CSR, Local Content and Taking Control: Do Shifts in Rhetoric Echo Shifts in Power from the Centre to the Periphery?

In the current climate of increasing rhetoricRhetorics around protectionismProtectionism, nationalism and border security versus free movement, transnational corporationsCorporations are having to negotiate some particularly tricky issues. One of these is the increasing prevalence of local contentLocal content regulationsRegulations which are impinging more and more upon the ways those corporationsCorporations operate, including having an impact upon the scope and nature of corporate social responsibilityCorporate Social Responsibility(CSR) and sustainable developmentSustainable Developments activities. In this chapter I examine the historical, political and economicEconomics context of local contentLocal content policiesPolicies, exploring their roots in conflict Conflicts and the contemporary, contested discourses that lie behind the development Developments of different local contentLocal content requirements. As local contentLocal content requirements have become increasingly adopted by countries in the developing world they have displaced activities more generally associated with corporate social responsibilityCorporate Social Responsibility(CSR), a move which is synchronous with claims that CSR Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR) is a neo-colonial means by which the developed world attempts to continue to exert power Powers over its erstwhile colonies. I explore how this has worked in different contexts, highlighting the rhetorical nature of policy Policies setting, reflecting power Powers struggles on the international stage rather than meaningful or sustainable developmentsSustainable Developments in terms of national or local economies.