In this article we argue that an analytics of governmentality has an important contribution to make to the study of governmental approaches to corporate social responsibility (CSR). Looking at developments within the EU, we see government emerging as an enabling and empowering facilitator that a) promotes a strategic understanding of CSR as a lever for economic competitiveness and growth and b) disregards regulatory measures in favour of liberal and indirect means of steering. We argue that the analytical vocabulary of governmentality makes it possible to address and problematize the indirect modes of power and governing that are prevalent in governmental approaches to CSR in general and in neoliberal modes of CSR governance in particular. Using EU and member states policy developments as an empirical backdrop, we provide a conceptual exploration of the prospects of applying governmentality to the study of the changing roles of government in CSR. We position our contribution within the critical literature on CSR as a political phenomenon.

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Corporate social responsibility (CSR) was historically a business-oriented idea that companies should voluntarily improve their social and environmental practices. More recently, CSR has increasingly attracted governments' attention, and is now promoted in public policy, especially in the European Union (EU). Conflicts can arise, however, when advanced welfare states introduce CSR into public policy. The reason for such conflict is that CSR leaves key public welfare issues to the discretion of private business. This voluntary issue assignment contrasts starkly with advanced welfare states' traditions favoring negotiated agreements and strong regulation to control corporate conduct. This article analyzes the conflicts and compatibilities arising when advanced welfare states introduce CSR, focusing on how the two traditions diverge and on how conflicts are reconciled. Empirically

* This version of the article has been accepted for publication and undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to differences between this version and the publisher's final version AKA Version of Record.

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