Cette étude revisite la question de la gouvernance concernant la politique économique. Les agents au sein de l’économie politique cherchent à produire la stabilité politico- économique à travers la création de complémentarités institutionnelles. C’est le cas lors de moments de reconfiguration de la politique économique alors que ces changements défient des intérêts établis. La complémentarité institutionnelle est comprise comme une situation dans laquelle une institution profite de la présence d’une autre institution afin de remplir son rôle structurant dans l’économie politique. Nous démontrons que la gouvernance économique est crucialement affectée par la crainte de répéter des traumatismes institutionnels passées qui ont perturbé la stabilité économique et politique et les routines des processus des politiques publiques. L’hypothèse est que la menace de reproduire les conditions des traumatismes institutionnels passés conduit les acteurs à mettre en œuvre des réformes institutionnelles qui s’appuient sur la présence d’autres institutions afin de structurer la stabilité de l’économie politique, c’est à dire qu’ils créent des complémentarités institutionnelles. Cette thèse examine trois cas de processus de libéralisation en Amérique Latine ; le Brésil, le Chili, et le Mexique. Ces pays ont connu des crises économiques profondes dans les années 1980, en partie comme conséquence de la disparition définitive du modèle précédent. Ensuite, les trois pays ont mis en œuvre des réformes de libéralisation dans les décennies qui ont suivi. Dans les processus des réformes, la menace de l’instabilité est apparue dans ces trois pays avec une intensité différente. Lorsque la menace était imminente, la complémentarité institutionnelle était consolidée, alors que lorsqu’elle a disparu, aucune complémentarité institutionnelle n’a été effectivement constituée. La méthodologie utilisée est une comparaison croisée d’études de cas qui emploiera le traçage de processus visant l’élaboration d’une théorie puisque ceci est suggéré lorsque les causes menant à un résultat donné ne sont pas connues, mais qui peuvent être généralisées par la suite. Bien que le concept de complémentarités institutionnelles ait été largement utilisé en économie politique comparée, peu d’études ont été faites pour comprendre les raisons pour lesquelles elles sont créées. / This study revisits the question of governance regarding economic policy. Agents within the political economy will seek to produce political-economic stability through the creation of institutional complementarities. This is specially the case in moments of reconfiguration of economic policy when such changes challenge significant vested interests. Institutional complementarity is understood as the situation in which one institution takes advantage of other institution’s presence to fulfill its structuring role in the political economy. We demonstrate that economic governance is crucially affected by the fear of repeating past institutional traumas that disrupted economic and political stability and policymaking routines. The central hypothesis is that the threat of reproducing the conditions of past institutional traumas leads actors to carry institutional reforms that take advantage of other institutions’ presence to structure stability in the political economy, that is, they create institutional complementarities. The dissertation examines three cases of liberalization processes in Latin America: Brazil, Chile, and Mexico. These countries suffered profound economic crises in the 1980s partially as a consequence of a final demise of the previous model. Subsequently all implemented liberalizing reforms for the next decades. In the process of reform, the threat of instability appeared in those countries with a different intensity. When the threat was imminent the institutional complementarity consolidated, whereas when it disappeared no institutional complementarity was effectively constituted. The methodology used is a cross- comparison of case studies within which theory-building process tracing will be used in so far as this method is used when we do not know the causes leading to a given outcome, which in turn can be generalizable. While the concept of institutional complementarities has been used extensively in comparative political economy, not much has been done yet to understand why in some cases institutional complementarities appear, yet not in others.

