Practices of Attributing Responsibility: Transnational Rule-Making and the Political Authority of Private Enterprises

The article discusses practices of attributing responsibility as a source of the political authority of transnational enterprises. We highlight how private enterprises use processes of attribution as a source of power and legitimacy, thus producing collectively binding trans national regulations. We illustrate our argument with reference to environmental protection in the context of deep-sea mining and corporate transparency in the field of human rights. Both cases illustrate that social dynamics (re-)constitutethe reference object as well as the reference subject of responsibility in line with corporate logics of action; such re-interpretations create political authority of private enterprises.