Codetermination and the Democratic State

A qualitative analysis of the potential codetermination holds for protecting democratic institutions from the dangers inherent in the accumulation of extreme waelth by private corporations. The authors argue that by splitting corporate voting rights between shareholders and employees, codetermination could play a similar role to the Constitutional separation of powers.

2020

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A 2021 qualitative analysis finds that codetermination is an effective strategy for curbing corporate political power. “ Understanding codetermination solely as an instrument to protect employees or to improve corporate governance and/or performance fundamentally underestimates its potential contribution to society.” Codetermination can help protect the democratic process by curbing excessive corporate power. The largest corporations already account for a larger share of the economy than at almost any time during the last 100 years, and the emerging data economy threatens to further consolidate economic resources. By allowing employees to elect a significant portion of corporate directors, codetermination can play a similar role as that of the Constitutional separation of powers. If the goal of codetermination is to curb excessive political power, it may be sufficient to impose mandates that affect only a handful of the largest corporations, without making codetermination a generalized feature of the US corporate landscape.

authors

Horst Eudenmueller Jens Dammann

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Codetermination