Billionaire Backlash: The Age of Corporate Scandal and How It Could Save Democracy - Hardcover

by Pepper Culpepper (Author), Taeku Lee (Author)

The surprising story of how corporate scandals - from Enron to the Facebook privacy scandal - change the way the world works for the better.

Pepper Culpepper and Taeku Lee draw on a decade of research on policymaking and public opinion to show us how scandals can ignite a public with few political outlets for their discontent. Scandals don't simply dominate news cycles: they can provoke us to demand better policy, spurring governments to adopt rules that protect us from massive corporations run amok.

Today it is giant companies, not governments, who run the world. They launch rockets into space, control satellite communication and develop era-defining AI technologies. But around the globe, these corporate titans are facing increasing public hostility.

Tech giants are seen as promoting misinformation, undermining democracy and violating our privacy. Big banks, reeling since the financial crisis of 2008, continue to be racked with major scandals. Drawing on real-life examples such as the powdered milk scandal that rocked France, the VW scandal in Germany, the Goldman Sachs scandal in the United States, Cambridge Analytica in Britain and Samsung in South Korea - the authors show that these scandals are not just symptoms of a careless corporate elite, they are opportunities for real political change.

Pepper Culpepper and Taeku Lee reveal how the shared anger of citizens can be channelled into a backlash that has the potential to reinvigorate our failing democracies. One corporate scandal at a time.

Author Biography

Pepper Culpepper is Blavatnik Professor of Government and Public Policy at the University of Oxford and a Professorial Fellow at Nuffield College. He currently serves as Vice-Dean of Oxford's Blavatnik School of Government. He lives in Oxford with his family.

Taeku Lee is Bae Family Professor of Government and Dunster House Faculty Dean at Harvard University. Lee is also Past President of the American Political Science Association and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.