Introduction
“Florida is the place where woke goes to die!” declared Governor Ronald DeSantis in 2021, announcing a series of measures to wind back socially progressive policies and norms across a range of sectors including healthcare, education, and business.Footnote 1 As part of the “war on woke,” the Florida government introduced sweeping “anti ESG” legislation to prevent state investment and pension funds from considering the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) risks associated with their investments. Seventeen other states in the United States of America have also introduced anti-ESG legislation as part of a backlash to “woke capitalism”—broadly characterized in this context as socially responsible investment through screening out investments in certain companies and industries based on ESG metrics.Footnote 2 This backlash represents the latest iteration of the push and pull dynamic between government, corporations, and civil society over the leveraging of corporate power to address some of society’s most pressing problems—climate change, environmental degradation, modern slavery, and economic inequality. Amidst a long-running political battle over the role of values within capitalism, this backlash to responsible investment also represents a key instance of the state seeking to regulate, or dictate, the nature of the relationship between business and society. This article contributes to understandings of how the state attempts to deploy discursive power to shape the relationship between business and society by examining the political framing of the problem of responsible investment by proponents of anti-ESG legislation.
The state’s control of business affairs in liberal democracies over the last century has typically oscillated between very light touch regulation in the form of neoliberalism and more interventionist approaches to minimize some of the harms of unrestrained capitalism including environmental degradation, human rights abuses, and significant wealth inequality. Indeed, corporations’ embrace of environmental, social, and governance focused initiatives is primarily understood as an effort to preempt or avoid stricter state regulation.Footnote 3 They have also been described as a “trojan horse” endeavor to increase corporations’ influence over the governance of society for their own protection and promotion.Footnote 4 Greater efforts towards corporate social responsibility are also catalyzed, in part, by activists mobilizing investors to engage in acts of political investorism such as shareholder activism, divestment, and socially responsible investment to prompt corporate action on social and environmental issues in the absence of stricter government regulation.Footnote 5 Together, these factors have contributed to a growing trend in which it is now a fairly common practice in investment decision-making to consider environmental, social, and governance factors.Footnote 6 Indeed, an estimated US$30.3 trillion is currently invested in responsible, or “sustainable” funds worldwide.Footnote 7
The introduction of anti-ESG legislation by 18 state governments in the USA between 2022 and 2025 flies in the face of the trend towards more responsible investment, placing these governments in opposition not only to progressive activists but also to some major investors and multi-national corporations that have embraced an ESG agenda.Footnote 8 One reading of this dynamic is that the state is stepping in to defend business interests from progressive activism. Alternatively, this situation could represent a more unusual instance of the state positioning itself in opposition to business interests aligned with progressive activism. In the context of this potentially unusual alignment, this article asks: what does the backlash to “woke capitalism,” or responsible investment, tell us about the relationship between corporations and the state? More specifically, how does the state seek to use discursive power through the political framing of “woke capitalism”?
This article makes a novel contribution to understandings of business and politics power dynamics by examining the issue through the lens of a somewhat overlooked process—investment. Much existing literature examining the power dynamics between corporations, activists, and the state focuses on battles between policy-makers and corporations,Footnote 9 and activists and corporations.Footnote 10 However, activists have increasingly shifted their focus to institutional investors as agents of social change, driven by the financialization of the economy,Footnote 11 the growing structural power of giant multi-national corporations,Footnote 12 and increased corporate influence over politics.Footnote 13 This shift complicates the power dynamic between corporate managers and the state. As investors possess some power over business decision-making, and are themselves subject to lobbying by insider political activists in the form of fund members,Footnote 14 investment is an arena for political contestation that contributes to shaping the power dynamic between business, activists, and the state.
