Of, By, and For Which People? Government and Contested Heritage in the American Midwest

Two government-owned and managed heritage sites in Indiana, USA, offer an opportunity to explore the role of governments in adjudicating the competing paradigms of value and contested uses. Strawtown Koteewi is a Hamilton County park and Mounds State Park is part of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources statewide park system. Each site has come under scrutiny in recent years. Strawtown Koteewi is one of the most significant sites in the area for understanding the history of Native peoples. After almost a decade of archaeological excavations, several Native American groups, under the auspices of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), initiated repatriation processes for the recovery of human remains, and some objected to the ongoing archaeological research. At Mounds State Park a coalition of citizens opposed a planned dam project intended to ensure a safe and plentiful water supply and to spur economic development in the area. In each case, the government entities have had to navigate the political landscapes of competing claims about the sites. These case studies expose the fissures between authorized heritage discourse and the paradigms of meaning among the diverse constituencies of the sites, and they highlight the tenuous position of public governance in privileging competing cultural, economic, and social interests. While not unique, the state and county agencies’ positions within these fields of power and their strategic choices reveal some of the barriers and constraints that limit their actions as well as the deep-seated ideologies of policies that perpetuate settler colonial politics in the control and interpretation of indigenous heritage

: A European Perspective

New standards of corporations' behaviors have been established in developed countries obliging them to record information about the ‘triple bottom line' in their annual reports. Companies, driven by their leaders, are now making sure to collect the data necessary to build specific indicators in relation with this triple bottom line in relations with ‘real' actions taken in relation with CSR issues. The fact that rating agencies (Innovest, Aspi, Novethic, Vigeo, etc.) and indicies (Footsie, etc.) have been created or transformed to follow this aspect has legitimated this fact. It has induced strategic orientations developed by corporations, especially multinational companies. Research about social, environmental, and overall ethical behavior in, and of companies has been developed. Simultaneously however, the concept of stakeholder has gained a kind of ‘metaphoric evidence'. In other words, the notion of stakeholder is accepted as such, and is widely used in discussions in, and around corporations, despite the fact that its theoretical background is very often ignored. It seems difficult to comprehend these managerial innovations without a minimum understanding of the outlines of the notion of stakeholders. The American references are numerous and dominant in this field: Caroll, Clarkson, Donaldson, Freeman, Jones, Wartik, Wicks, Wood, etc. These references have to be received and discussed by European Academics. In Denmark, we can quote Rendtorff, in France Bessire, Bonnafous-Boucher, Capron, Charreaux, Lépineux, Mercier, Pesqueux, Quairel, etc., in Hungary Zsolnai, in Ireland, O'Higgins, in Italy Zambon, in U.K., Antonocopoulou, Collier, Mr. & Mrs Kakabadse, Laurie etc. These lists are far from being exhaustive and they show the richness of this area. The aim of this book is to comment the American theoretical foundations of the notion of Corporate Social Responsibility, and more specifically, the concept of stakeholder as well as an attempt to define a European perspective

Towards a stakeholder society: Stakeholder theory vs theory of civil society

International audienc

Décider avec les parties prenantes: Approches d'une nouvelle théorie de la société civile

La théorie des parties prenantes est essentielle pour ceux engagés, pratiquement ou conceptuel-lement dans les transformations du capitalisme et du libéralisme. Méconnue, la théorie des parties prenantes n'est pas une théorie marginale : elle décrit tous les emboîtements possibles entre sphère publique et sphère privée, elle déconstruit la dualité entre ce qui appartiendrait au monde économique et des entreprises et ce qui relèverait du monde politique et du bien public, elle concerne tous ceux (individus ou groupes) qui ne sont pas des actionnaires et qui pourtant subis-sent ou influencent l'activité des organisations. De ce fait, on a pu traiter la théorie des parties prenantes comme étant une nouvelle théorie de la société civile. Les auteurs de cet ouvrage présentent les différentes approches théoriques de la théorie des parties prenantes car on connaît mal cette théorie pourtant élaborée depuis les années 60 par ER Freeman. On connaît mal aussi les ramifications qu'elle a donné lieu tant en matière de responsa-bilité sociale qu'en sociologie politique et en philosophie politique. Son utilité est incontestable car elle révéle les choix explicites et implicites des agents économiques, et des individus notam-ment quand ils recherchent des indicateurs pertinents (et non pas seulement performants) pour les guider. Cette mise en perspective explore également des champs d'application plus larges dans diffé-rents domaines, des domaines les plus techniques au plus prospectifs: gestion stratégique, droit du travail et des sociétés, sciences politiques, philosophie politique et morale. Ainsi les auteurs mettent-ils en discussion l'importance et les incidences de la théorie des parties prenantes en ma-tière de gouvernance d'entreprise, de gouvernance nationale et territoriale, et de gouvernance eu-ropéenne