expertise, deliberation and responsiveness to stakeholders, customers and clients. New perspectives on accountability give added significance to ‘external’ stakeholders, not merely to internally related ‘principals’ and ‘agents’. New accountability tools abound in new types of regulations labelled ‘voluntary regulation’, ‘soft regulation’, ‘self-regulation’, ‘co-regulation’ and ‘joint regulation’; and they are (too) often seen as signs of true responsibility-taking, a priori, by definition and without question. 

In these new regulatory forms it is not exactly clear how and by whom accountability should be put into action, but there is a broad, firm consensus about the desirability and importance of accountability, coexisting with increasing disagreement about the meaning of accountability (Koppell 2005, Thomas 2003). New accountability tools and arrangements do not typically replace older ones, but lead to a web of accountabilities, which, in turn, creates greater and greater fuzziness. We suggest that the definition of accountability is itself part of many power struggles, framing activities and organizing efforts among a broad array of groups and organizations. We have therefore been interested in how the word ‘accountability’ and related ideas and terms (such as responsibility, responsiveness, transparency, answerability, justification, auditing) are used in mobilizations and power struggles among groups. 

We posited at the start of the project that researching the forms of governance for a normative economy would have to be attentive to a set of contradictions and challenges. Governance through soft law and multilateral partnerships create solutions as well as problems (Abott and Snidal 2000, Shelton et al 2002). They may create a global order in which there is no actor who can make binding directives: there is no “world state” (cf Thomas, Meyer, Ramirez and Boli et al, 1987). They may provide an important form of governance that can facilitate global co-ordination. At the same time, these forms of governance are problematic from the point of view of legitimacy and accountability. The organizations that provide voluntary codes of conduct, for example, lack the legitimacy that is conferred to democratic state agencies. And while such codes of conduct may have significant importance for the activities of corporations, it may be difficult to demand accountability and liability. The sets of rules that stipulate the responsibilities of corporations across states are seldom legally binding. Other means of sanctioning than negative press, so-called ”naming and shaming”, are often lacking. Discussions around the responsibilities of corporations also actualize questions to do with transparency, i e how processes of decision-making and activities can be made visible for the wider public. Governance in the global economy is, in this, sense, closely linked to questions of the allocation of power and authority in contemporary society, the conditions for democratic influence, and to new forms of political activity  (Held and Koenig-Archibuyi 2003, Scholte 2002). 

MAJOR RESULTS AND FURTHER RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The studies in the project have contributed to the advancement of knowledge about relations between politics, economy and society and more specifically about how governance towards social accountability in markets is achieved in a system of fragmented political authority. Taken together, the studies have provided insight into the emergence of new forms of governance aimed to combine economic efficiency with social concerns about accountability and transparency. They provide knowledge of the variety of ways in which these can, and are, organized, in the private, as well as in the public, sector. They also give evidence of the various models of accountability that are available and of the organizational implications of these. The studies have thus contributed to advance knowledge about what models of social accountability that are expressed in voluntary forms of regulation and through multilateral partnership; how authority for social accounatibity is created, and what they imply in terms of democratic legitimacy. They have also given insights into the forms of evaluation that are associated with ‘audit society’; how processes of evaluation and measurement in organizations are put to work, and what their organizational and cultural implications are. 

In brief, our studies show that the models of accountability that are put to work rest on underlying notions of measurability and comparability that are expressive of a logic of governance closely linked to Western liberal notions of market rationality (Garsten & Jacobsson 2007; forthcoming). In processes of globalization, state authority is challenged but not outweighed, by emerging private authority structures. Authority has to be continuously negotiated and worked upon to function properly. And whilst legitimacy for governance is always crucial, it is now all the more significant and yet difficult to maintain. In their attempts to establish models for governing a normative economy, corporations, stage agencies and multilateral organizations have to continuously work on the framing and positioning of their governance models. In voluntary, multilateral agreements, neither authority, not legitimacy, can be stabilized on a longterm basis, but have to be continuosly worked upon. 

