Decolonizing Deliberative Democracy and Political CSR, Bobby Banerjee

In this talk Bobby Banerjee provides a decolonial critique of received knowledge about deliberative democracy. Legacies of colonialism have generally been overlooked in theories of democracy. These omissions challenge several key assumptions of deliberative democracy. Banerjee argues that deliberative democracy does not travel well outside Western sites and its key assumptions begin to unravel in the ‘developing’ regions of the world. The context for a decolonial critique of deliberative democracy is the ongoing violent conflicts over resource extraction in the former colonies of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Banerjee argues that deliberative democracy cannot take into account the needs of marginalized stakeholders who are defending their lands and livelihoods. Consequently political corporate social responsibility and multi-stakeholder initiatives, which reflect deliberative processes at the market-society interface can diminish the welfare of communities impacted by extraction. Several governance challenges arise as a result of these power asymmetries and Banerjee develops a translocal governance framework from the perspective of vulnerable stakeholders that can enable a more progressive approach to societal governance of multinational corporations.

Bobby Banerjee is Professor of Management and Associate Dean of Research & Enterprise at Bayes Business School, City University of London. He researches and teaches on corporate social irresponsibility, unsustainability, climate justice and decolonial resistance movements.