Hiding the machine: stories, rights and the naturalisation of corporate technology
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This article shows how two powerful narratives, or ‘stories’, about corporations were developed and refined by different groups of scholars over specific periods of time as a response to growing concerns about the size and power of corporations, concerns which motivated calls for greater regulation. The stories responded to these concerns by an impressive feat of prestidigitation: each of these stories made the company disappear. The article argues that these ‘stories’ about corporations work in tandem with corresponding stories about the rights of such corporations. The former work as shields, which can be deployed in a range of policy spaces to counter calls for greater control over the power of corporations. The latter work as swords—the rights stories allow corporations to challenge restrictions on the exercise of their power, without foregrounding the corporation as the subject of those rights.
Source: Transnational Legal Theory
Author: Eduardo Gill-Pedro
Institution: Lund University
Language: English
Topic: Corporate Governance and Law
Subfield: Strategy and Management
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Funder: Ragnar Söderbergs stiftelse
OpenAlex ID: W4408185619