In the last few years, legitimacy has proven to be a fundamental power resource for the business class. Building on the idea of “discursive power,” investigations have demonstrated that when the business class successfully shapes public discourses and public opinion, its power increases. With this article, we contribute to this research by showing that businesses’ success in building discursive power, as expressed in individual trust in private companies, is limited by individual- and macro-level factors associated with class inequality, class politics, and power. Using data from 15 Latin American countries (2005–2015), we show that in the period studied, the propensity to trust private companies was significantly lower among those in underprivileged class positions (e.g., working-class people or the informal self-employed) and among those who identify with the political left and have less confidence in political institutions. At the macro level, trust in companies was lower in countries ruled by the left or in countries where inequality rose or where citizens’ trust in political institutions improved. At the end of this article, we identify three patterns of business legitimacy in Latin America and show how our results contribute to the recent research on trust, class, and power.

Across the developed democracies, there has been a rise in populist nationalism and anti-globalization sentiment aimed at reasserting sovereignty through the state. This article develops the concept of discursive power as an alternative basis for citizens to project their voice and influence into global politics. Discursive power arises from the framing role of ideas in orienting citizen judgements to the possibilities for acting beyond the state, as a precursor to deliberative forms of persuasion and agreement. Discursive power is ‘democratic’, we argue, when it enables those affected by global issues and problems to conceive of themselves as collective agents capable of responding. Generating discursive power outside the state, however, requires informal representatives to serve as interlocutors. Drawing on recent theories of representation, we describe how the claims of non-state actors could support the production and mobilization of citizens' discursive powers across borders. Our analysis underscores the importance of claim-making for progressive responses to globalization centred on the judgements of citizens. We conclude by surveying several challenges for democratic discursive power at the transnational and global levels and suggest some background institutions and practices to enhance this power.

Research on conflict in resource-rich countries suggests that resource extraction companies contribute to tension but not development. In recent times, public-private partnerships (PPPs) have flourished, in which set up regulation is not against business but in joint cooperation with corporate actors. Yet PPPs are criticized for serving business self-interest and increasing business power rather than the common good. The paper takes the Kimberley Process and the diamond industry as an example to examine the multi-faceted nature of business power when this PPP was negotiated. The core of the argument is that realist-informed perspectives about business power in PPPs and constructivist accounts emphasizing socialization and social learning processes only tell one part of the story. While demonstrating that the diamond industry acted as a both a socializing and socialized agent, the analysis of the different facets of power shows that structural and discursive power were crucial elements in making socialization happen in the first place.