Dr T.H. Tempels (Tjidde)
Assistant professor - Empirical Political Science
Tjidde Tempels is Assistant Professor of Political Theory at the Department of Political Science. He is interested in theories of (deliberative) democracy, applied ethics, business ethics and political corporate responsibility in particular. Under what circumstances is political involvement of firms in our democracies morally desirable? Can it be democratically legitimate? And how do corporate political activities affect the functioning and quality of our democracy?
In his dissertation (Wageningen, 2019) he explored the possibility of a corporate responsibility for public health in the context of the food and beverage industry. He published on our understanding of political responsibility in global governance in The Journal of Global Ethics, and addressed the responsibility of corporations for structural health inequalities in Business Ethics Quarterly.
In his research Tjidde seeks to investigate the political role firms ought to play in democratic and less democratic systems. Large corporations and multinationals are increasingly involved the governing of our global society. Corporate political activity is not limited to classic lobbying for mere economic interests, but also involves – supposedly – political action for the common good. Over the past years Pfizer has stopped supplying medication that is used for the death penalty in the United States, and after the 2020 elections Twitter banned former US president Trump from its platform. How should we assess these kinds of political activities? Are they examples of good corporate citizenship? Or is this undue involvement in political deliberation and decision making? It are these kinds of questions, at the intersection of political theory and business ethics, that he aims to find answers to.
- Theories of Democracy, Business Ethics, Political Corporate Social Responsibility, Applied Ethics