As calls for accountability have become transnational, they invoke challenges and solutions that are often at odds with the established territorial boundaries of state regulation. Organizations must now address accountability at a transnational level, and share and negotiate authority with other organizations. The transnational dimension also requires them to move beyond the territorially defined norms of accountability, which impose enhanced challenges in the organizing of accountability.  In the attempts to construct and implement governance models for a normative economy, ambitions run high, but the performances aimed at meeting these expectations rarely meet the expectations. Accountability deficits and gaps appear. Disappointments lead to new attempts to fine-tune or establish tools or arrangements that are either competing or complementary. New formalizations lead to new imperfections, deficits and gaps – which in turn lead to even more new formalizations. The ’treadmill of accountability’ continues to spin (Boström & Garsten 2008). 

Being ‘accountable’ and ‘transparent’ are moving rapidly from being voluntary acts to becoming normative imperatives considered basic for establishing trust and generating profits and value in contemporary organizational life. Our studies have shown that demands for transparency also have a coercive aspect – forced voluntariness - and involve costs, sometimes quite substantial ones. The associated technologies of evaluation and measurement are not objective entities, but reflect processes of negation and definition-drafting. Our studies show that indicators, figures, and numbers are produced in a political and cultural context, by actors with particular interests and perspectives, which have an impact on the ways they are used in regulatory activities and on the outcomes (Garsten & Lindh de Montoya 2008, Hasselström 2008). And at times the procedures for establishing accountability and transparency, and to be able to evaluate organizational performance, become more important than the actual goals themselves (Lindvert 2008). The pursuit of transparency as a way of achieving safety and peace of mind has also contributed to a market not only for social and environmental standards and codes of conduct, but also a market that caters to a perceived need for security and surveillance: specialists in security measures, risk evaluation services, risk certification schemes, consultants in safety matters – the list of available service is long. 

The project has been organized into two main themes: a) Forms of governance for social accountability; and b) Ranking and rating: measuring social accountability. In the first theme, focus has been placed on the ways in which the activities of corporations are governed through soft forms of regulation, on the variety of forms of social accountability that are created, and how legitimacy for these is created. In the second theme, we have investigated how social responsibility can be measured through processes of rating and ranking that work as central technologies in these new forms of governance. We have also looked at how authority to measure is created and how legitimacy is gained. Taken together, our studies have contributed to the knowledge of what models of social accountability that are expressed through different instruments of policy and control and how these function as forms of governance for a normative economy. 

a) Forms of governance for social accountability

It is the responsibility of states to make sure that business fulfills the demands that are placed in state and international regulations, in conventions and declarations. The challenges involved in monitoring corporations across nation-state boundaries have been shown in critiques against child labour, failure of abide to workers’ rights, and human rights violations (see e g Addo 1999). The politics of the invisible hand has in many cases proven insufficient to assure social accountability. Representatives of a growing spectrum of corporations think it is reasonable for corporations to assume responsibility for diminishing the negative effects of their activities and to abide to human rights and work conventions. A broader category of stakeholders is placing demands on social aspects to be integrated into the activities and management systems of corporations. In the research project, we have studied how the responsibilities of corporations are regulated, what models for social accountability that are in place, and on what grounds legitimacy for these are created. This area of often referred to as ‘corporate social responsibility’, or CSR, or more widely as ‘corporate citizenship’. These are contested concepts, containing both voluntaristic and regulationist interpretations (Ward 2003). Exactly what kinds of responsibilities and duties that are expected of corporations are not specified. Instead, these are continuously discussed and negotiated upon in deliberations between different kinds of organizations, such as corporations, stage agencies, labour unions, and NGOs. What CSR does, however, is that it problematizes the role of the corporation in society, and in what ways corporations are embedded in the larger society. The research project has take a broad view on CSR in order to inquire into the ways in which corporations position themselves in the broader society and how corporate leaders negotiate profit and social responsibility. 

