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Johannes Bohnen

Corporate Political
Responsibility
How Businesses Can Strengthen
Democracy for Mutual Benefit
Johannes Bohnen
BOHNEN Public Affairs GmbH
Berlin, Berlin, Germany

The Work already has been published in 2020 in German language by Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE, part of
Springer Nature with the following title: Corporate Political Responsibility (CPR): Wie Unternehmen die
Demokratie und damit sich selbst stärken

ISSN 2662-2467 ISSN 2662-2475 (electronic)

Future of Business and Finance
ISBN 978-3-662-62121-9 ISBN 978-3-662-62122-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-62122-6

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To my father, who died far too young
Preface

In more than 25 years of professional and voluntary work at the interfaces of politics,
business, science, media, and civil society, I have often been struck by the lack of
understanding between these sectors of society. They differ in language and in their
logic of thought and action. Businesspeople, for instance, have an enormous distrust
of politics; this is something that numerous business meetings and personal
conversations have made me aware of. It is alarming to see how apolitical most
corporate leaders are. At the same time, there is a sad decline in the economic
competence of politicians, even though they are in charge of defining the economic
framework. There is a strong sense of alienation between politics and business, but
also large sections of the population. Prejudices are cultivated on all sides. But
Europe’s largest national economy cannot afford to be afraid of contact and unable
to communicate. Given the rise in internal and external threats, we need our society
to provide a stable foundation for successful economic activity.
For years, DAX and Eurostoxx corporations as well as larger medium-sized
companies have been working almost across the board with the CSR concept in
order to assume corporate responsibility. This approach is also firmly established
internationally—but it falls short. The concept of “Corporate political responsibil-
ity” (CPR) presented here has the advantage of focusing on the most important
precondition for economic activity: the political and institutional state of society.
CPR offers a concept for the comprehensive positioning of companies in public
space. This makes it an innovative contribution to sustainable business success.
Companies need to concentrate more on the opportunities that exist at the
interface between politics and business and extend their concept of investment to
include a political component. The reason is that business success depends on social
and political conditions, which until now have not received enough support from
businesspeople. In this book, I argue that politics is a business case. Yet so far, there
have been no convincing conceptual approaches or methods to recognize this
business case, adopt a suitable attitude, and take action. This book aims to fill this
gap as far as possible.
CPR describes how businesses can develop a political stance in the public space
through concrete approaches. Our community needs the politicization of all actors in
society – whether in science, culture, the media, or organized civil society. This is

vii
viii Preface

less about adopting partisan political positions than about contributing in a funda-
mental way to the stabilization of a free and democratic state of law. It is based on the
insight that societal institutions cannot function without an element of politics and
that their degree of freedom is always dependent on political conditions. Deficits in
the political system affect all sectors of society. So if we develop a broad concept of
the political and do not delegate everything to the state and to political parties, we
can revitalize our democracy. This requires remapping the public space. This book
would like to encourage all relevant societal actors to actively get engaged. It is
worth it!
The book is primarily meant for businesses. They have a variety of resources at
their disposal to strengthen the societal and political foundations of their business
activities, but they are not sufficiently aware of them. To leverage this potential, I
introduced the term CPR in 2013 and systematically developed it in a publication
for the first time in 2014 (Bohnen 2014, pp. 55–58). This was followed by numerous
other articles and papers on the topic1 which met with increasing resonance from
business leaders. From the very start, many agreed with my theses. I was heading in
the right direction. However, some commentators took offense at the word “politi-
cal.” It caused frictions because it was mostly understood to signify party politics. At
the same time, there was an issue with the concept of the political itself, because
politics is often seen as shadowboxing that impedes a “true solution.” This spurred
me on to justify the importance of corporate political engagement more comprehen-
sively. After all, I have long been puzzled by the political ignorance of many German
business leaders. I was all the more pleased to have the opportunity to present my
approach at two large CSR conferences which brought together dedicated CSR
communities. It was very well received.2
The book begins by establishing the basis of the CPR concept and then continues
with a comprehensive practical part. It is my goal to enable companies to move
through the process of political branding step by step in order to operationalize the
CPR stance for themselves. Numerous graphs, examples from corporate reality, and
reflections on personal experiences underpin this approach. In addition, new
methods and terminologies (see dossier) are introduced to enable a systematic
approach to the topic. My contribution is aimed at the public debate in Germany,
but without losing sight of the European or international debate to which I owe a
number of ideas. The basic principles of CPR should work in all Western
industrialized countries that have a historically developed democratic culture.
This book is primarily intended for decision-makers in business (including CSR,
strategy, and communication departments) and representatives from politics and
administration, but also actors from science, culture, media, law, NGOs, and

1
Cf. Bohnen (2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015a, 2015b, 2015c, 2014), Bohnen and Hennies (2018)
2
In Cologne on 15.11.2018 (Int. Conference on Sustainability & Responsibility, “The New
Intersection of Business and Politics – Corporate Political Responsibility”) und Osnabrück on
15.11.2019 at the third German CSS Communication Congress (“Get Involved!! Taking Political
Positions as Part of CSR Communication“).
Preface ix

foundations as well as communications and public affairs consultancies. Ultimately,

