Private Governance, Sustainable Development, and Corporate Social Responsibility: China and Italy in Comparative and Transnational Perspectives

Activities by private actors in transnational sphere have been proliferating along with globalisation process. Private governance, either national or transnational, is realised in various ways, one of which closely relates to corporate social responsibility (CSR). Private governance and CSR are partially interwoven but are not the same on the whole. CSR roots deeply in social values, so does some initiatives in form of private governance. As ideology and practice, sustainable development has been influential for decades, and represents one of the mainstream social values. The thesis analyses above phenomena in Italy and China mainly, as well as other countries when necessary, with a focus on enterprise. Specifically, CSR, which is intrinsically related to sustainable development and often realised with the involvement of private governance, will be studied by comparing CSR in Italy and CSR in China, and by analysing the connections between the two from a transnational perspective.