IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/bushor/v68y2025i4p413-424.html

The rise of authoritarian capitalism: What does it mean for businesses that seek peace?

Author

Listed:
  • Bull, Benedicte

Abstract

The global trend toward authoritarian regimes has significant implications for businesses’ capacity to foster peaceful societies. This article delves into this issue by first examining the concept of authoritarian capitalism. Authoritarian capitalism is characterized by a dominant economic system that favors private property and for-profit production but restricts access to finance, contracts, and investment opportunities on the basis of political loyalty to the ruling government. Economic policies and governance prioritize the regime’s desire to retain power rather than maximizing societal benefits. Furthermore, this article examines the cases of Venezuela and El Salvador, each of which have each taken distinct trajectories toward authoritarian capitalism. Despite differences in their approaches, in both cases, democratic spaces that allowed business advocacy and local initiatives have been gradually closed. Often, the closure of these democratic spaces is a condition to accessing economic opportunities. Hence, the advent of authoritarian capitalism poses deep challenges for businesses. Lastly, this article concludes by proposing ways for businesses to confront the decline of democracy and the emergence of authoritarian capitalism.

Suggested Citation

  • Bull, Benedicte, 2025. "The rise of authoritarian capitalism: What does it mean for businesses that seek peace?," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 68(4), pages 413-424.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:bushor:v:68:y:2025:i:4:p:413-424
    DOI: 10.1016/j.bushor.2025.02.013
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007681325000412
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.bushor.2025.02.013?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Banik, Dan & Lin, Ka, 2019. "Business and morals: Corporate strategies for sustainable development in China," Business and Politics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 21(4), pages 514-539, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Baobao Song & Xiaomeng Lan, 2022. "Meeting Consumers’ Expectations: Exploring Corporate Social Advocacy Communication in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-18, February.
    2. Elías Domingo‐Posada & Pilar L. González‐Torre & Marta M. Vidal‐Suárez, 2024. "Sustainable development goals and corporate strategy: A map of the field," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(4), pages 2733-2748, July.
    3. Mengna Zhang & Atif Aziz & Amena Sibghatullah & Vasila Yarashova, 2025. "Green supply chain practices and leadership factors shaping sustainable entrepreneurship and business advantage through evolving sustainable attitudes," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 1-21, December.
    4. Hongfeng Zhang & Shuying Wei, 2024. "Green finance improves enterprises’ environmental, social and governance performance: A two-dimensional perspective based on external financing capability and internal technological innovation," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 19(4), pages 1-22, April.
    5. Frank Biermann & Thomas Hickmann & Carole-Anne Sénit & Marianne Beisheim & Steven Bernstein & Pamela Chasek & Leonie Grob & Rakhyun E. Kim & Louis J. Kotzé & Måns Nilsson & Andrea Ordóñez Llanos & Chu, 2022. "Scientific evidence on the political impact of the Sustainable Development Goals," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 5(9), pages 795-800, September.
    6. Jin, Minyue & Zhang, Xueqing & Xiong, Yu & Zhou, Yu, 2021. "Implications of green optimism upon sustainable supply chain management," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 295(1), pages 131-139.
    7. Amr ElAlfy & Nicholas Palaschuk & Dina El-Bassiouny & Jeffrey Wilson & Olaf Weber, 2020. "Scoping the Evolution of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Research in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Era," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(14), pages 1-21, July.
    8. Ritika Mahajan & Satish Kumar & Weng Marc Lim & Monica Sareen, 2024. "The role of business and management in driving the sustainable development goals (SDGs): Current insights and future directions from a systematic review," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(5), pages 4493-4529, July.
    9. Nick Lin-Hi & Xiaohan Gao-Urhahn & Torsten Biemann & Irmela F. Koch-Bayram, 2023. "Internal CSR and blue-collar workers’ attitudes and behaviors in China: a combination of a cross-sectional study and a field experiment," Asian Business & Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 22(3), pages 1185-1213, July.
    10. Irina Ervits, 2023. "CSR reporting in China’s private and state-owned enterprises: A mixed methods comparative analysis," Asian Business & Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 22(1), pages 55-83, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:bushor:v:68:y:2025:i:4:p:413-424. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/bushor .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.