CSR, Public Spending, and the State

Abstract

Starting with a brief introduction to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), and political attempts that aim at promoting social responsibility of enterprises, this chapter focuses on regulatory instruments to use states' consumer power as a lever to promote CSR in a world that is increasingly shaped by supra-national trade agreements. By taking into account socially responsible behavior of potential business partners when making procurement decisions, states' agencies can aim to promote CSR a business case for companies. Yet, in the light of increasing supranational regulation aiming to promote free trade, tensions arise between market-building and free trade on the one hand and political attempts to use public procurement as a means to foster CSR on the other. This chapter provides an outline of the current state of supranational regulative policies on public procurement, with special emphasis to the European Union, and explores their implications for strategic public procurement.