The Social License to Operate in the Latin American Mining Sector: The cases of Bajo de la Alumbrera and Michiquillay

Abstract

In this extended abstract we intend to show that, in several of the Latin American (LA) countries, the outcomes that may derived from the interactions between Multinational Corporations (MNCs) and the ever widening variety of interest groups that are part of civil society are deeply influenced by the recipient country’s government political and economic attitudes regarding Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs). There are other effective ways to reduce the non commercial risks that FDIs, even when MNCs from environmentally ill reputed industries are involved, confront in the region: the Social License to Operate (SLO). Our research, in the form of a case study, analyzes the processes by which two different mining MNCs implemented their respective projects; the presence or absence of the SLO, as part of their corporate ethical behavior, led to polar outcomes: how and why that happened is the subject of our research.