Organizing the Environmental Governance of the Rare-Earth Industry: China’s passive revolution

Abstract

The rare-earth industry is of strategic importance for China and many 'clean' technologies worldwide. Yet the processes of mining, smelting and separating rare-earth ores are heavily polluting. Using a neo-Gramscian perspective in the context of organization studies, this article analyzes the dynamic interactions between government agencies, business and civil society in the development of the environmental governance of China's rare-earth industry over the past 30 years, with a particular focus on China's 'top-down' passive revolution. Making use of rarely granted access to China's biggest rareearth company, one of the country's key strategic assets, the analysis makes visible the changes of environmental contestations amongst five different governance actors over what we identify as three environmental governance eras in China. Besides offering unique empirical insights into the organizational processes that constitute the dynamically evolving hegemony of China's rare-earth industry, the article makes three theoretical contributions to the field of organization studies. First, we analyze the changing role of state institutions in a non-Western context, which has been de-emphasized by existing organization scholars. Second, we conceptualize the dynamics of environmental governance in China as a form of top-down 'passive revolution'. Third, we problematize the dual role of Chinese NGOs as both supporting and challenging state power. Overall, we contribute to our understanding of the organization of governance systems in non-Western contexts, which has been neglected in organizational studies.

Theorizing MNE-NGO conflicts in state-capitalist contexts: Insights from the Greenpeace, Gazprom and the Russian state dispute in the Arctic

“…We also extend IB and management studies of the conflict dynamics connected to governance problems (Kolk & Lenfant, 2010 to the context of state capitalism, where the entangled relationship between SOMNEs and the state, reliance on networks and cognitive institutions (Puffer & McCarthy, 2007) lead to active behind-the-scenes interaction between SOMNEs and governmental bodies. While we embrace contextuality, we suggest that our conceptual findings may be useful for understanding conflict escalation and outcomes in other settings with considerable state involvement in the economy and the absence of liberal market economy institutions in the local context, such as China 6 and Saudi-Arabia (Bo, Böhm, & Reynolds, 2018;Hui, 2017;Marquis & Qian, 2014;Paul et al 2018). In these settings corporations and the power elites of the state tend to be deeply intertwined in various ways (e.g.…”

Free lunch, structural violence, and normalization: A neo-Gramscian analysis of food waste and dumpster diving

“…Despite their relevance for research on hegemony and resistance (e.g. Bo et al, 2019; Girei, 2016), social movements (e.g. Böhm et al, 2008; Spicer and Böhm, 2007), climate change (e.g.…”

“…First, this study introduces structural violence into neo-Gramscian analysis (e.g. Bo et al, 2019; Böhm et al, 2008; Levy and Egan, 2003; Levy and Newell, 2002) and shows how the structural violence perspective on the economic sphere facilitates a social justice-based, fundamental, critique of the hegemonic neoliberal social order.…”

The Enduring State: An analysis of governance-making in three mining conflicts

“…Empirical research (e.g. Moog et al, 2015;Coleman, 2013;Himley, 2014;Li, 2016;Maher, 2018;Bo et al, 2018) has indicated that, despite their normative coherence, it seems only an ineffective and simulated governance -or, as Walters calls it, 'anti-politics' (2004, p. 33) -is generated when the dialogical and deliberative potential of those who defend public interests via enterprise strategies is undermined because of their managerial dependency on more operationally capable, and thus, more powerful corporations (see Moog et al, 2015;Lemke, 2007). Another, even more significant issue relates to the underestimation of the state's actual influence, because of PCSR's normative bias and alignment with an 'ideal future', in detriment of a historical assessment of the state's material organization and actual influence (Gond et al, 2011).…”

“…Their importance has led to a normative call for a ‘political CSR’ approach, arguing for an unequivocal political perspective of the corporation and the business conduct of its agents with multiple stakeholders (Mason & Simmons, 2014; Scherer & Palazzo, 2011; Wettstein, 2009). Yet, in the political CSR literature the role of the state has not been sufficiently understood (Bo, Böhm & Reynolds, 2018; Gond, Kang, & Moon, 2011; Knudsen & Moon, 2017), and hence there have been calls within OS for a renewed problematization of the state in CSR and governance regimes (Djelic & Etchanchu, 2015; Schrempf-Stirling, Palazzo, & Phillips, 2016; Whelan, 2012). Most of these calls have focused on highlighting the continued importance and relevance of the state in organizing business–society relations.…”