Initiatives to soft governance may be taken from different kinds of organizations – state organizations, multilateral organizations, consultancies, NGOs, and business associations. A large number of new organizations have been created in this niche. The differing priorities and interests involved make this a politically charged area of negotiation. The fact that ethical norms and human rights may have different meanings in different contexts make the area more important to study (see e g Dunér 2002, Eriksen 2001, Nagengast and Turner 1997, Razzaque and Hwee 2002, Wilson 1997). 

The theme has engaged the following studies:

Transboundary accountability: Globalization and the governance of corporate responsibility
Christina Garsten

As part of the research project, the UN as a ‘site of normativity’ involved in the regulation of corporate accountability for human rights at a global level was studied. Research here addressed two regulatory approaches to the responsibilities of transnational corporations, the underlying assumptions of accountability of these approaches and the organizational challenges underway. 

The UN Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights, or simply ‘the Norms’, represent an important milestone in the field of corporate responsibility. They do so in their comprehensiveness, building on existing codes and standards, in operationalizing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for business corporations, but, above all, for projecting corporate responsibility into a legal framework. The regulatory approach of the Norms has been related to another approach initiated by the UN; the UN Global Compact, which offers an alternative, voluntaristic and nonbinding road ahead. 

The research made clear that the way in which regulatory initiatives are organized matters for the trajectories of the various regulatory approaches: the organizational origin of the initiative, the organizational procedures involved and the organizational language used all have an impact on the pathway of the regulatory approaches. It is suggested that the ‘hard law approach’, as evinced in the UN Norms, rests upon a territorial system of accountability, with a strong association between nation-state political accountability and the organizational structure of the UN. The ‘soft law approach’, as illustrated by the UN Global Compact, on the other hand, rests on a transboundary assumption of accountability and a transnational network of involved organizations. None of these approaches has been able to establish an international system of political and legal accountability in terms of answerability and redress. However, whilst the UN Norms have come to a deadlock, the Global Compact is now one of the important drivers behind a complex organizational web of accountability (Garsten 2008).

Research was undertaken as ethnographic fieldwork in the area of corporate social responsibility, a series of interviews with NGO representatives and officials at the UN headquarters in New York, and an analysis of documents. Fieldwork in such a ‘culture of expertise’ (Holmes and Marcus 2005) is of a different character than the ‘classical’ anthropological fieldwork. In this case, it has meant an attempt to follow the trajectory of an idea, more specifically a rule, and to establish ‘the logic of association’ among various actors and sites (cf. Marcus 1995: 1998). The logic of association in this case comprises a shared involvement and stake in the regulation of corporate accountability. Doing fieldwork among experts also means that some of the ingrained assumptions in the field of ethnographic research had to be rethought. To study a policy field, such as rule setting in corporate accountability, one may find that it is often at the crossroads of interaction between organizations and actors that one understands how certain possibilities and courses of action are made possible and others are ruled out, and what tools are put to work to further particular interests and visions (Garsten 2009). 

The study revealed that transnational corporate accountability depends on recognition of the transboundary character of corporate activities and the multiplicity of interests and priorities that this involves. As a meta-organization (Ahrne and Brunsson 2005) with other nation states as members, the UN cannot push legally binding rules without the full support of its members. Hence, they must rely to a large extent on its mobilizing power. Meta-organizations such as the UN are ill suited to push legally binding rules in the area of transnational business, but they are in a much stronger position to promote voluntary rules and to achieve leverage through their extensive networks and mobilizing power. Because of their dependence on the support of member organizations, they tend to be weak in decision-making but strong sites of normativity. This in poses questions regarding how transnational accountability is to be organized to become effective and to gain influence and authority, and what this means for democratic representativity. It also begs questions about the new landscape of rules that is being opened up at transnational level, and invites further research into the types of organizations and interests that are in active in this field. 

