To Frack or Not to Frack? The Interaction of Justification and Power in a Sustainability Controversy

• Author: Jean‐Pascal Gond,Mathieu Charron,Luciano Barin Cruz,Emmanuel Raufflet
• Published date: 01 May 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12166
• Date: 01 May 2016

To Frack or Not to Frack? The Interaction of

Justification and Power in a Sustainability

Controversy

Jean-Pascal Gond, Luciano Barin Cruz,

Emmanuel Raufflet and Mathieu Charron

City University London; HEC Montreal; HEC Montreal; Laval University

ABSTRACT How could a de facto moratorium on shale gas exploration emerge in Quebec

despite the broad adoption of fracking in North American jurisdictions, support from the

provincial government and a favourable power position initially enjoyed by the oil and gas

industry? This paper analyses this turn of events by studying how stakeholders from

government, civil society, and industry mobilized modes of justification and forms of power

with the aim to influence the moral legitimacy of the fracking technology during a controversy

surrounding shale gas exploration. Combining Boltanski and Thevenot’s economies of worth

theory with Lukes’ concept of power, we analytically induced the justification of power

mechanisms whereby uses of power become justified or ‘escape’ justification, and the power of

justification mechanisms by which justifications alter subsequent power dynamics. We finally

explain how these mechanisms contribute to explaining the controversy’s ultimate outcome,

and advance current debates on political corporate social responsibility.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility, fracking, justification, moral legitimacy, power,

shale gas

INTRODUCTION

Political CSR (PCSR) approaches inspired by Habermasian, stakeholder, and institu-

tional theories have highlighted the central role of ‘moral legitimacy’ in the processes by

which stakeholder groups intervene in sustainability controversies to influence their out-

comes (Frynas and Stephens, 2014; Scherer and Palazzo, 2011). Building on Habermas’

concepts of communication and deliberative democracy (Palazzo and Scherer, 2006;

Scherer, Palazzo and Seidl, 2013), these approaches suggest that multiple stakeholder

groups attempt to shape the moral legitimacy or illegitimacy of sustainability issues to

establish a normative consensus (Bauer and Palazzo, 2011; Mena and Palazzo, 2012).

Address for reprints: Jean-Pascal Gond, Cass Business School, City University London, 106 Bunhill Row,

London, EC1Y 8TZ, UK (jean-pascal.gond.1@city.ac.uk).

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C2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd and Society for the Advancement of Management Studies

Journal of Management Studies 53:3 May 2016

doi: 10.1111/joms.12166

However, this research has done little to explain how stakeholder groups compete in shap-

ing the moral legitimacy or illegitimacy of sustainability issues in institutional arenas.

Another group of scholars suggest that stakeholder groups intervene in sustainability

controversies mainly through coercion or manipulation to advance their agendas and

shape the institutions in which the discussions take place to promote their own interests

(Banerjee, 2010; Fleming and Jones, 2013). These critics tend to describe the Haberma-

sian PCSR perspective as ‘na€ıve’ if not ‘utopian’ (Fleming and Jones, 2013, pp. 45–6,

pp. 85–6) because of its limited appreciation of the differential powers attached to the

stakeholders involved in these negotiation processes; they insist on the need to better the-

orize and account for the role of power when studying sustainability (Banerjee, 2010).

However, the work of these critics rarely considers that efforts of stakeholders to influ-

ence moral legitimacy may in turn shape power dynamics.

This paper seeks to address these limitations by considering the dynamics of both

power and justification to analyse how stakeholders interact in a sustainability contro-

versy; we aim to explain how the relationships between power and justification influence

the controversy’s ultimate outcome. Theoretically, we combine Boltanski and Theve-

not’s (2006 [1991]) economies of worth (EW) framework with Lukes’ (2005 [1974]) con-

ception of power. The EW provides a tool to unpack the processes by which

stakeholders justify their claims on moral grounds (Patriotta et al., 2011). Lukes’ (2005)

definition of power enables a consideration of observable uses of power, such as author-

ity or coercion, but also of subtler processes by which stakeholders defuse conflicts by

preventing issues from reaching institutional arenas through agenda setting or impose

their views by making the changes they support appear unavoidable.

