Periodic Reporting for period 1 - REBALANCE (Rebalancing disruptivE Business of multinAtional corporation and gLobal value chAins within democratic and iNClusive citizenship processes)
Reporting period: 2022-10-01 to 2023-09-30
The REBALANCE project will fill this gap by investigating how large companies have contributed to past and present threats to democracy and how they can promote future democracy, enhancing different business models and alternative organizational forms.
The project aim to identify which is the most effective regulatory control of economic actors, which avoids anti-democratic distortions and reveals human rights violators, and what makes large firms accept or resist such control and which are the most effective ways to tackle (self-)exclusion from the democratic participation of victims of business-related human rights infringements and other marginalized categories, relying on empowerment centered partnerships between firms and other entities (e.g. NGOs).
REBALANCE will also investigate whether and how companies respond to populisms, and how alternative organizational forms such as social enterprises might embed and foster democracy.
The expected project outcomes are in line with the call for: ‘Theoretically and empirically robust recommendations aiming to instill greater democratic accountability and inclusion in economic processes'.