New forms of accountability and audit in a changing labour market
Jessica Lindvert

One of the more critical areas for understanding how social accountability is worked upon is the labour market. Work has for a long time occupied a strong position as a state policy area (see e g van der Berg et al 1997, Rothstein 1996, Rothstein & Bergström 1999) and constitute as well an important area for the creation of new transnational models of governance. This sub-project has examined new modes of governance in regard to labour market and employment issues. Which are the organizational and institutional conditions for public and private actors in Sweden? How are the current decentralized, network-based and market-oriented forms of organizing coped with? The project is divided into three parts. In a first study, national employment policy making has been examined from an organizational perspective focusing on the strengthened demands for democratic accountability, audit rationalities, control and feedback. An important result is that this administrative reorientation has had far-reaching political effects, as it corresponds better with certain constellations of power, while dampening others (Lindvert 2008a; Lindvert 2006; Lindvert 2010; Lindvert & Vifell 2006). A second study compares the development of partnership arrangements on skills enhancement between EU and Sweden. This study reveals that the partnership principle had different meanings in the two settings, in Sweden horizontal cooperation between public and non-public actors was emphasized, in the EU focus was set on strengthening the vertical relations between public actors at supranational and national level. The study also examined some of the contemporary challenges. EU’s present focus on administrative control and democratic accountability is likely to generate a weakened interest in compromises, and informal decision making on national level (Lindvert 2009). A third study is an exploratory interview-based study on skill enhancement at company level. The study brings attention to the distinction between formal access to skills enhancement, and factual access to such activities. The analysis explores different types of obstacles for partaking and how these obstacles are interconnected (Ardenfors & Lindvert 2010).

Illegal yet licit. Justifying informal purchases of work in contemporary Sweden 
Lotta Björklund Larsen

Svart arbete, informal purchases of work, is a widely debated societal phenomenon in Sweden. It is often seen as detrimental to contemporary welfare society, eroding taxpaying morals, fair competition and solidarity with fellow citizens. Acknowledged as wrong, it is in many instances also an acceptable and commonplace exchange practice. This study addresses this incongruity and aims to show how these inconspicuous exchanges of work are distinguished in terms of legality and licitness. How are they accounted for by ordinary people?

Methodologically, the study is based on ethnographic interviews with a group of people in all walks of life, who have their roots in a small town in southern Sweden. In the midst of life and work, they address situations where living in accordance with moral standards becomes difficult. The study aimed to illuminate multifaceted reasonings about the illegal but licit purchases made and how people make sense and meaning of them in retrospect and in the larger context of societal economy. The ways in which these purchases of svart arbete are justified illustrate inherent tensions in contemporary welfare society. It also speaks to the sense of responsibility to the larger community and to the state, in relatin to opportunities to retaining economic value for oneself as an individual. 

Purchases of svart arbete are often justified as rational economic decisions in terms of being cheap and simple. The study shows that purchasing work informally is not only a rational economic decision, but can also be the result of resolving necessities in daily life due to societal bottlenecks and/or probing tax legislation. As an economic phenomenon, these purchases are therefore not seen as set apart from the formal structures of the Swedish economy, but as co-existing with them. Justifying the illegal but licit svart arbete, purchasers are seen to emphasise a reciprocal relationship with the provider of the work and also with the state. In this way, a sense of balance and justice is achieved. This study is Lotta Björklund Larsen’s PhD work, partly financed by this project, and defended in 2010 (Björklund Larsen 2010). 

Opening the orange Envelope: Reform and responsibility in the remaking of the Swedish national pension system 
Anette Nyqvist

Linked to the project, albeit financially supported only in modest terms, was a PhD study of the Swedish national pension system, its transformation, and its underlying conceptions of state, market and citizen responsibility (Nyqvist 2008). This study sheds light on changing perceptions of responsibility in the transformation of pension policy, who the actors involved at different sites and levels in the policy process are, what they do, and how they do it. By mapping out the policy process - and the actors, practices and technologies involved - the workings of new forms of governance come into focus. Of particular interest is the way policy-making works as a governing tool in the contemporary Swedish welfare state. On a broader level, this study is concerned with how new forms of governance may alter the roles of, as well as affect the relationship between, state and citizen.