To examine how the state frames the problem of “woke capitalism,” I first provide a brief overview of the contested definition of “woke capitalism,” outline how the anti-ESG policy trend fits within a broader ideational battle over values-based capitalism, and demonstrate the importance of understanding power dynamics between business and the state as derived not only from instrumental and structural power but also discursive power. I then turn to analyzing the framing of “woke capitalism” and the problem representation deployed during Florida’s introduction of anti-ESG legislation between 2022 and 2025. While Florida was not the first US state to introduce anti-ESG legislation, it has been chosen as the case for this analysis for two reasons. First, the case is important in the context of a wider move by Republican governors to push back against “woke capitalism” due to the government of Florida’s introduction in 2023 of one of the most comprehensive packages of anti-ESG legislation in the USA and self-declared status as the “standard-bearer” in anti-ESG efforts.Footnote 15 Second, the pursuit of a “war on woke” must be understood in the context of Governor Ronald DeSantis’ bid for the Republican nomination for President in the 2024 US Election. While DeSantis was unsuccessful in this attempt, his primary campaign brought significant attention to his “war on woke,” offering important insights into the politicized debate over responsible investment.
Through analyzing the representation of the problem of “woke capitalism” in the context of Florida’s anti-ESG legislation, I find that the state represents the problem as an ideological battle between “corporate elites,” an “ESG movement,” and the state. By representing responsible investment as undermining the democratic will of “everyday Americans,” the problem is framed as partisan and fundamentally political, rather than financial. This framing serves to raise the salience of the issue and justify state intervention in investment practices.
What is woke capitalism?
Before considering how the backlash to responsible investment fits within the wider context of a power struggle between activists, corporations, and the state, it is necessary to define “woke capitalism.” The meaning of the term “woke” is itself somewhat contested. The political origins of the term have been credited primarily to William Melvin Kelley in 1962 encouraging activists to stay woke, meaning to remain alert to social injustice and racial discrimination.Footnote 16 The call to stay woke became a repeated phrase in the civil rights movement in the 1960s and 1970s, and re-emerged in public discourse in the 2010s in the context of the Black Lives Matter movement, as activists urged citizens to be more socially aware of structural injustice.Footnote 17 In the last 10 years, however, the term has been co-opted by conservative political leaders, who use “woke” as a pejorative label to criticize efforts to address systemic injustices through diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, and other progressive policies and practices.
The term “woke capitalism” has a similarly contested meaning. Initially emerging towards the end of the 2010s, the term was first used in critiques of some corporations’ public displays of support for progressive causes amidst their failures to address injustices at a more systemic level.Footnote 18 Carl Rhodes uses the term woke capitalism to describe corporations competing in a “virtues market” to preempt democratic pressure to abandon capitalism as the primary economic system.Footnote 19 To Rhodes, woke capitalism is virtue-signaling through philanthropic donations, CEO activism on social and environmental issues, and declarations of the end of greed, but all conducted with a cynical design to insulate corporations from social critique and government regulation, rather than out of a genuine desire to address the harms of capitalism. For example, Rhodes contrasts Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ philanthropy on climate change and human rights issues with his company’s poor record on workers’ rights.Footnote 20 In this critique, woke capitalism can be understood more as a form of corporate political activity than corporate social responsibility.
However, much like the term woke, the term woke capitalism has also been co-opted by conservative political leaders in ways that have transformed its meaning. Republican politicians such as DeSantis may agree with a definition of woke capitalism as virtue-signaling from corporate leaders on progressive issues. However, their use of the term in the context of DEI initiatives and anti-ESG legislation extends the label to include acts that reach beyond virtue signaling to also capture attempts to embed progressive values in corporate governance. Specifically, political leaders in the US have begun to criticize major investors for “woke capitalism” when they engage in responsible investment by considering the environmental and social impacts of business practices.
The co-option of the term woke capitalism by Republican political leaders in the USA creates an interesting scenario where corporations are condemned both for acting and not acting. Following Rhodes’ critique of woke capitalism, corporations are criticized for merely tipping their hat towards progressive causes for reputation management purposes, rather than engaging in more systemic reform. But following the Republican usage of the term, corporations are also condemned for actually taking some action on issues of structural injustice and inequality through incorporating ESG considerations into decision-making about core business practices. Woke capitalism can thus be understood as both virtue signaling without action and as more systemic action undertaken through DEI initiatives and environmentally and socially responsible investment practices. This contested meaning highlights the importance of interrogating what political leaders mean when they problematize woke capitalism and investigating the assumptions that underpin this problem representation.
