Following His Majesty’s Directives: Corporate Generosity, Social Responsibility, and State Making in Oman

Contenu

Titre

Following His Majesty’s Directives: Corporate Generosity, Social Responsibility, and State Making in Oman

Créateur

Steiner, Robin Thomas Voir tous les contenus avec cette valeur

Date

2021

Dans

Anthropological Quarterly Voir tous les contenus avec cette valeur

Résumé

, ABSTRACT:, This article investigates the social and political effects of the introduction of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Oman. With oil reserves dwindling, Oman faces the challenge of transforming a society and economy long dependent on distributive state spending into a diversified economy capable of continuing the nation’s prosperity after oil. As a seemingly market-based solution to the problem of “too much” government, CSR has been championed by officials and practitioners as a tool to empower private sector businesses to replace the state as a provider of welfare and services. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with members of Oman’s business community, state officials, and others, this article challenges these presumptions, demonstrating that CSR has been implemented in Oman in ways that perpetuate the nation’s dependence on oil revenues and distributive state subsidies. Pointing out that the Omani state’s subsidy-driven development has long relied on the incentivized collaboration of private sector businesses, this article argues that the introduction of CSR in Oman has occurred in ways that resonate with older practices of corporate generosity. Instead of introducing market-based alternatives to state-guided subsidies, CSR has been instituted in Oman in ways that allow the state to leverage private sector organizations to extend its distributive reach. In conversation with scholarship on the role of neoliberal discourses and practices in the diversification efforts of states of the Arab Gulf, this article highlights the discrepancy between development plans and their outcomes to demonstrate how seemingly neoliberal interventions may be co-opted to achieve alternative ends.

Langue

eng

volume

94

numéro

2

pages

283-311

doi

10.1353/anq.2021.0003

issn

1534-1518

Titre abrégé

Following His Majesty’s Directives

uri

https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/35/article/806031

Steiner, Robin Thomas, “Following His Majesty’s Directives: Corporate Generosity, Social Responsibility, and State Making in Oman”, 2021, bibliographie, consulté le 8 septembre 2024, https://ibadica.org/s/bibliographie/item/23414