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Abstract

Once just a slogan used by corporate PR departments, the idea of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has now become a serious business for many firms and a major object of academic research. It is also a field replete with disagreement and diversity of opinion. Some corporations try to solve these dilemmas by projecting an image that is ‘responsible’ in specific and often isolated ways. This volume, based on a conference organized jointly by the Social Trends Institute and the University of Warwick Business School, takes the debate a stage further by examining the place of CSR in the role played by major corporations within global economic governance. One of the principal tasks in this volume is to bring the study of CSR into political science debate. Accordingly, authors from varied and even opposed perspectives consider what defines a ‘responsible’ corporation in today's global economy whilst a few authors discuss the limits to CSR and asks whether this approach is an appropriate means to address issues in the global ‘public’ domain in the first instance.