The Politics of Privatizing Governance: The Political and Institutional Determinants of Corporate Social Responsibility in Africa

Companies often go above and beyond business requirements to promote development in the communities where they work. These efforts are frequently thought of as philanthropic acts aimed at generating good will for a company. However, previous findings, and the findings from this study, show that company efforts to promote what is often termed corporate social responsibility (CSR) cannot really be considered fully voluntary or philanthropic. CSR is shaped by economic, normative and institutional circumstances where a company is headquartered and, as this research will show, the institutional and political contexts where a company operates. While political and regulatory pressure for CSR in developing countries has previously been considered low, this research demonstrates the ways in which formal and informal political institutions do actually influence the CSR process in the African context.\ud \ud This dissertation uses a comparative case study methodology to understand CSR processes. The case studies focus on comparing operations within mineral mining companies, using De Beers and Anglo Gold Ashanti (AGA) operations in three countries, Botswana, Ghana and South Africa. This is done in order to compare how CSR varies within an individual company, isolating the effect of operational location. The research is structured into three empirical sections based mainly on fieldwork in Southern Africa and CSR spending data collected from De Beers and AGA. In the first section, an adapted institutional analysis and development framework is used to display how initial conditions at mining locations, community attributes and national and local institutions influence the CSR processes at each mining operation. The second section examines the varying ways governments and politicians can control, influence or structure CSR. How these various forms of control effect CSR projects and spending is analyzed by comparing mining operations in Botswana, South Africa and Ghana and in South Africa over time. The final research section focuses on the role of local institutions in the CSR process and the importance of the relationships between communities, local governments and mining companies, drawing on fieldwork in South Africa and Botswana