I am writing for everyone who is interested in the political development of our
society and our public space.
Last but not least, I am very grateful to the many people who have supported me
in the development of the topic over the past few years—by critically discussing and
commenting on text passages and numerous diagrams. I would like to mention:
Florian von Gierke, Georg Schmidtgen, Felix Hofmann, Helena Ballreich, Sebastian
Gallander, Knut Bergmann, Michael Wedell, Michael Alberg-Seberich, Erica
Benner, Jörg Schulte-Altedorneburg, Arndt Kwiatkowski, Stefan Wegner, Barbara
Strohschein, Achim Boehme, Michael Schütte, Christoph Weiss, Tobias Wolny,
Raban Fuhrmann, Heike Steinmeier, Bernd Rohlfes, Rüdiger Sura, Stephane Oertel,
Bettina Vestring, Jörg Mayer, Torsten Schumacher, and Stefan Lafaire. Special
thanks to my tireless sparring partner Lutz-Peter Hennies, who accompanied my
writing process in a very thoughtful manner. I would also like to mention is the
German BP, which was the first company to organize an event specifically to allow
me to present my CPR concept to business representatives. I also thank the Aspen
Institute for the opportunity to give a lecture in Hamburg in 2018 which resulted in a
very lively discussion.

Berlin, Germany Johannes Bohnen

References

Bohnen, J. (2014). Corporate political responsibility (CPR) – Warum Unternehmen

sich offen politisch positionieren müssen. ZBP, 1–2, 56–59.
Bohnen, J. (2015a, April 1). Haltung zeigen! Sächsische Zeitung (p. 6).
Bohnen, J. (2015b). Der Staat, das sind wir alle. Enorm Magazin, 3, 62–64.
Bohnen, J. (2015c). Werdet Politisch! Cicero, 2, 88–90.
Bohnen, J. (2016). Unternehmer als Bürger. Handelsblatt.
Bohnen, J. (2017). Corporate political responsibility. Unternehmen sollten ihre
politische Marke entwickeln. CSR Magazin, 2, 6–7.
Bohnen, J. (2018). Warum Unternehmen politische Verantwortung tragen. Debatte
LibMod. Accessed February 27, 2020, from https://libmod.de/johannes-bohnen-
warum-unternehmen-politische-verantwortung-tragen/
Bohnen, J. (2019). Corporate political responsibility (CPR). Warum nachhaltiges
Wirtschaften politisch sein muss. forum Nachhaltig Wirtschaften, 01, 74–77.
Bohnen, J., & Hennies, L. P. (2018). Why brands should foster political
sustainability. Journal of Public Affairs. Accessed February 27, 2020, from
https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1706
Contents

1 Introduction: What Is at Stake? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Part I Remapping the Public Sphere

2 Understanding the Public Sphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3 Revitalizing the Public Sphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Part II Taking a Stance: Corporate Political Responsibility (CPR)

4 Why Businesses Need a Political Stance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Part III Implementing a Stance: Political Branding

5 Creating the Political Brand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
6 Managing the Political Brand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
7 Conclusion: Filling the New Attitude with Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

Glossary: New Terms in the Context of CPR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

xi
List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 The Public Sphere #Johannes Bohnen 2020. All Rights
Reserved .. . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . .. . . .. . . .. . . 16
Fig. 2.2 The political governance gap #Johannes Bohnen 2020.
All Rights Reserved . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Fig. 4.1 CPR Overview: Requirement, strategy, implementation
#Johannes Bohnen 2020. All Rights Reserved . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Fig. 4.2 CPR essentials and their implementation
#Johannes Bohnen 2020. All Rights Reserved . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Fig. 4.3 Traditional understanding of corporate social responsibility
#Johannes Bohnen 2020. All Rights Reserved . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Fig. 4.4 CPR as a political complement
#Johannes Bohnen 2020. All Rights Reserved . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Fig. 4.5 CPR as an umbrella term for corporate socio-political
responsibility #Johannes Bohnen 2020. All Rights Reserved . . . . . 105
Fig. 5.1 Political branding process phases (short version).
#Johannes Bohnen 2020. All Rights Reserved . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Fig. 5.2 Political branding: The path to a political brand
#Johannes Bohnen 2020. All Rights Reserved . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Fig. 5.3 The strength filter #Johannes Bohnen 2020. All Rights
Reserved .. . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . .. . . .. . . .. . . 124
Fig. 6.1 Policy areas and cross-sectoral topics along the value chain
#Johannes Bohnen 2020. All Rights Reserved . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Fig. 6.2 Breakdown of policy areas along the value chain
#Johannes Bohnen 2020. All Rights Reserved . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Fig. 6.3 Value chain IT company #Johannes Bohnen 2020.
All Rights Reserved . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Fig. 6.4 Cross-sectoral issues (example) #Johannes Bohnen 2020.
All Rights Reserved . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

xiii
xiv List of Figures

Fig. 6.5 Embedding CPR—Detail of organization chart

#Johannes Bohnen 2020. All Rights Reserved . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Fig. 6.6 Political branding process phases
#Johannes Bohnen 2020. All Rights Reserved . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180