All That Glitters

As John Lennon put it, imagine there’s no countries. Well, not no countries, exactly, but perhaps only facsimiles of states that bargain away bits of their sovereignty to international global governance actors, including transnational corporations. In exchange, they harvest revenues and, hopefully, the sustained wealth generated by activities like exploration, mining, and drilling on their territory. Legitimacy-hungry transnationals, for their part, require their golden ticket to operate — their social licence. They get it through activities that “count” as corporate social responsibility and responsible business practices.

In fact, many of these activities look an awful lot like the sorts of things governments are supposed to do. That is a central theme that thrums through Corporate Social Responsibility and Canada’s Role in Africa’s Extractive Sectors. Think of social licence as a private-sector version of Rousseau’s social contract. It’s more than...