The Political Dynamics of Sustainable Coffee: Contested Value Regimes and the Transformation of Sustainability

• Author: Juliane Reinecke,David Levy,Stephan Manning
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12144
• Date: 01 May 2016
• Published date: 01 May 2016

The Political Dynamics of Sustainable Coffee:

Contested Value Regimes and the Transformation

of Sustainability

David Levy, Juliane Reinecke and Stephan Manning

University of Massachusetts Boston; University of Warwick; University of Massachusetts Boston

ABSTRACT The global coffee sector has seen a transformation towards more ‘sustainable’

forms of production, and, simultaneously, the continued dominance of mainstream coffee

firms and practices. We examine this paradox by conceptualizing the underlying process of

political corporate social responsibility (PCSR) as a series of long-term, multi-dimensional

interactions between civil society and corporate actors, drawing from the neo-Gramscian

concepts of hegemony and passive revolution. A longitudinal study of the evolution of coffee

sustainability standards suggests that PCSR can be understood as a process of challenging and

defending value regimes, within which viable configurations of economic models, normative-

cultural values, and governance structures are aligned and stabilized. Specifically, we show

how dynamics of moves and accommodations between challengers and corporate actors shape

the practice and meaning of ‘sustainable’ coffee. The results contribute to understanding the

political dynamics of CSR as a dialectic process of ‘revolution/restoration’, or passive

revolution, whereby value regimes assimilate and adapt to potentially disruptive challenges,

transforming sustainability practices and discourse.

Keywords: coffee, Gramsci, passive revolution, political corporate social responsibility,

sustainability, sustainability standards, value regimes

INTRODUCTION

The global coffee sector, which involves more than100millionpeopleinover80countries,

has pioneered sustainable production (Kolk, 2005; Ponte, 2002) and represents

an important transnational arena for private regulation (Bartley, 2007; Muradian and

Pelupessy, 2005; Reinecke et al., 2012). The advent of sustainability presents an intriguing

paradox. By 2013, all the major coffee firms had adopted sustainability standards and 40

per cent of global coffee was produced in accordance with a standard (SSI, 2014). The

Address for reprints: David Levy, University of Massachusetts Boston, College of Management, 100 Morris-

sey Boulevard, Boston, MA 02125-3393, USA. (David.Levy@umb.edu).

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Journal of Management Studies 53:3 May 2016

doi: 10.1111/joms.12144

powerful multinational coffee roasters who dominate the industry employ the discourse of

sustainability to discuss their relationships with the natural environment and stakeholders,

and are restructuring their supply chains to engage producers directly. From a contrary

perspective, however, little has changed. Activists’ early visions of a more sustainable, equi-

table, and accountable global coffee order have been diluted and absorbed by mainstream

business. The idea of sustainability has been reduced to a set of standards and certifications

for managing reputation, quality, and supply chain risk (Bitzer et al., 2008; MacDonald,

2007). Standards developed by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) increasingly

resemble those promulgated by business in promoting these market-oriented goals.

This paradox reflects a broader debate in the literature on political corporate social

responsibility (PCSR), including standard setting and labelling, which ‘suggests an

extended model of governance [...] where private actors such as corporations and civil

society organizations play an active role in the democratic regulation and control of

market transactions’ (Scherer and Palazzo, 2011, p. 901). Some scholars have adopted

an optimistic perspective that emphasizes the positive role of businesses as benign partic-

ipants in pluralist global governance arenas, to further the public good where states lack

capacity or will (Baur and Arenas, 2014; Matten and Crane, 2005; Scherer and Palazzo,

2007, 2011). More critical scholars view the political character of CSR in governance

arenas as neither benign nor democratic, but rather as a strategy for enhancing private

corporate power, profitability, and legitimacy, thereby undermining NGO efforts at

progressive change (Banerjee, 2008; Fooks et al., 2013; Whelan, 2012). Our longitudinal

study of the development of sustainability standards in the coffee sector is motivated by

this puzzle of change versus stasis and the related divergent views on the political char-

acter of CSR. Our question is: How does PCSR operate as a process by which incum-

bents and challengers interact around sustainability practices, and how do the practice

and meaning of sustainability shift in this process?