Responsible investment and the battle over values-based capitalism
The anti-ESG legislation trend has emerged in opposition to growing consideration by corporations and investors of how business practices may create environmental and social harms (e.g. climate change, severe labor exploitation) and how corporate governance should reflect society more broadly (e.g. gender and racial diversity on boards). This trend has been driven, in part, by threats of stricter government regulation,Footnote 21 and by acts of political investorism, including shareholders and pension fund members pursuing “responsible investment,” using ethical and social criteria alongside financial criteria, to make investment decisions.Footnote 22 Socially responsible investing (SRI) typically involves positive and negative screening, in which firms and entire industries can be negatively screened and divested from, while others are positively selected due to a belief that they represent more ethical, or sustainable, business practices.
The alignment of investment decisions with political values has a long history, with faith-based organizations avoiding investments in so-called “sin stocks” such as alcohol and gambling and agitating for social issues through their shareholdings in the USA at least since the 1960s. Political investorism is not solely utilized for progressive causes, with the same tactics also utilized by conservative groups. For example, in 1975, conservative activists used shareholder resolutions at AGMs to advocate against “liberal bias” in media,Footnote 23 while more recently conservative organizations including the National Center for Public Policy Research and the National Legal and Policy Center have launched shareholder resolutions to counter diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.Footnote 24 Investors’ push for corporations to report on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues has risen sharply in the last two decades, with a particular focus on environmental issues such as fossil fuel emissions.Footnote 25 The establishment of the United Nations’ Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in 2011 has also driven increased attention to issues including modern slavery in business supply chains, with some major institutional investors moving recently to enshrine the Guiding Principles in their investment policies.Footnote 26
Political activists, whether conservative or progressive, actively pursue their goals through the market, fueling the ongoing debate about the place of values within capitalism and how to balance economic growth with social and environmental concerns. This is not a new debate, with political leaders over the last twenty years calling for a more socially conscious or values-based approach to economic growth. Following the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, then German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and French President Nicholas Sarkozy criticized an approach to capitalism that values profit above all else.Footnote 27 More recently, Australian Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers has advocated for “values-based capitalism.”Footnote 28 This contrasts with current US President Donald Trump’s condemnation of “woke” capitalismFootnote 29 and the anti-ESG trend now enshrined in laws across nearly half of the USA.Footnote 30 The pursuit of profit and economic growth is constantly shaped by political interests that engage in an ongoing process of adjusting the balance between unrestrained capitalism and social and environmental concerns, necessitating an examination of how those political interests attempt to shape that balance.
The role of the state in investment politics
The power struggle between activists, corporations, and the state cannot be so simply described as one between three sectors representing internally consistent positions. Indeed, as noted above, political activism through the market is not always in pursuit of progressive goals. Additionally, in the ideational battle over how economic growth should be balanced with the need to protect society, the role of the state is changeable. At times, the state moves to impose greater regulation on corporations to prevent social and environmental harms.Footnote 31 The state also acts to constrain or enable political activists’ pursuit of social and environmental goals through the market by advocating for or actively restraining political consumerism and investorism.Footnote 32 Even within the same timeframe, political leaders’ perspectives on the extent to which the state should restrict business activities differs across ideological divides and even within parties. Corporate actors are also not homogenous in their views. In the current context of the ESG trend, some corporations have actively resisted increasing pressure from investors and increasing state regulation to consider the social and environmental impacts of their activities.Footnote 33 Other corporations and large institutional investors have embraced environmental, social, and governance considerations for differing reasons. Some argue that ESG considerations align with the values of their business, while others maintain that ESG assessments are essential to maximizing profits and mitigating financial risks.Footnote 34 Thus, the battle lines over ESG cannot be drawn in black and white, as actors from each sector of the state, civil society, and business can be placed on both sides of the divide.
