REBALANCE

REBALANCE (Reframing disruptivE Business in multinAtional corporations and gLobal value chAins within a democratic and iNClusive citizEnship process) is a joint project by The University of Pisa, the Ca ‘Foscari University of Venice, the University of Stockholm, the Wageningen University in the Netherlands, the University of Bath in the United Kingdom, the Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University in Kharkiv in the Ukraine, the NGO Source International and the Hertie School. 

The project will run from 2022 to 2025 and scrutinise the relationship between democracy and capitalism. While democracies are increasingly under threat in many parts of the world, power concentration among ever fewer and larger corporations makes capitalism suspicious of contributing to these threats. The main question at the core of the project is how to re-embed democracy in capitalism. Our team at the Hertie School oversees the side of the project which is concerned with the future of democracy, while our project partners investigate how and to what extent companies and large corporations influence and interfere with democratic processes. REBALANCE will also create a permanent observatory on democracy and capitalism which, among other things will become an incubator of social enterprises doing democracy work.

In our research we focus on alternative forms of organising such as social enterprises and investigate whether and how these organisational forms contribute to democracy. More specifically, we investigate alternative organizations in the food system - including agriculture - in order to see to what extent such organisations employ democratic modes of organising and whether internal democratic organising has effects on the reproduction of democratic principles beyond organizational boundaries in the broader food system.  

The latest news and events from all consortium partners involved in REBALANCE can be found on the REBALANCE website.