Andreas Georg Scherer, University of Zurich

Peter Bloom, University of Essex

Cristina Neesham, Newcastle University

Yuan Li, Saint Mary's College of California

The purpose of this Special Issue is to examine the ongoing transformations of democratic societies by analyzing the political and ideological projects that position themselves against liberal democracy—be they postliberalism, (techno-)feudalism, (tech-)fascism, and other variants of illiberalism. It investigates the evolving roles of the state, executive power, digital technologies, media industries, social movements, and other non-state actors, while questioning how the moral and political responsibilities of business must be redefined amid democratic backsliding. The emerging illiberal context is marked by exclusionary practices, the erosion of participatory and deliberative norms, the refusal to recognize legitimate actors and positions, assertions of absolute truths, the rise of transgressive publics and politics, and sustained attacks on democratic institutions. While preserving the appearance of democratic legitimacy, these practices in effect consolidate a more illiberal and authoritarian form of democratic order.

Business enterprises are not merely bystanders in this process of replacing liberal democracy; they are among its principal architects. The corporate consolidation of communication platforms, the privatization of data and public discourse, and the fusion of financial and technological authority have blurred the boundaries between market and state. Platform companies have become de facto sovereign actors, shaping the flow of information, public deliberation, and even electoral outcomes. Surveillance capitalism transforms human experience itself into a raw material for prediction and control. The result is a system in which democratic citizenship is gradually replaced by managed participation and algorithmic modulation of behavior. What emerges is not the totalitarianism of the past but an illiberal order in which formal democratic procedures coexist with substantive autocracy.

Business ethics, as a field, must respond to this epochal shift. For decades, business ethics and corporate responsibility research have operated within the horizon of liberal democracy, assuming markets as embedded in legal and moral frameworks that guarantee pluralism and deliberation. Yet this assumption no longer holds. The rise of far-right movements, illiberal governments, and corporate-state alliances challenges the moral premises upon which much of business ethics has been built. The discipline can no longer treat democracy as a stable background condition but must confront the ways in which business practices and technological infrastructures actively participate in the reconfiguration of power.

This Special Issue addresses the political foundations of business ethics. It calls for new theoretical and empirical research that examines how the moral assumptions of capitalism intersect with the dynamics of authoritarianism. The goal is not to conflate capitalism with fascism or illiberalism but to investigate how certain corporate and managerial logics—efficiency, obedience, unity, the valorization of strong leadership—can, under specific historical conditions, align with the political and affective structures of illiberal ideologies. The contemporary proliferation of conspiratorial thinking, anti-intellectualism, and technocratic fatalism is not external to business but often reproduced within its organizational culture and discourse. By bringing illiberal perspectives into analytical focus, the issue invites reflection on the dark side of corporate modernity and the complicity of economic institutions in the moral crises of democracy.

Business Ethics Quarterly has been a central venue for research on how corporations wield forms of authority with implications for democratic governance – be it political CSR, stakeholder engagement, or corporate citizenship. However, this research has largely assumed the persistence of broadly liberal-democratic institutional conditions in which dialogue, participation, and deliberation remain viable. The Special Issue addresses the reality that such assumptions can no longer be taken for granted and therefore focuses on postliberalism, technofeudalism, and resurgent authoritarianism to extend existing frameworks toward a more critical theory of the firm under conditions of eroding democracies. Recent scholarship on digital governance and organized immaturity provides a crucial foundation for rethinking corporate power in the contemporary political landscape, demonstrating how digital infrastructures generate new forms of dependency, opacity, and behavioral modulation that undermine the epistemic capacities required for democratic participation – not only in markets but in public life more generally.

The Special Issue brings together adjacent yet still separate bodies of literature—such as political CSR, legitimacy theory, digital ethics, and historical or comparative analyses of corporate-state entanglement—to examine the role of business and technology in the broader shift toward illiberal forms of governance. The aim is to engage scholars from business ethics, management, law, political theory, sociology, philosophy, and media studies, to examine the intersection of business, illiberalism, and erosion of democracy. The scope is deliberately broad, unified by a concern with the moral and institutional transformations of capitalism under illiberalism. Normative analyses should examine corporate legitimacy and political responsibility, asking how firms should act when democratic institutions weaken or when economic success depends on alignment with illiberal regimes. Conceptual and theoretical work may seek to reinterpret categories such as fascism, authoritarianism, technocracy, and postliberalism in ways that make them analytically relevant for business ethics. Empirical and organizational research may investigate policies and practices through which firms either resist or reproduce authoritarian tendencies, such as their use of surveillance and algorithmic management, their political lobbying and media influence, or their role in financing and normalizing illiberal movements. Comparative and historical studies can trace continuities between the corporate strategies of interwar fascism and the political economy of the present, while critical interpretive work can analyze ideological vocabularies—such as meritocracy, disruption, or technocracy—that lend moral credibility to authoritarian capitalism.

Potential topics

• Corporate–state alliances in illiberal or hybrid regimes
• Technological infrastructures of authoritarianism and/or technocratic power (surveillance, algorithmic governance, platform monopolies)
• Corporate influence on public spheres, media ecosystems, and democratic deliberation
• Historical lessons from business involvement in interwar fascism
• Postliberal and technocratic ideologies shaping contemporary corporate governance
• Political CSR under conditions of eroding/decaying democracy
• Organizational culture, leadership, and the normalization of authoritarian values
• Moral agency, dissent, and resistance inside firms against illiberal corporatism
• How do contemporary corporate policies and practices contribute to authoritarian consolidation, postliberal governance, and illiberal forms of democracy?
• In what ways do managerial logics (efficiency, obedience, strong leadership) intersect with authoritarian or proto-fascist political ideologies?
• How do digital platforms function as political actors shaping public discourse, identity formation, and democratic norms?
• What forms of corporate complicity or resistance emerge in contexts of rising identity politics, far-right populism, disinformation, and illiberal governance?
• How should business ethics reconceptualize corporate political responsibility when liberal-democratic assumptions no longer hold?
• How do illiberal ideologies such as postliberalism, technofeudalism, cyberlibertarianism, or nationalist capitalism reconfigure corporate legitimacy?
• How do autocratic leaders and change agents use rhetorical tropes, arguments, and symbols to make meaning and influence a reality, to enact crises or states of emergency, and to construct a boundary between 'us' and 'them'?
• What normative frameworks can guide responsible corporate behavior under conditions of weakened institutions, captured states, or authoritarian drift?

Timeline

• Invalid DateTime: Publication
• October 30, 2026: Pre-submission development online workshop application deadline
• November 26, 2026: Pre-submission development online workshop convenes
• April 30, 2027: Manuscripts submission deadline