In addressing this question, the study contributes a key temporal dimension to our

understanding of PCSR as an extended, interactive process of political contestation and

accommodation. We suggest that the political dynamics of CSR represent a negotiated

process of structuring or challenging a ‘value regime’, in which configurations of eco-

nomic value and normative values coevolve within particular governance mechanisms

(Appadurai, 1986; Levy and Spicer, 2013). Following Thompson’s caution (2008,

p. 498) that it is counterproductive to treat deliberative democracy as ‘a testable hypoth-

esis’, we find that PCSR neither attains the ideals of deliberative democracy nor should

it be dismissed as mere cosmetic greenwash. Taking temporality seriously, we develop a

more pragmatic and nuanced perspective that integrates elements of the more optimistic

and the critical perspectives, and points to the possibilities as well as the limitations of

effecting longer term, substantive change. This approach also provides insight into a sec-

ond core puzzle, how NGOs, despite their limited resources, have been able to achieve

substantial influence over corporate sustainability practices and business models, busi-

ness and consumer norms, as well as governance mechanisms. We find that PCSR

extends beyond deliberation, as ‘debate and discussion aimed at producing reasonable,

well-informed opinions’ (Chambers, 2003, p. 309; Thompson, 2008), to include a

broader range of strategies and moves, both conflictual and collaborative, that lead to

long-term and sometimes unintended change.

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In developing our temporal and process-based perspective, we draw from neo-

Gramscian theory to understand the hegemonic stability that arises when the eco-

nomic, normative, and governance dimensions of value regimes are aligned, as well

as the potential for actors to intervene strategically and leverage tensions and dynam-

ics in value regimes (Cox, 1987; Levy and Scully, 2007). We suggest that the dynamic

interactions between NGOs and business resemble the Gramscian process of ‘passive

revolution’ (Gramsci, 1971, 2007; Morton, 2010), in which a hegemonic system

adapts and evolves as it absorbs challenges and preserves essential features. In the fol-

lowing section, we review the scholarship on PCSR, and develop the value regime

concept as a framework to understand CSR as a political, contested process of inter-

actions between business and NGOs. Our empirical data on actors’ interactions and

the evolution of the coffee value regime is followed by our discussion and interpreta-

tion of findings. Theorizing from our results, we propose a more general process

model to illuminate how passive revolution emerges from sequences of interactions

and accommodations between dominant firms and challengers, which we character-

ize as strategic concessions and stabilizing realignments.

POLITICAL CSR AND CRITIQUES

The growing awareness of environmental and social issues in relation to global produc-

tion, and the increasing influence of NGOs on corporate practices, have raised key chal-

lenges for economic and political governance and changed the dynamic among state,

economy, and civil society (Braithwaite and Drahos, 2000; Sassen, 1998). While there is

a long history of understanding the firm as a political actor (Cox, 1996; Eden, 1991;

Strange, 1993), there has been growing interest recently in the political role of business

at the intersection with contentious issues such as climate change and labour conditions

(Teegen et al., 2004). This attention to the politics of CSR is a welcome development in

a field long dominated by prescriptive assertions of the ethical duties of firms (Windsor,

2006), managerialist approaches to stakeholder management, and empirical explora-

tions of the relationship between financial and social performance (Margolis and Walsh,

2003; Tang et al., 2012).

Ideal Perspectives on PCSR

The term ‘political CSR’ is most closely associated with the work of Scherer, Palazzo

and colleagues (Scherer and Palazzo, 2007, 2011; Scherer et al., 2014), who contend

that globalization has both exacerbated and highlighted some of the deleterious trans-

boundary impacts of business, while simultaneously weakening the ability of national

governments to address these issues. The resulting global governance deficit (Haas,

2004) has led business, as well as NGOs, to assume political roles. The challenge for

business ‘is to find new forms of democratic will-formation [...that] integrate the new

role of business as a legitimate part of these institutions and processes’ (Scherer and

Palazzo, 2007, p. 1097). Their call to tame economic rationality through engagement

with civil society resonates with Polanyi’s (1944) concern to re-embed the economy in

social structures.

366 D. Levy et al.

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