ReportGovernance Studies at Brookings

Democracy Playbook 2025: Seven Pillars to Defend Democracy in 2025 and Beyond

Edited by Norman Eisen & Jonathan Katz, 2025
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/v4_democracy-playbook-2025.pdf

This third edition of the Democracy Playbook offers evidence-based best practices for reversing democratic backsliding, to help citizens and stakeholders reclaim good governance, transparency, and the rule of law, and strengthen democratic resilience.  It outlines how the business sector has historically supported these efforts by fighting corruption (Pillar 3) through actions like opposing state capture, supporting anti-corruption laws, and protecting whistleblowers, in addition to making democracy deliver (Pillar 7) through fair wages, labor rights, and investment in underserved communities. It calls on companies to continue this role, emphasizing that democratic stability is essential for reducing risk and sustaining long-term economic opportunity.

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301 – 308 of 308 results showing
BookHarvard University Press
The Fracturing of the American Corporate Elite
Mark Mizruchi, 2013

Advances the argument that American CEOs, seemingly more powerful today than ever, have abrogated the key leadership role they once played in addressing national challenges, with grave consequences for American society. 

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ReportUN
UN Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights
2011

Widely accepted multi-sector framework outlining expectations for companies to evaluate and disclose their commitment to human rights, identify salient issues, identifying processes for responding to claims, conducting due diligence and identifying strategies to prevent, mitigate or remediate adverse impacts on individuals and communities. Supports corporate political responsibility by outlining political rights as human rights, and providing established processes to draw on. 

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ReportHeritage Foundation
Cronyism: Undermining Economic Freedom & Prosperity Around the World
2010

This article outlines how crony capitalism distorts the market, violates the principles of free markets, and risks value creation for all, as reflected in the Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom.

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ArticleSSIR
Lobbying for Good
Peterson/Pftizer, 2009

Outlines a framework to help companies determine how to engage with social issues and an appropriate level of engagement—ranging from supporter to champion—describing the key to an effective engagement plan that integrates functional silos, all bolstered by compelling case studies.

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ReportUN Environmental Programme
A legal framework for the integration of environmental, social and governance issues into institutional investment
Freshfields, 2005

This seminal report from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, addresses the question of whether institutional investors such as pension funds and insurance companies are legally permitted to integrate environmental, social and governance issues into their investment decision-making and ownership practices. The study describes the legal framework for institutions in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, the UK and the US.

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ReportAccountAbility, UN Global Compact
Towards Responsible Lobbying
Simon Zadek, 2005

This guide provides a framework for companies and NGO's to use to determine whether their lobbying practices are responsible.

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BookBerrett Koehler
Walking the Talk
Charles Holliday, Jr., Stephan Schmidheiny, Philip Watts, 2002

The book opens by establishing the minimum expectation that businesses support the right rules of the game—those rewarding long-term value creation rather than destruction—and shows how companies can live their values through cross-sector collaboration, eco-efficiency, and strategies advancing prosperity, planet, and people, supported by real-world cases.

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ArticleMIT Sloan
Finding the Middle Ground in a Politically Polarized World
Craig Smith and Daniel Korschun

Presents a framework for when companies should present forceful or tempered political positions based on their publicly stated values and materiality.

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