At the core of the study are the new forms of governance that are being brought forward in contemporary welfare state restructuring in which the logic, language and practices of the market are given increased salience also within the realm of government. Sweden’s new national pension system is seen as a ‘political technology’ with the power to transform society through its subjects; the citizens. The study shows how a set of interconnected technologies within the construction of the new national pension scheme bring about processes of both depoliticization and responsibilization.

Anthropological fieldwork was carried out among politicians, experts, technocrats, bureaucrats, government information personnel as well as among ‘ordinary’ citizens in an attempt to study ‘all the way through’ a policy process with significance to the ongoing transformation of the Swedish welfare state.

b) Ranking and rating: measuring social accountability

During the last decades a lengthy discourse on the importance of global economic and political freedoms versus state hegemony has gradually been replaced by a discussion concerning rights, obligations and responsibilities in economic life. The market is increasingly shaped by social and economic processes such as globalization, trans-nationalization, trade liberalization and development of communications technology, which leave state structures with much less power to shape national economies; and other actors are begin to replace the role of the state in the regulation of markets. New forms of governance are closely linked to questions about private authority (Cutler et al 1999). This theme has investigated rating- and ranking procedures as central technologies for a normative economy and how organizations other than state agencies achieve authority in the area. How are ideas about transparency diffused and put into practice? How are the performances of organizations measured and valued? How are rating and ranking technologies put to use, and what are the implications of their usage in terms of influence and power?

Ranking and rating, as formalized ways of evaluating and comparing, are ways of spreading information. But they are hardly unproblematic procedures. Rather, they are forms of ”organized governance” (Brunsson and Jacobsson 2000: 10) that can motivate and control actors in certain ways. Whilst these technologies are often used to provide information regarding transparency and accountability, they are in themselves not always transparent. Ranking and rating technologies do not only convey information and knowledge, but also contribute to their production (cf. Callon 1998, Foucault 1994). 

Corporations, as well as state agencies and multilateral organizations, use these technologies to measure and to compare – both as producers and as consumers. The technologies can be investigated from a variety of perspectives, e g as means for competition for those being evaluated, as stimulus for change, as a  guide for consumers, and as instruments to spread information and knowledge (cf. Hayward and Boeker 1998). In so-called audit societies (Power 1997) or audit cultures (Strathern 2000) ranking and rating are central components, with the purpose to facilitate governance at a distance, increased accountability and transparency. In this way, they serve as technologies for the governance of a normative economy.  

As opposed to conventional means of regulation, ranking and rating are based on ideas of voluntarism; that those who are evaluated contribute with information, knowledge and resources. Despite ideas of voluntarism, ranking and rating may in practice be obligatory, since it is difficult to refuse participation. Direct sanctioning mechanism are often lacking, but refusing to participate or hindering evaluation may be seen as obstructive, which is a risk few dare to take. Ranking and rating may also function as mechanisms of control, since those who are evaluated directly or indirectly adapt to the criteria of evaluation. 

Contemporary technologies of evaluation are based on certain methodological presuppositions, with the aim to create similarities between people, organizations, and countries (cf. Mallard 1998). The processes of evaluation stipulate defined, calculable, and comparable entities, that can be listed. If the entities are not comparable from the start, they must be fashioned so that they are. Ranking and rating thus make possible cooperation between organizations, as well as co-ordination between activities, actors and contexts (cf. Brunsson and Jacobsson 2000). And besides creating hierarchies, they produce as well a degree of trust, credibility, and accountability (cf. Miller 1996). For outsiders, the criteria of evaluation are however seldom clearly known. The assumed neutrality of criteria can thus seldom be controlled (cf. Jacobsson 2000). 

Different types of indicators, codes of conduct, indexes etc all measure value in one way or another. Besides measuring the desired phenomenon, ideas about what are good or bad ways to perform and to organize certain types of processes are being produced (Bowker and Leigh Star 1999, Shore and Wright 2000). Ranking and rating technologies, as well as technologies for making visible and transparent, are practices where economic efficiency and morality meet and are negotiated, as well as measured. 