Across this divide, each group nevertheless seeks to deploy the power at their disposal to shape the political agenda and the operating conditions for market actors. Corporations can wield instrumental, structural, or discursive power over politics to achieve favorable outcomes.Footnote 35 By the same token, the state can wield instrumental power over business through enacting legislation, or structural power through incentive structures. However, viewing the tussle between business and the state as one of predominantly instrumental power of legislators versus the instrumental power of corporations as political donors, or structural power of corporations as central to economic stability, overlooks the importance of political context and agency of political actors. The state and corporations also engage in an ideational battle, exerting not power but influence through “non-coercive persuasion in the absence of threats.”Footnote 36 In the context of social change, power or influence must be understood as relational, and emerging in situations of contestation, where some actors have the capacity to act, i.e. “the power to,” and/or the ability to coerce or control others, i.e. “the power over.”Footnote 37 The state has both “power to” and “power over” corporate actors through wielding instrumental power via legislation, though it is discursive power that often shapes the nature of the contestation between these actors.
Discursive power, broadly defined, is the capacity of political or business actors to shape how problems are understood in a way that establishes norms around the acceptable or legitimate boundaries of what can be done to solve these problems.Footnote 38 Importantly, the deployment of instrumental, structural, or discursive power is not mutually exclusive. Discursive power underpins the deployment of instrumental and structural power by creating a discursive environment of legitimacy for an actor’s actions. As Lukes asks, “is it not the supreme exercise of power to get another or others to have the desires you want them to have—that is, to secure their compliance by controlling their thoughts and desires?”Footnote 39 Elbra puts this in the context of corporations’ exercise of power over policy-making, arguing that “Interests do not need to be pursued if they are created.”Footnote 40 Even in instances where the state employs instrumental power in the form of legislation, this is typically underpinned by ideational power that sufficiently counters the structural power of business.Footnote 41
Previous research has found that the state is more likely to act to regulate business interests in instances where they exert greater discursive influence due to the public discourse surrounding the pertinent issue. Culpepper characterizes this as the difference between “noisy” and “quiet” politics, arguing that when issues have higher salience and thus are “noisy,” the state is more likely to exert power over business. When issues fail to attract much public attention and remain “quiet,” business interests are more likely to achieve their aims.Footnote 42 Importantly, issue salience is a product of agenda-setting and political mobilization, meaning that political actors may effectively construct issues and generate noise to underpin legislative change. One might reasonably assume that financial analysts’ consideration of ESG metrics is not a sufficiently sexy topic to attract much public attention and become a “noisy” issue. Thus, the characterization of responsible investing as “woke capitalism,” and its inclusion in a raft of other initiatives labelled as a “war on woke,” can be viewed as an attempt to give the issue much higher salience, to influence public discourse, and set the agenda for legislative change.
The political focus on “woke capitalism” has also somewhat shifted what might be seen as the typical dynamics between political activists, business leaders, and the state. More often than not, the state aligns with business in opposition to progressive activists or with progressive activists in opposition to business. The war on woke capitalism, however, appears to position the state in opposition to progressive activists and some business interests that have embraced ESG. Of course, this characterization is rather reductive and does not fully capture the more complicated dynamic at play. Many business leaders have embraced ESG considerations; however, others are undoubtedly thrilled to be freed from ESG reporting to satisfy institutional investors and have actively lobbied for the adoption of anti-ESG legislation. Influence Map, a climate and sustainability think tank, has argued that fossil fuel companies and trade associations, in conjunction with conservative think tank the American Legislative Execution Council (ALEC), have fueled the anti-ESG backlash.Footnote 43 Indeed, the recent spate of anti-ESG legislation sweeping US states governed by Republican leaders owes its origins in part to the drafting and promotion of a model anti-ESG Bill by ALEC.Footnote 44 In this more complicated context, the state is not necessarily in opposition to corporate leaders and activists. Instead, the anti-ESG stance positions them in opposition to progressive activists and some institutional investors and corporate leaders who have embraced an ESG agenda.