To investigate the interactions of justification and power as well as the effects of their

interactions, we examine a controversy surrounding the exploration of shale gas in

Quebec (Canada) between March 2010 and December 2011. We selected this case for its

relatively ‘unique’ and ‘extreme’ nature (Yin, 2008). Indeed, the controversy led to a de

facto moratorium on shale gas exploration in October 2012, despite the initial support of

the provincial government, the presence of powerful lobby groups from oil and gas corpo-

rations advocating in favour of shale gas exploitation in Quebec, and the facilitation of

shale gas extraction in the neighboring context of several other Canadian provinces and

the USA, where it has been made a strategic priority for the government. Following an

inductive and reflexive case study approach, such an unexpected turn of events offers

opportunities for interesting ‘theoretical reconstructions’ (Burawoy, 1998, p. 16).

Through our analysis, we ‘analytically induce’ (Bansal and Roth, 2000) neglected

‘social mechanisms’ (Stinchcombe, 1991) that bridge power and justification through

the controversy. The justification of power mechanisms explain how prior uses of

power constrain or enable specific modes of moral legitimation by delegating the

work of justification to other stakeholder groups (delegation) or by amplifying the pos-

sible modes of justification through power relations (multiplication). The power of justifi-

cation mechanisms explain the effects of justification on the capacity to mobilize

forms of power either by altering the perceived uncertainty of the issue (reshaping per-

ceived uncertainty) or by restricting uses of power through the reorientation of institu-

tions toward their original purpose (recovering institutions). Our findings show how

these mechanisms explain the main shifts in the turn of the controversy, leading to

331To Frack or Not to Frack?

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its ultimate outcome in the form of a de facto moratorium. Finally, we discuss how

the justification-power framework we induced from our case study contributes to

the study of PCSR, power and justification. We then derive the main theoretical

and practical implications of our analysis.

MANAGING MORAL LEGITIMACY: BRIDGING JUSTIFICATION

AND POWER

Moral Legitimacy in Sustainability Controversies

Central to PCSR studies is the recognition that corporations do not operate in a social

and political vacuum but are embedded in systems of governance that reflect social net-

works as well as state action (Gond et al., 2011; Scherer and Palazzo, 2011). Because

the regulatory environments of the corporation are shaped by the interplay of civil soci-

ety and industrial actors, the boundaries of the ‘division of labour’ among corporations,

nation-states and civil society organizations change continually, creating constant ‘over-

flows’ among the social, political and business spheres. These overflows are the focus of

PCSR studies (Frynas and Stephens, 2014).

According to the ‘Habermasi an perspective’ on PCSR, the management of moral

legitimacy takes on central i mportance in this new context (Palazzo and Scherer, 20 06;

Scherer and Palazzo, 2011). Moral legitimacy (or illegitimacy) is defined as the moral

acceptability (or unaccept ability) of an organization’s behaviour that results from a nor-

mative evaluation by external observers (Suchman, 1995). In sustainability cont rover-

sies, corporations and their sta keholders deal with moral legitimacy ‘to reach a

consensus (or at least an inform ed compromise) and ultimately a new match between

organizational practices and s ocietal expectations that will (re)establish legitimacy’

(Scherer et al., 2013, p. 264). Accor ding to this point of view, PCSR research needs to

focus on how processes and institutions can help legitimize the political power of corpo-

rations to make them democratic ally accountable (Bauer and Palazzo, 2011). Research

inspired by this perspective ha s investigated the management of moral legitimacy

through a variety of institutions and has stress ed the importance of civil society organi-

zations in CSR-related contr oversies (Mena and Palazzo, 2012; Mena and Waeger,

2014).

However, this line of study has been criticized on its normative and political fronts.

On the normative side, even though Habermasian works stress the importance of man-

aging moral legitimacy, they do little to explain how stakeholders concretely justify their claims

by anchoring them in specific moral orders. On the political side, the Habermasian line of

inquiry has been criticized for under-theorizing power (Banerjee, 2010; Fleming and Jones,

2013). To address these two limitations, we rely on Boltanski and Thevenot’s (2006)

concept of justification and Lukes’ (2005) ‘radical’ view of power.

An Economies of Worth Perspective on Justification

Boltanski and Thevenot’s (2006) economies of worth (EW) framework provides a useful

alternative to the Habermasian deliberative approach to ‘unpack’ stakeholders’ justifica-

tions that shape the moral legitimacy or illegitimacy of CSR issues in a controversy.

332 J.-P. Gond et al.

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