This talk presents a dynamic perspective on naming and shaming of corporations, to better understand its working mechanisms. It will develop the argument that rather than directly affecting corporate conduct through the deterrent threat of reputational sanctions, naming and shaming should be understood as a constructivist process of meaning-making. At its best, naming and shaming can spark a spiral of norm-construction and gradual commitment to more stringent social norms. A dynamic account of the shaming process more realistically captures the diversity of potential effects on corporate behavior in networked contexts, but also sheds light on the messy and fuzzy nature of the shaming process. It helps to understand how often, shaming produces rhetorical, rather than meaningful responses or simply fizzles out. In a world overloaded with shaming, we should also ask if there isn’t just too much shaming?

Bio

Judith van Erp is professor of Regulatory Governance at Utrecht University’s School of Governance where she also fulfills the role of research director. She researches and teaches regulation and governance of corporate behavior in modern, global markets, at the intersection of law and governance. With a background in public administration and criminology, her work is interdisciplinary and has been published in journals such as Regulation & Governance and Law & Policy. She currently leads a project on authoritative supervision in modern markets funded by the National Science Agenda and the Dutch Council for Inspectorates, in which she closely collaborates with regulatory authorities. She also works on a book project on naming and shaming with Mike Levi (Cardiff). Judith is a member of the KNAW and LOWI, the Dutch Advisory Board for Scientific Integrity.

Registration

Mail to: t.t.butter@uva.nl