The corporate social responsibility (CSR) agenda has taken off since the 1980s, with both civil society and business actors involved in mobilising around it. This paper examines the reasons for civil society mobilisation on CSR issues, the types of organisations involved, and their different forms of activism and relations with business. It then identifies the ways in which big business is engaging with and shaping the CSR agenda, but questions whether this agenda can effectively contribute to development. The paper argues that the CSR agenda can deal with some of the worst symptoms of maldevelopment, such as poor working conditions, pollution, and poor factory -community relations, but that it does not deal with the key political and economic mechanisms through which transnational companies undermine the development prospects of poor countries. A final section considers how this agenda may evolve on the basis of recent developments in CSR activism and regulation.

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public –private partnerships, development, transnational corporations, United Nations organizations, global governance,

The nature of activism concerned with the activities of transnational corporations has changed in recent years. In the 1990s, an increasing number of NGOs opted for collaboration as opposed to confrontation. By the turn of the millennium, there were signs that another approach was gaining ground, one that involved new campaigns for corporate accountability and legalistic regulation. This article examines the changing contours of contestation and civil society–business relations. It identifies two sets of conditions that are driving the contemporary ‘corporate accountability movement’: transformations occurring in the nature of capitalism that connect TNCs with global inequality and injustice; and the failures and limitations of the mainstream corporate social responsibility (CSR) agenda. It then highlights core conceptual and strategic elements that distinguish the CSR and corporate accountability ‘movements' and assesses the potential of the latter to reassert social control over corporate capitalism.

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