Governing Private Governance

By Joshua Ulan Galperin. 

In very recent memory, private firms have established reproductive policies supporting employee access to abortion in the wake of Dobbs, limited access to assault weapons in the wake of mass killings, and made pledges about trans rights in the wake of state-level attacks on the same. Private entities establish private regimes to advance their visions of social progress. This is notable for numerous reasons, not least of which is ideological confusion. As The Economist reports, “Today’s populist Republicans have jettisoned many classical conservative values, but their departure from a decades-long alliance with America’s corporations is one of the most notable rebellions. ‘Old-fashioned corporate Republicanism won’t do in a world where the left has hijacked big business,’ Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, recently wrote.” Full Article