Civil Society Roles in CSR Legislation

While Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is often seen to involve voluntary and deliberative approaches such as certification, governments have recently stepped into the picture through national legislation. France’s Law on Duty of Vigilance adopted in 2017 is a landmark case of such legislation. Years of voluntary CSR certification schemes led by Civil Society were replaced by a new philosophy of fighting for mandatory CSR controlled by a judge. We depict the change of mindset and the related change of roles inside the coalition of Civil Society actors represents a Machiavellian Moment. The combination of collective civil society actors’ roles (namely nongovernmental organizations and labor unions) as Machiavellian Virtue with disruptive events as Machiavellian Fortuna made the law’s adoption possible. Based on this case study, we provide an analysis of civil society roles in the development of CSR-related legislation.