Ours is an era of big companies, multinational brands and global business power, but also of seemingly unending conflict. Corporate Peace examines how corporations respond to the life-and-death business of war and peace. What happens when they come up against Mexican drug cartels, or the Ebola epidemic in Liberia? Through the experiences of behemoths such as Fiat, Veolia, BP and Unilever, Mary Martin shows how big business is increasingly critical in building a safer world, in the face of failed states, health pandemics, insurgencies and organised crime. Can companies do more than generate profits in the poorest and most fragile parts of the world? Should they also shoulder responsibilities neglected by government? Martin contends that corporations must move beyond simply 'doing no harm', or upholding human rights. They are becoming part of the solution, contributing expertise and investment to resolve complex issues of violence, authority and law. --

This book examines how multinationals can promote peace and stability in conflict regions. The authors interviewed CEOs of multinationals working in challenging countries such as Afghanistan, Burma and Rwanda, outlining the ingredients for an approach that can best lead to positive outcomes for business, people and the environment.

A challenge to conventional wisdom, this eye-opening account explains how businesses can stabilise conflict and improve people's lives while still pursuing the bottom line. Ours is an era of big companies, multinational brands and global business power, but also of seemingly unending conflict. Corporate Peace examines how corporations respond to the life-and-death business of war and peace. What happens when they come up against Mexican drug cartels, or the Ebola epidemic in Liberia? Through the experiences of behemoths such as Fiat, Veolia, BP and Unilever, Mary Martin shows how big business is increasingly critical in building a safer world, in the face of failed states, health pandemics, insurgencies and organised crime. Can companies do more than generate profits in the poorest and most fragile parts of the world? Should they also shoulder responsibilities neglected by government? Martin contends that corporations must move beyond simply 'doing no harm', or upholding human rights. They are becoming part of the solution, contributing expertise and investment to resolve complex issues of violence, authority and law. Corporate Peace offers an alternative account of business, challenging our assumptions about security and how companies function in an unstable world. It is an invitation to anyone interested in how society works: to rethink how multinationals can mobilise their power and influence for the common good.

Private corporations are rarely discussed as playing a role in efforts to curb civil violence, even though they often have strong interests in maintaining stability. Violence often damages the infrastructure necessary to deliver goods to market or may directly target companies. Corporations also have a normative obligation to conduct business in ways that promote peace. While there are historical examples of firm-instigated violence and firms reaping benefits from instability and conflict, there is also evidence that corporations proactively engage in peacebuilding. For example, firms devise programs to promote economic development, offer access to education, and employ former combatants. In The Building and Breaking of Peace, Molly M. Melin develops a theory of the conflicting roles corporations play in both building and preventing peace. Melin shows that corporations engage in peacebuilding when there is a gap in the state's capacity to enforce laws, but they also weigh the opportunity costs of peacebuilding, responding to the need for action when conditions enable them to do so. Firms are uniquely situated in their ability to raise the cost of violence, and proactive firms can increase the years of peace in a country. At the same time, an active private sector can make it harder for states with ongoing conflict to reach an agreement, as they act as an additional veto player in the bargaining process. Including original cross-national data of peacebuilding efforts by firms in Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa from 2000 to 2018, and in-depth case analyses of corporate actions and outcomes in Colombia, Northern Ireland, and Tunisia, Melin shows that corporations help to prevent violence but not resolve it. In examining the corporate motives for peacebuilding and the implications of these activities for preventing violence and conflict resolution, the book builds a more holistic picture of the peace and conflict process. The findings also help explain why armed civil conflicts persist despite the multitude of diverse actors working to end them.

"Many people feel powerless in the face of what they see on TV or read in the news -- a world in crisis, with wars and violence taking place across the globe. Scilla Elworthy has written a book for all those who want to step out of helplessness and apply their own personal skills to do something about the challenges now facing us."--Back cover.

The intersection of business, peace and sustainable development is becoming an increasingly powerful space, and is already beginning to show the capability to drive major global change. This book deciphers how different forms of corporate engagement in the pursuit of peace and development have different impacts and outcomes. It looks specifically at how the private sector can better deliver peace contributions in fragile, violent and conflict settings and then at the deeper consequences of this agenda upon businesses, governments, international institutions and not least the local communities that are presumed to be the beneficiaries of such actions. It is the first book to compile the state-of-the-field in one place and is therefore an essential guide for students, researchers, policy-makers and practitioners on the role of business in peace. Without cross-disciplinary engagement, it is hard to identify where the cutting edge truly lies, and how to take the topic forward in a more systematic manner. This edited book brings together thought leaders in the field and pulls disparate strands together from business ethics, management, international relations, peace and conflict studies in order to better understand how businesses can contribute to peacebuilding and sustainable development. Before businesses take a deeper role in the most complicated and risky elements of sustainable development, we need to be able to better explain what works, why it works, and what effective business efforts for peace and development mean for the multilateral institutional frameworks. This book does just that.