‘Corporate social responsibility’ (CSR) and ‘socially responsible investment’ (SRI) have become predominant frameworks connecting business to society that have spread across the globe. They comprise a shared set of ideas and practices, such as those promoted in global reporting standards and by international organisations such as the UN Global Compact. Nonetheless, both are constructed and reproduced by companies in relation to context-specific social institutions, including norms and conventions shaping company engagement in social issues. Using a neo-institutionalist theoretical framework, the thesis examines constructions of social responsibility in discourse and within institutional contexts, across regions that are not often compared in the research terrain: two West European welfare states (Sweden and the UK) and two emerging African economies (South Africa and Mauritius). The purpose of the thesis is to add to the literature on CSR and SRI with a sociologically informed perspective that is comparative and connects institutional theory with social constructionism and a Foucauldian perspective on power. The thesis analyses how perceptions of CSR and SRI are constructed in relation to the social institutions that encase companies’ engagement with social issues, such as national level welfare configurations and the institution of financial investments. The main argument in this thesis is that CSR and SRI need to be seen as contextually constructed, in discourse and practice, in ways that draw the boundaries and set the conditions for company engagement with social issues. The thesis comprises three articles. Article 1 is a content analysis of company self-reporting on CSR and the article examines how the content given to CSR relates to broader welfare configurations and as such differs in four national settings across the divide between emerging African economies and Western welfare states. Article 2 is a discourse analysis that examines interpretative repertoires occurring in company self-reporting across the same set of four countries. The interpretative repertoires are analysed as discursive practices where power intersects with the production of knowledge on CSR. Article 3 focuses on SRI and examines responsible investing as a form of institutional work that institutional investors engage in. Based on an interview study with institutional investors in Sweden, the article analyses institutional work as a process that has the effect of both institutional creation and maintenance and it connects these institutional processes to the construction of meaning on SRI. In its entirety the thesis contributes a sociological perspective on how prevailing understandings of corporate social responsibility come into being and are reproduced. / Uppfattningar om företags samhällsansvar har begreppsliggjorts i huvudsak genom idéer om ’corporate social responsibility’ (CSR) och ’ansvarsfulla investeringar’. Under de senaste decennierna har dessa begrepp utvecklats till att bli vanligt förkommande och har spridits över världen. Som globala koncept medför de en gemensam uppsättning av idéer och metoder, såsom de som förs fram i internationella standarder för företags CSR rapportering, och utav internationella organisationer såsom FN:s Global Compact. Ändå skiljer de sig åt mellan olika kontexter och är konstruerade och återges av företag i förhållande till sociala sammanhang. Begreppen ges mening i relation till sociala institutioner i form av normer och konventioner som redan omger företag och sociala frågor. Baserat på nyinstitutionell teori undersöker avhandlingen konstruktioner av samhällsansvar och ansvarstagande, i diskurs och i institutionella sammanhang, över regioner som inte ofta jämförs i forskningen kring skillnader i företags samhällsansvar: två Västeuropeiska välfärdsstater (Sverige och Storbritannien) och två tillväxtekonomier i södra Afrika (Sydafrika och Mauritius). Syftet med avhandlingen är att bidra till litteraturen kring CSR och ansvarsfulla investeringar med ett sociologiskt perspektiv som är jämförande och för samman institutionell teori med social konstruktionism och Foucaults perspektiv på makt. Avhandlingen analyserar hur föreställningar om CSR och ansvarsfulla investeringar konstrueras i förhållande till de sociala institutioner som omger företags engagemang i samhällsfrågor, och belyser speciellt vikten av samhällets välfärdssystem och konventioner kring finansiella investeringar som betydelsefulla för dessa begrepp. Huvudargumentet i denna avhandling är att CSR och ansvarsfulla investeringar måste ses som kontextuellt skapade, i diskurs och praxis, på ett sätt som drar gränserna och skapar förutsättningarna för företags engagemang i samhällsfrågor. Avhandlingen omfattar tre artiklar. Artikel 1 är en innehållsanalys av företags självrapportering om CSR och artikeln undersöker hur innehållet som ges till CSR i självrapporteringen relaterar till hur samhället i övrigt hanterar välfärd och sociala frågor. Artikeln visar på hur CSR på så sätt skiljer sig åt mellan fyra olika länder där två är tillväxtekonomier i södra Afrika och två är Västeuropeiska