Jill Timms

The Olympics as a platform for protest: A case study of the London 2012 'ethical' Games and the Play Fair campaign for workers' rights

The Olympic Games, with its distinctive ethos and reach, offers a valuable opportunity for those able to mobilise it as a platform for their own purposes. This paper focuses on how global social justice groups are pursuing this goal. It is argued that the types of protest utilising the Olympic platform change over time and reflect distinct historical phases of the Games. Contemporary anti-Olympic and Olympic watchdog campaigns are characterised by contestation over the prioritising of corporate interests, so contribute to wider critiques of globalising capitalism. The Play Fair campaign for the rights of workers making official Olympic merchandise and supplies exemplifies this, as it mobilises the Olympic platform to question and influence working practices within transnational supply chains. A case study of the campaign is presented, drawing on documentary analysis, interviews and participant observations undertaken since the launch of PlayFair 2012 in February 2010. It was found that by targeting London 2012 corporate discourses of ‘ethics’ and ‘sustainability’ in its campaign to ensure a ‘sweat free’ Olympics, Play Fair connects the production of major sporting events to wider issues of global inequality, poverty and structural problems in transnational labour markets.

A Sociological Approach to the Problem of Competing CSR Agendas

CSR as both a concept and a practice is of immense interest to the social sciences, being situated within the realms of the business-society relationship. Questions of how commercial and societal interests interact, and the consequences, have been a focus of sociology since the formation of the discipline. CSR can be seen as a recent move within this dynamic relationship, with the ‘social’ element of CSR stubbornly remaining fundamental to its character. To date though, sociological contributions to understanding CSR and its potential have been limited. This is changing, however the potential contribution of the social sciences is vast given the theoretical, methodological and empirical insights to be drawn on. This chapter focuses on the contribution sociology can offer and does so mainly by addressing a key concern associated with CSR, that of competing agendas. These arise from the diverse claims made about what CSR does or should aim to do, and result in conflict that draws energy away from and creates barriers to sustainable change. How can a sociological approach help to understand this contested nature of CSR, and improve the possibility of a CSR that unifies rather than divides? Drawing on sociological research into the mobilisation of CSR by groups engaged with the responsibilities of business, four categories of competing agendas are offered: professional, political, activist and corporate. From this, CSR is seen as a battleground and the terrain of the struggle is made more visible. A sociological perspective identifies rival pressures and power relations within these competing agendas and makes concrete the challenges that must be addressed in order to develop a dominant approach to CSR that all can positively engage in for the betterment of society. Sociological analysis of how CSR activity is extending globally into ever more spheres of activity, including policy and development arenas, also demonstrates how vital it is for competing agendas to be unpacked and conflicts addressed.

Bordering on the Unknown: Approaches to Global Civil Society Data

The Global Civil Society Yearbook programme has always involved efforts to collate and collect data that might inform our understanding of this complex phenomenon. In addition to the empirical evidence used by chapter authors, we have included sections of quantitative data in most editions. These have been compiled from a number of sources and presented in various formats, following a conceptual framework devised by Helmut Anheier (Anheier 2001). The concepts that are central to the study of global civil society (GCS) do not lend themselves easily to the classical, conventional research methods and methodologies of the social sciences. Anheier and Katz have explored a number of ways in which existing data might be analysed for GCS studies, whilst Timms has managed a pilot study in collecting new data on civil society events through a network of GCS correspondents, and Pianta has collected data on parallel summits and GCS events. At the same time, the evolving literature about the nature of GCS has produced some key theoretical principles from which methodologies for capturing GCS might be further developed. And lastly, technologies enabling citizens to report data themselves have become widely accessible and increasingly used by civil society actors. In this chapter we outline the nature and challenges of operationalising GCS with empirical data, and propose a new data collection initiative that builds on the latest practical and theoretical contributions to this project.