The theme has engaged the following studies:

Transparency in financial markets: Regulators, media and civil society
Monica Lindh de Montoya 

In the context of discussions concerning the allocation of rights, obligations and responsibilities in economic life, the idea of openness and transparency has often been part of conversations about how the economy should be organized and governed. 

This project is a study of the concept of transparency, its origin, structure, interpretation and application in the financial marketplace. Where did the concept of transparency originate? Who is working on generating more or less transparent, and how? The interaction between civil society actors and organizations contributing to the ideology and implementation of transparency is particularly interesting. In addition to examining institutions that have the official responsibility for supervision of securities trading, it is important to analyze the contributions of individual companies, investors, interest groups such as Shareholders' Association, and the financial press. The project had two objectives: to study the idea of transparency at a theoretical level, and to examine how it is staged in practice in the financial world. 

The main result of this project is that transparency is a "demand-driven" – i e., that it is not a natural phenomenon, but there must be customers who require specific information - be they individuals, organizations, or state - and consumers can take advantage of 'transparency' and also evaluate or comment on it. Transparency is therefore associated with high education, a certain measure debate regarding what should be required and what meets the requirements, as well as its costs of production. Also, transparency can never be complete; there will always be information that remains in the shadows, either intentionally or accidentally, and information is available, but not "seen" due to, for example, small print or obtuse language.

Swedes generally have great faith in government and civil organizations working in the financial market. For example, the small investors in shares and mutual funds trust companies and their officers, the annual reports that are produced and the governmental organizations that oversees the financial sector. They seldom feel they require more information than that which exists today. By contrast, those who work in the financial sector or have it as an important hobby comment that you must know how to "read between the lines" in annual reports, and interpret the statements of professionals. This again highlights the need for knowledgeable consumers of transparency, and that reports that are considered to convey a high degree of transparency can be read and interpreted at different levels. What also emerges in the research is the role that the rule of law, democracy and trust in officials and institutions play in both demands for transparency, and individuals’ and organizations’ willingness and ability to meet these demands. Without confidence in the democratic system and rule of law, transparency stops functioning and loses its meaning.

Further questions that are posed by the project are focused on companies, and involve a deeper study of the social mechanisms and economic considerations that are involved when companies produce their annual reports. To what degree is information dependable: for example, how are figures accumulated, used in calculations, by whom, and who has the final say over what results and information is distributed? What are the considerations that they take in making decisions?

Talk and practice in the ‘new economy’: To negotiate and measure gender equality in a multilateral organization
Laila Abdallah 

A variety of audit cultures have emerged in the formation of new norms and "soft laws" in the era of global market economy. Within the framework of international institutions and their collaborating networks, different actors discuss and negotiate how to measure social aspects in the ‘new economy’. This study deals with the international policy coordination of development assistance, with a specific focus on the policy-making in the social area of “gender equality”.

The policy co-ordination of gender equality in development assistance at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD, with its Development Assistance Committee (DAC) and Development Co-operation Directorate (DCD), is the point of depature for this study. As an influential multilateral expert organization, OECD/DAC/DCD collects data to coordinate and evaluate the Member countries’ development assistance programmes. The study deals with how various discussions, negotiations and measurements, and thereby the evaluations, are formed to review the implementation of gender equality in development assistance. How do people within OECD discuss around the content of various criteria to review this work by the Member countries? Whose perspectives on gender equality and its responsible limits lie behind these estimations?

The OECD has also been studied within a context of international negotiations with collaborating counterparts, such as other governmental organizations (GOs like UN, World Bank and IMF) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). How are transparency and responsibility perceived and discussed in the assessment of gender equality in relation to these actors? How do the ways of talk form norms for the international policy-makings of gender equality in development assistance? And in what way does it govern the OECD’s Member States’ aid distributions within this field? The project has been carried out through interviews, participant observations, analysis of statistical material and documents. This is Laila Abdallah’s PhD, which is planned to be published in 2011. 

