An increasing number of firms are engaging in social and environmental initiatives beyond their core business activities. While much has been written about why business should spend resources on social and environmental causes, relatively few studies have systematically addressed the question of why certain companies actually do engage in such activities. A notable exception is literature on the ‘business case’ for corporate social responsibility, which argues that good social and environmental performance will positively affect a company's financial results. The evidence on this link, however, is mixed. Even if there is an economic rationale, it is not clear why some companies engage in social activities while others do not. And, why do many more companies today ‘see’ the business case than in the past? This paper maps out the theoretical terrain exploring this question and categorizes the various existing explanations for corporate social engagement.

Governments in Europe and around the world amassed vast pharmaceutical stockpiles in anticipation of a potentially catastrophic influenza pandemic. Yet the comparatively 'mild' course of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic provoked considerable public controversy around those stockpiles, leading to questions about their cost-benefit profile and the commercial interests allegedly shaping their creation, as well as around their scientific evidence base. So, how did governments come to view pharmaceutical stockpiling as such an indispensable element of pandemic preparedness planning? What are the underlying security rationalities that rapidly rendered antivirals such a desirable option for government planners? Drawing upon an in-depth reading of Foucault's notion of a 'crisis of circulation', this article argues that the rise of pharmaceutical stockpiling across Europe is integral to a governmental rationality of political rule that continuously seeks to anticipate myriad circulatory threats to the welfare of populations -including to their overall levels of health. Novel antiviral medications such as Tamiflu are such an attractive policy option because they could enable governments to rapidly modulate dangerous levels of (viral) circulation during a pandemic, albeit without disrupting all the other circulatory systems crucial for maintaining population welfare. Antiviral stockpiles, in other words, promise nothing less than a pharmaceutical securing of circulation itself.

Research funded under ERC Ideas grant 230489 GHG Volume 7, Supplement 2, 2012 Special Issue: Framing Global Health GovernanceWith the emergence of global health comes governance challenges which are equally global in nature. This article identifies some of the initial limitations in analyses of global health governance (GHG) before discussing the focus of this special supplement: the framing of global health issues and the manner in which this impacts upon GHG. Whilst not denying the importance of material factors (such as resources and institutional competencies), the article identifies how issues can be framed in different ways, thereby creating particular pathways of response which in turn affect the potential for and nature of GHG. It also identifies and discusses the key frames operating in global health: evidence based medicine, human rights, security, economics and development.Peer reviewe

No abstract