Tethered Fates

Abstract

Abstract Global supply chains extend throughout the developing world, but we know surprisingly little about company–community interaction. This book engages multiple sources of data to map the evolution and contemporary scope of “stakeholder dialogue” in the business and human rights arena. It draws on the 7,000-company database of the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, and on original interviews with community members in two factory towns in the Dominican Republic, to illustrate economic rights challenges in light manufacturing communities. Tethered Fates maps trends in stakeholder dialogue by region and industry sector globally. It demonstrates that companies tend to engage stakeholders in sectors where the sunk costs are high (such as the extractive sector) rather than in sectors where the threat of exit looms large (such as light manufacturing). The book then offers a view into local community members’ perceptions of the prospects for dialogue with companies and the challenges of everyday life, through comparative case studies of two textile manufacturing towns in the Dominican Republic. Tethered Fates does more than simply explain why stakeholder dialogue often falls short as a vehicle for safeguarding economic rights and promoting community development; it also offers an assessment of the varieties of emerging policy alternatives for moving beyond the current state of practice.

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