Ranking and rating in socially responsible investing (SRI)
Anna Hasselström 

The project has investigated connections between socially responsible investing (SRI) and ideas and practices of transparency in relation to rating and ranking technologies. More specifically it has looked into the following areas, all involved in SRI: 1) Banco Fonder – a Swedish corporation that monitors the social responsibility (SR) of other corporations, whose shares they then put together in investment portfolios and sell as ‘ethical funds’ to the general public, 2) Academic articles from the Journal of Business Ethics written by researchers and academic business ethicists working on SR and SRI, and sometimes also offering their services as ethics consultants or experts, and 3) CoreRatings – a rating agency specialized in measuring corporate social responsibility (CSR). Banco uses the ratings of CoreRatings when deciding whether or not a share is to be defined as ethical. 

In the SRI arena, ‘lack of transparency’ is constructed as a key problem needed to be solved. Being ‘transparent’ is closely associated with being socially responsible, and in order to evaluate whether a corporation is transparent or not, is taking its social responsibility or not, various kinds of ratings and rankings are produced and applied. The project shows that ratings and rankings are central technologies of governance and as such they are used to produce transparency, albeit of a selective kind. That is, transparency is produced in certain areas but at a cost of loosing detail, nuances and complexity in other areas. In order to appear transparent ‘the social’ has to be defined, standardized and made into something that can be measured, rated and ranked (Hasselström 2008).

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The research team above has formed the main corpus of the research project. Professor Ulf Jonsson has been part of the research team as member of the management team and has throughout been active in meetings, seminars and workshops. Closely linked to the team, and active in meetings and seminars, have also been Associate professor Kristina Tamm Hallström, and PhD Lisbeth Segerlund. Tamm Hallström has provided highly relevant insights through her project on the organization and activities of international standards bodies (Tamm Hallström 2008; Tamm Hallström & Boström 2010).  Lisbeth Segerlund was active in the project throughout the writing of her PhD thesis on the norm creation in the area of CSR from an international relations perspective (Segerlund 2007). Several colleagues at Score have as well played vital roles as interlocutors and collaboration partners in publications. 

WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE PROJECT

The research has spurred international network activities and contributed to collaborations with colleagues in several countries. Most notably, the team members have collaborated closely with colleagues at Cambridge University, London School of Economics, CSO/CNRS Paris, Ecole des Hauted Etudes, and Handelshögskolan BI, Oslo. These collaborative efforts have given results in publications and through continued networking, and in some cases they have resulted in formalized network constellations.

The research team has contributed widely to international and international conferences, where we have organized sessions and contributed papers around the main issues. For example, three sessions were organized at the EGOS conferences in 2004, 2005, and 2006, all around issues relating to accountability and global governance, by Christina Garsten in collaboration with Prof Tor Hernes, Prof Nils Brunsson, Prof Göran Ahrne, Associate professor Magnus Boström, Prof Chris Grey and Associate professor Bas Koene. Christina Garsten and Monica Lindh de Montoya also arranged a session around transparency as organizational governance ideal at the American Anthropological Association Meetings in 2006. A large number of individual contributions at conferences have been made by the project team members. 

With Prof Ulf Jonsson and Associate professor Patrik Aspers, Christina Garsten organized the seminar series The Social Construction of Markets, which was given during two years, 2004-5, and supported by the Faculty of Social Sciences at Stockholm University. Research team members have also given a large number of seminar on the topics of their research, at Stockholm University, other universities and to the wider public. The project has also attracted the attention of public media, which has featured interviews. The project has also impacted on academic teaching, through the creation of the course  “Anthropology of the Global Economy”, by Christina Garsten and Anna Hasselström, which is now a continuously running course at advanced level. 

The project has contributed successfully to the career development of the participating researcers. During the project period, Christina Garsten was promoted to Professor, Monica Lindh de Montoya and Jessica Lindvert were promoted to Associate professors, and the project contributed to the finalization of two PhD theses; Nyqvist and Björklund Larsen. Laila Adallah is expected to defend her docital thesis in 2011. Most importantly, the project has inspired the team members to continue research along thee lines, in new projects and with refined questions. 

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