The Dual Nature of Transparency: Corporatization and Democratization of Global Production Networks

Abstract

The chapter discusses the dual nature of corporate transparency politics as a means of governing and taming corporate power and as an instrument of corporate control and profit maximization. The authors conceptualize four levels of transparency practices in global production networks, arguing that the consideration of these levels is necessary to understand the political nature of corporate transparency. As Scheper and Zajak show, these levels are relevant with regard to the wider dynamics of power relations, political conflicts and social change in global production networks because they link conflicts around corporate transparency with the broader debate about the ‘new’ political role of transnational corporations and a changing relationship between states, markets and civil society. The chapter concludes by calling for a new research agenda on transnational transparency politics, which introduces a cultural perspective on knowledge practices and links it with a political-sociological view on power and governance struggles.