REGISTER HERE TO PARTICIPATE 03.06.2026
REGISTER HERE TO PARTICIPATE 04.06.2026
REGISTER HERE TO PARTICIPATE 05.06.2026

The event will be held in English

Business, Fascism, and the Erosion of Democracy

The conference is organised in collaboration with the University of Zurich, the Zicklin Center for Governance & Business Ethics at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and the Swiss National Science Foundation.

In recent years, scholars and public commentators have revisited fascism in light of broader transformations affecting democratic societies, including rising authoritarianism, populism, nationalism, and polarisation. Rather than confirming the anticipated triumph of liberal democracy, some point to emerging conditions described as “illiberal democracy,” “post-democracy,” or even “post-fascism,” where institutions formally persist but gradually lose their deliberative, pluralistic, and rule-of-law substance. Today, liberal democracies face growing pressure: core institutions such as free elections, judicial independence, and press freedom are increasingly strained, while trust declines and support for authoritarian leadership rises.

Business actors are not merely passive observers of these shifts. In particular, major tech firms and entrepreneurs have benefited from platform economies, the privatisation of digital infrastructures, and limited regulation. Their expanding economic power and control over data and information flows allow them to shape public discourse and political decision-making, while some promote far-reaching visions of the future that have prompted critical interpretations linking these developments to new forms of domination.

These developments invite closer scrutiny and form the core aim of the conference. Does the concept of fascism retain analytical value for understanding contemporary transformations, or has it become too broad to capture diverse forms of illiberalism? How does it relate to established concepts such as authoritarianism, populism, and polarisation, and in what ways might it extend existing frameworks? How do these phenomena connect to broader political-economic categories such as capitalism, liberalism, or libertarianism? And what are the implications for analysing the role of business in society?

Business ethics and management scholarship have only begun to address these questions. In particular, the ambivalent role of corporations, especially in the digital economy, in either eroding or reinforcing democratic institutions remains underexplored.

Prof. Andreas Scherer is a Professor of Business Administration at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. He teaches courses on globalisation and multinational corporations, theories of the multinational firm, and philosophy of science. He has published extensively on corporate social responsibility, corporate legitimacy, global governance, and digital transformation in democratic and fragile state contexts. He explores the sociopolitical and technological changes in the corporate environment and analyses implications for business ethics and business-society relationships. He has published over ten books and his conceptual and empirical studies have appeared in various academic journals. He serves as Associate Editor of Business Ethics Quarterlyand has been guest editor on a dozen of special issue journal publications. Scherer earned his degrees at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany, and has been awarded honorary doctoral degrees at the University of Hamburg (2020) and the University of Neuchatel (2025).

Prof. Guido Palazzo is a professor of Business Ethics at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. He studied business administration and philosophy at the University of Bamberg (Germany) and did his PhD in political philosophy at the University of Marburg (Germany). In his research he has focused on CSR, organised crime, and (un)ethical decision making in organisations. He currently investigates the power of narratives and storytelling to fuel change management processes in organisations and society. He has worked with the executive teams and supervisory boards of numerous leading companies in Europe, the USA, Asia and Latin America on ethics and compliance.

Prof. Eric Orts is the Guardsmark Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is tenured in the Legal Studies & Business Ethics Department with an appointment also in Management. Prior to joining Wharton’s faculty, he practiced law at Paul Weiss in New York City and was a fellow in corporate social responsibility at Columbia Law School. He has been a visiting faculty member at Columbia (law), NYU (law), INSEAD (business), and other schools. He earned his degrees from the University of Michigan (JD), and Columbia University (JSD). His primary research interests are in business theory, corporate governance, environmental sustainability, business ethics, and constitutional law. Examples include The Ethics of ESG (co-edited and forthcoming in Cambridge University Press); Business Persons: A Legal Theory of the Firm (Oxford University Press, rev. ed. 2015);  and The Moral Responsibility of Firms (co-edited) (Oxford University Press. 2017).

The event may be photographed and/or video recorded for archival, educational, and related promotional purposes. By attending this event, you are giving your consent to be photographed and/or video recorded.