Business and the Radical Right: Support, Resistance or Accommodation?

To what extent and in what ways has business—companies and their collective associations—mobilised to support, counter or accommodate the rise of the radical right since the financial crisis in different capitalist democracies? Classic works in political economy (Polanyi 1944; Gourevitch 1986) have highlighted the key role that business plays in shaping how individual countries respond to economic and political crises. Despite this there has been relatively little research on business reaction to the contemporary rise of radical right politicians and parties in established democracies since 2008 (for exceptions see Feldmann & Morgan 2020; Kindermann 2021). This paper seeks to address this gap by examining two crucial cases, Germany and the US, in which initial business reaction to the radical right appears to differ in nature and coherence (Levitsky & Ziblatt 2024). I use publicly disclosed corporate campaign / party donations as well as the political activity and positions revealed by large companies and business associations in published documents, including corporate earnings calls, to systematically analyse how and how coherently business has reacted to the rise of the radical right in two countries. I analyse and compare business engagement with the radical right in both countries from 2015 to the present, including the latest national elections in the US and Germany in 2024 and 2025, respectively. By examining this political engagement before the radical right gained office in either country, I can trace business response over time and create common points of comparison across the two countries. Taken together this systematic comparative analysis will offer deeper insight into how business in Germany and the US have responded to the growing threat of the radical right and help to tease out potential explanations for why this response varies across contemporary capitalist democracies. References: Feldmann, M. & Morgan, G. 2023. ‘Introduction’ in Business and populism: The odd Couple? Oxford University Press. Gourevitch, P. 1986. Politics in hard times: Comparative responses to international economic crises. Cornell University Press. Kinderman, D. 2021. German business mobilization against right-wing populism. Politics & Society, 49(4). Levitsky, S. & Ziblatt, D. 2024. There are four anti-Trump pathways we failed to take. There is a Fifth. New York Times (24/10/2024). Polanyi, Karl (2001 [1944]). The great transformation. Beacon Press.