Mary Martin

A challenge to conventional wisdom, this eye-opening account explains how businesses can stabilise conflict and improve people’s lives while still pursuing the bottom line.

Ours is an era of big companies, multinational brands and global business power, but also of seemingly unending conflict. CORPORATE PEACE examines how corporations respond to the life-and-death business of war and peace. What happens when they come up against Mexican drug cartels, or the Ebola epidemic in Liberia? Through the experiences of behemoths such as Fiat, Veolia, BP and Unilever, Mary Martin shows how big business is increasingly critical in building a safer world, in the face of failed states, health pandemics, insurgencies and organised crime.

Can companies do more than generate profits in the poorest and most fragile parts of the world? Should they also shoulder responsibilities neglected by government? Martin contends that corporations must move beyond simply ‘doing no harm’, or upholding human rights. They are becoming part of the solution, contributing expertise and investment to resolve complex issues of violence, authority and law.

CORPORATE PEACE offers an alternative account of business, challenging our assumptions about security and how companies function in an unstable world. It is an invitation to anyone interested in how society works: to rethink how multinationals can mobilise their power and influence for the common good.

‘A novel and challenging perspective on the purpose and merits of MNEs … Deeply insightful’ — Hinrich Voss, Professor of International Business

‘Martin’s highly original approach shows how global enterprises can accept responsibility for bringing peace and greater prosperity to remote, challenged communities in troubled regions of the world. Using vivid storytelling and incisive thinking, she redefines and broadens the responsibilities of the 21^st century capitalist corporation’ — Gavyn Davies, Chairman of Fulcrum Asset Management, former Chairman of the BBC and former Partner of Goldman Sachs

Dr Mary Martin is Director of the UN Business and Human Security Initiative at LSE IDEAS. Her research focuses on the role of the private sector in peacebuilding and sustainable development and multilateralism in the global system. She has worked with the UN and the European Union to promote human security and local ownership of peace and development. Dr Martin holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of Cambridge.