välfärdsstater. Artikel 2 är en diskursanalys som undersöker språkliga repertoarer (interpretative repertoires) som förekommer i företags självrapportering om CSR, i samma uppsättning av fyra länder. Repertoarerna analyseras som tillämpandet av diskurs och de synliggör hur makt är av betydelse i skapandet av diskurser kring CSR. Artikel 3 fokuserar på ansvarfulla investeringar och undersöker detta som en form av aktivt skapande och återskapande av samhällsinstitutioner. Baserat på en intervjustudie med institutionella investerare i Sverige analyseras ansvarfullt investerande som en process som på samma gång innebär både skapande av en ny social institution, ansvarsfulla investeringar, och återskapande av en existerande institution, finansiella investeringar. Skapandet av nya idéer inom ramarna för en existerande institution påverkar innebörden i ansvarsfulla investeringar. I sin helhet bidrar avhandlingen med ett sociologiskt perspektiv på hur uppfattningar om företags samhällsansvar skapas och återskapas. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 1: Manuscript. Paper 2: Manuscript. Paper 3: Manuscript.</p>

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This article combines Aoki’s institutional complementarity concept with actor-centered institutional analysis of action situations to study herder behavior and institutional change in a complex pastoral social–ecological system. Transformation of the Mongolian Steppe Ecosystem in the face of climate and social change has led to a decline in pastoral mobility, which in turn is making the ecosystem less sustainable. Responding to this concern, Mongolian policymakers have designed pasture use and conservation policies. We evaluate whether the enacted policies are complementary to herders’ strategic choices. First, we reconstruct institutional choices herders make in the commons domain, where herders interact to use common pastures. Second, we track this process in the political economy domain, where pasture users support or resist government policies. Finally, we evaluate the complementarity of the strategic choices and resulting institutions in the interdependent action situations of both domains. In combination with game-theoretic model building, we have employed the process tracing method during field research in Mongolia. We have not identified any evident, stable institutional complementarity between high pastoral mobility and support for a policy of leasing and certification of land for winter and spring camps. Conversely, our findings do suggest that policies for establishing pasture user groups and pasture use planning can be effective. A critical mass of herders choosing to comply with these policies and engage in pastoral mobility will be crucial for sustaining the ecosystem. This will strengthen conditions for institutional complementarity and create a new institutional arrangement overall.

This thesis addresses the question as to why multilevel politics is becoming an integral part of politics in Europe. Multilevel politics is conceptualized as a system which functions through a complex web of political relations within and across levels of decision making. The thesis argues that the rise of multilevel politics can be explained by its institutionalization in terms of the emergence, the evolution and especially the effects of relevant institutions. Based on a mixed-method research project, the influence of European institutions on subnational actors and the alignment of actor motives with institutional characteristics are empirically shown. The first chapter of the dissertation establishes the centrality of institutions for political transformation, examines the role of transnational and domestic institutions for multilevel politics, and contextualizes the research question in terms of institution-actor relations. The second chapter develops a new-institutionalist theoretical framework that explains the emergence, the evolution and the effects of the institutions, and formulates a series of hypotheses with regard to freestanding institutional influence, power distribution, material benefits and political identification. The third chapter outlines the mixed-method research design which addresses individual-level and institutional-level variations through a Europe-wide survey and a comparative case study. The fourth chapter on survey results shows generally favourable views on multilevel politics, and strong associations of these views with the independent variables under scrutiny. The fifth chapter specifies a multivariate model which includes all posited variables and confirms the majority of the hypotheses. Therefore, the new-institutionalist argument is broadly confirmed, while there is relatively weak evidence to sustain sociological explanations. The final chapter compares the Committee of the Regions and the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, and examines the institutional characteristics which correspond to the hypothesized variables. It is then concluded that the two institutions share several overarching similarities, and display complementarity in other aspects.