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12 Geo. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 429 (2014)
Corporations, the Democratic Deficit, and Voting

handle is hein.journals/geojlap12 and id is 447 raw text is: Corporations, the Democratic Deficit, and Voting WAHEED HUSSAIN AND JEFFREY MORIARTY* ABSTRACT Many corporations are enthusiastic participants in the political arena. The most common, and most studied, forms of corporate political activity are lobbying and campaign finance (Hillman, Keim, & Schuler, 2004). Increasingly, however, corporations are engaging in a new kind of political activity. They are taking on roles traditionally played by the state, notably, by providing public goods like education, environmental protection and disease prevention, and helping to sustain and enforce civil regulations like the UN Global Compact, the Business Charter for Sustainable Development, and the Voluntary Standards on Security and Human Rights (Kobrin, 2009; Matten & Crane, 2005; Ruggie, 2004; Scherer & Palazzo, 2011; Vogel, 2010). Many writers argue that a democratic deficit is created when private actors such as corporations take on state functions (Brenkert, 1992; Matten & Crane, 2005; Scherer & Palazzo, 2011). The problem, it is said, is that the course of public life is being shaped by agents who are not accountable to the public. We evaluate this claim and consider what should be done about it. We focus in particular on a recent attempt, put forward principally by Palazzo and Scherer (Palazzo & Scherer 2006; Scherer Baumann-Pauly, & Schneider, 2013; Scherer & Palazzo, 2007, 2011; Scherer, Palazzo, & Baumann, 2006), to address the democratic deficit by democratizing corporations. We argue that their proposal, while promising, has a significant defect. We then propose a remedy for this defect. In sum, our goal is to call attention to a new kind of corporate political activity, to highlight its main ethical defect, and to examine in detail an attempt to address it. More generally, this paper contributes to our understanding of the evolving role of corporations in society. I. INTRODUCTION ...................................... 430 II. THE NEW CPA: AVOIDING AN OLD PROBLEM BUT FACING A NEW ONE ........................................... 433 III. Is THERE A DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT? ........................ 435 * Waheed Hussain is Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Toronto. Jeffrey Moriarty is Associate Professor of Philosophy, Bentley University. @ 2014, Waheed Hussain and Jeffrey Moriarty. This paper is equally the work of both authors. For helpful discussion of it, we thank participants in the ethics of lobbying symposium, sponsored by the Georgetown Institute for the Study of Markets and Ethics in November of 2013. For comments, we thank Chris MacDonald and Jason Brennan. 429

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