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Part of
Argumentation across Communities of Practice: Multi-disciplinary perspectives
Edited by Cornelia Ilie and Giuliana Garzone
[Argumentation in Context 10] 2017
► pp. 197–228

Chapter 9
Caught between profitability and responsibility

Arguing legitimacy in the pharmaceutical industry

This study investigates the discursive strategies of self-legitimation enacted by pharmaceutical companies during the 1998 drug-access crisis debate in South Africa, framing them within the context of the then emerging discourse of corporate social responsibility. The crisis erupted when thirty-nine pharmaceutical companies sued the South African government for passing a law that permitted the production of generic drugs to fight the AIDS epidemics, in open defiance of international patent laws. Working from a pragmadialectic perspective embedded in a broader discourse analytical framework, the study reconstructs the arguments brought forth by the two parties in the debate on the basis of a close reading of legal and media documents produced in the course of the case. The difference of opinion at the heart of the debate – whether commercial rights of companies could be overridden in the name of higher-level human rights – was eventually resolved in favour of the human rights approach through voluntary withdrawal of the case on the part of the pharmaceutical companies. However, the clash of ideologies it unveiled has remained largely unresolved, and attempts to negotiate a position that may grant the pharmaceutical sector a license to operate while preserving its commercial mission continue to feature extensively in the CSR communication of the pharmaceutical industry. The analysis of the unfolding of the debate and the evaluation of the arguments brought forth in its course and of the underlying assumptions from which they descended highlight a number of crucibles which continue to be central to today’s CSR discourse, and suggest that argumentation theory has an important role to play in the public understanding of social and economic developments.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Scope and method
  • 2.Background: The emergence of CSR discourse and the pharmaceutical industry
    • 2.1The rhetorical articulation of CSR: Managing conflict in discourse
  • 3.The drug access debate: Reconstructing the critical discussion
    • 3.1The facts
    • 3.2The argumentative articulation of the AIDS/HIV medicine access controversy
    • 3.3The drug access debate and assumptions about the role of business in society
  • 4.Negotiating legitimacy in the discourse of pharmaceutical corporations
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 2 November 2017
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https://doi.org/10.1075/aic.10.10cat
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