Abstract
Recent discussions on corporate citizenship (CC) highlight the new
political role of corporations in society by arguing that corporations
increasingly act as quasi-governmental actors and take on what hitherto had
originally been governmental tasks. By examining political and sociological
citizenship theories, the authors show that such a corporate engagement
can be explained by a changing (self-)conception of corporate citizens from
corporate bourgeois to corporate citoyen. As an intermediate actor in
society, the corporate citoyen assumes co-responsibilities for social and civic
affairs and actively collaborates with fellow citizens beyond governmental
regulation. This change raises the question of how such corporate civic
engagement can be aligned with public policy regulations and how corporate
activities can be integrated into the democratic regime. To clarify the mode
of CC contributions to society, the authors will apply the tenet of subsidiarity
as a governing principle which allows for specifying corporations’ tasks as
intermediate actors in society. By referring to the renewed European Union
strategy for Corporate Social Responsibility, the authors show how such a
subsidiary corporate-governmental task-sharing can be organized.