Democracy Challenged · How Global Corporate Tax Avoidance Fuels the Wealth Inequalities that Undermine Democracy.

This project develops a new theoretical framework and causal mechanism to explain how corporate tax avoidance fuels the wealth inequalities that undermine democracy. It implements new methodological innovations that explain how global capital evades the fiscal constraints of democracy, using a combination of forensic accounting, in-person interviews, computational text analysis and original survey experiments. The objectives of the project are guided by two overarching research questions: Why is concentrated capital and wealth inequality a problem for democracy? What is the role of corporate tax avoidance and law in enabling this process? The empirical and comparative case study analysis are designed to answer these questions. First, we explain the global wealth chains and tax avoidance structures of big tech and big pharma multinational groups. Second, we explain how legal-technical actors create these structures and strategies. Third, we explain how their wealth protection strategies destabilise the functioning of democracy. Fourth, we explain the role of the media in politicising corporate tax avoidance as a problem for democracy.The project has four work packages. First, we construct a new theoretical framework, typology and causal mechanism to explain how corporate tax avoidance leads to the wealth inequalities that undermines democracy. Second, we explain the tax avoiding wealth chains of big tech and big pharma using a combination of forensic accounting and statistical mapping techniques. Third, we explain how legal-technical actors create these structures using a combination of in-person interviews, list survey experiments and computational text analysis. Fourth, we implement a cross-national survey experiment to explain the role of the media in disrupting the political consensus of legal-technical experts. Finally, we develop a set of new normative principles to guide how governments can respond in a democracy-enhancing way.