Daniel Kinderman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science & International Relations and Director of European Studies at the University of Delaware. He is a political economist who focuses on the dynamics between business, politics/institutions, and societies across the world. Kinderman’s research interests are situated at the intersection of political science, business/management, and sociology. He is particularly interested in the role(s) of business in society, ranging from prosocial behavior in the form of CSR / responsible business to aggressive interest group advocacy.
A central question in much of his current and recent research projects is, “When do business people engage in Faustian pacts with autocrats, and under what circumstances are they willing to take a stand to defend democracy?” These projects address MNC political risk and uncertainty under right-wing populist governments, the impact of responsible business organizations on the CO2 emissions of their member companies, American business responses to Black Lives Matter, corporate human rights violations in South Sudan, Donald Trump and the revolving door between business and politics in the United States, business advocacy in the run up to Brexit and in Swiss referendums, and business responses to authoritarian populism and the crisis of democracy in various countries across the world.
Kinderman’s articles have appeared in Socio-Economic Review, Journal of International Business Policy, Politics & Society, Regulation & Governance, Journal of Common Market Studies, Business & Society, Policy and Society, Theory and Society, Business and Politics, Journal of Business Ethics, Review of International Political Economy, and other journals. He is co-founder and co-chair of the research network “Business and Society” at the Council for European Studies. He was a postdoctoral research fellow at the New School for Social Research as well as a visiting scholar at the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB) and at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (MPIfG). He grew up in British Columbia, Canada and received his Ph.D. from the Government Department at Cornell University.