This research project explores key questions in the democratic governance of contemporary economic institutions, notably labour markets regulation and the welfare state. The underlying assumption is that contemporary capitalist governance marginalizes, excludes and disenfranchises large parts of the population in what has been aptly dubbed the “winner-takes-all-society” (Hacker and Pierson, 2011). The re-enfranchisement of economic stakeholders remains one of the key challenges in political theory, economic philosophy and business ethics.

This project is organized around a slightly amended version of the well-known conceptual scheme pioneered by Albert Hirschman (1970), in which disaffected stakeholders opt for either “exit” or “voice” as a strategy to regain economic sovereignty. The purpose of this project is to examine under what conditions economic stakeholders favour exit rather than voice strategies in the context of labour markets, firms and corporations, and the welfare state (social insurance, tax credits, basic income, etc.).

We are interested in discovering under what conditions each of these strategies is desirable or should be given priority, how they relate to each other in concrete economic institutions, and how to cash out these general strategies in terms of policy and institutional design. We hope to bring together experts in economic distribution, workplace democracy, taxation, welfare policy, and financial and business regulation to explore the prospects for economic governance grounded in the values of solidarity, inclusion and democracy.