On October 16, FESA PI Knut Christian Myhre presented a paper entitled Reforming Welfare: Expectations, Communication, and Ownership in Norway's Oil-Fund at the Theory Seminar of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI).
The seminar occured on the invitation of Research Professor Morten Bøås of NUPI.
In his presentation, Myhre explored the instruments by which the Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG) seeks to influence the corporations in which it has an ownership stake. The paper focused in particular on the seven expectation documents that orchestrate the company dialogue, which along with voting at annual shareholder meetings constitutes GPFG’s primary and prioritized means for the exercise of ownership.
The paper investigated how the different documents—ranging from the rights of children to sustainable oceans—are drafted and how they seek to further a host of international principles to facilitate the integration of environmental and social agendas as explicit objectives of these corporations. On this basis, it explored how the documents emerge from a complex communicative field to address concerns affecting the life and well-being of a plurality of world’s population.
On this basis, Myhre argued that the documents and dialogues reframe how large multinational corporations engage the exigencies of human welfare in terms that that are not fully or necessarily under the thrall of the nation-state, and how these dialogues reciprocally recast the managerial practices of these corporations.
The seminar was attended by researchers, NGO representatives, state officials, embassy personnel, and members of the public. The seminar was filmed and is available on NUPI's YouTube channel.