Stakeholder Dialogue as Agonistic Deliberation: Exploring the Role of Conflict and Self-Interest in Business-NGO Interaction

: Many companies engage in dialogue with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) about societal issues. The question is what a regulative ideal for such dialogues should be. In the literature on corporate social responsibility (CSR), the Habermasian notion of communicative action is often presented as a regulative ideal for stakeholder dialogue, implying that actors should aim at consensus and set strategic considerations aside. In this article, we...