The role of deliberative mini-publics in improving the deliberative capacity of multi-stakeholder initiatives
Date
2022
Authors
Pek, Simon
Mena, Sébastien
Lyons, Brent
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Business Ethics Quarterly
Abstract
Multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs)—private governance mechanisms involving
firms, civil society organizations, and other actors deliberating to set rules, such as
standards or codes of conduct, with which firms comply voluntarily—have become
important tools for governing global business activities and the social and environmental
consequences of these activities. Yet, this growth is paralleled with concerns
about MSIs’ deliberative capacity, including the limited inclusion of some marginalized
stakeholders, bias toward corporate interests, and, ultimately, ineffectiveness
in their role as regulators. In this article, we conceptualize MSIs as deliberative
systems to open the black box of the different elements that make up the MSI polity
and better understand how their deliberative capacity hinges on problems in different
elements. On the basis of this conceptualization, we examine how deliberative
mini-publics—forums in which a randomly selected group of individuals
from a particular population engage in learning and facilitated deliberations about
a topic—can improve the deliberative capacity of MSIs.
Description
Keywords
deliberative democracy, deliberative mini-publics, deliberative systems, multi-stakeholder initiatives, private regulation, transnational business governance
Citation
Pek, S., Mena, S., & Lyons, B. (2022). “The role of deliberative mini-publics in improving the deliberative capacity of multi-stakeholder initiatives.” Business Ethics Quarterly, 1-44. https://doi.org/10.1017/beq.2022.20