CORPORATE POLICY RESPONSIBILITY FOR ACTS OF VIOLENCE IN THE PAST: VOLKSWAGEN DO BRASIL'S COLLABORATION WITH THE BRAZILIAN CIVIL-MILITARY DICTATORSHIP

This article aims to understand the responsibility of corporations in the present for their acts of violence committed in the past in light of the concept of political responsibility by Hannah Arendt (2004) and Karl Jaspers (2018). Therefore, we analyze the case of Volkswagen do Brasil's collaboration with the Brazilian civil-military dictatorship (1964-1985), understanding its actions in the present as guided by political responsibility, resulting from the existence of a sense of organizational community. The argument we defend is that the logic of continuity is still a sensitive point in theorizing about corporate historical responsibility and that corporate responsibility for crimes, human rights violations, misconduct, or any act liable to contestation committed in the past permeates different generations of managers because corporations at present have political responsibility and not (necessarily) just moral responsibility. We, therefore, conclude that the political responsibility that exists in a community explains why managers assume responsibility for acts committed by their predecessors. In this sense, by promoting the debate on political responsibility, the article contributes (1) to the theorization of historical responsibility insofar as it explains to justify the assumption of responsibility by a given organization over time; (2) for its use as an instrument for contesting official versions of corporate history about acts and events in its past; and (3) for the understanding of organizations as political communities whose sense of community (sensus communis) can help to understand both the permanence (intentional or not) of specific organizational characteristics over time and the sharing of ideas and purpose among their members who guide, at the same time, a course of individual action and collective responsibility.

Keywords:
Political Responsibility; Corporate Historical Responsibility; Organizational History; Brazilian Civil-Military Dictatorship; Volkswagen of Brazil