The interaction of the state, corporations, interest groups, and other political activists over sustainability issues and the environment is often characterized by uneven power relations and competing attempts to influence public discourse to shape how problems are understood and how interests are created.Footnote 45 The diverse and complex array of political interests engaged in public debate on the role of values within capitalism necessitates an examination of how investors, corporate leaders, activists, and the state are represented in the ideational battle over responsible investment. The remainder of this article is thus directed towards exploring how the state has framed the problem of woke capitalism and the actors engaged in responsible investment, in an effort to influence the political agenda.
Analyzing the war on woke capitalism
Since 2022, 18 US states have introduced legislation imposing some bans on the consideration of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) risks in investment decision-making. At the Federal level, legislators have also grappled with this question. In 2023, then-US President Joe Biden used his executive power to veto Republican-sponsored legislation in the US Congress to prevent pension fund managers from considering ESG factors in investment decisions. At the time of writing, current US President Donald Trump has not yet signed similar Federal anti-ESG legislation, though has used his executive powers to seek to prevent corporations from pursuing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in their workforces. In Florida, the introduction of anti-ESG legislation was part of Governor DeSantis’ “war on woke,” which targeted not only ESG and DEI regimes but also the teaching of critical race theory in universities and discussion of sexuality and gender identities in schools.Footnote 46 DeSantis seemingly intended to use his war on woke as a platform for his selection as the Republican candidate for President in the 2024 US Presidential Election.Footnote 47
In 2023, Florida introduced the most significant anti-ESG legislation to date. The problematization of woke capitalism that accompanied the introduction of this legislation and related guidance and policies between 2022 and 2024 is evident in a series of press releases and one-page graphic online “flyers” released by the Florida government explaining their anti-ESG efforts. In addition, Governor DeSantis included mention of the anti-ESG campaign in two of his “State of the State” Addresses, and further articulated the case against ESG in a statement co-signed by 18 other State Governors, declaring their opposition to the “proliferation of ESG throughout America.” These media releases, flyers, and public statements form a corpus of data reflecting the rhetoric used to frame the issue of responsible investment as a political problem,Footnote 48 offering insights into the power struggle between business, activists, and the state.
For this research, I operationalize the deployment of discursive power by viewing it as the attempt to construct the interests of an audience (in this case, the voting public of Florida) through the representation of a problem to be solved by the state through legislation. To analyze this construction of interests in the context of Florida’s “war on woke,” I adopt Carol Bacchi’s “what is the problem represented to be?” or WPR approach, informed by Michel Foucault’s work on problematization.Footnote 49 Bacchi’s framework begins with the proposed solution, in this case a ban on ESG considerations in investment decision-making, to reveal how a discourse produces a set of problems to justify the proposed solution. Bacchi’s approach also urges a consideration of how problem representations identify both those who are asserted to be harmed by the problem, as well as those who are positioned as to blame, depicting victims and villains.Footnote 50 For this paper, I focus exclusively on the framing and problem representation deployed by the state. While I acknowledge that these are contested issues, with alternative framings by different actors, I focus on the state’s framing in this context as the actor with “power to” and “power over” other relevant actors,Footnote 51 specifically, those who have adopted ESG considerations as part of their investment practices. The state’s framing of the problem is also of primary interest in contributing to ongoing scholarly efforts to understand the rationale behind the state’s greater or lesser interventions into market practices.
The corpus of documents analyzed for this research include press releases (12), speeches (2), statements in media articles (35), flyers produced by the government (2), and one joint statement by 19 State Governors.Footnote 52 These documents were found through a Boolean search of Florida government webpages, and media database Factiva, utilizing search terms including “woke,” “capitalism,” “Florida,” “DeSantis” and similar. This study covers the timeframe from July 2022 when the anti-ESG legislation was initially introduced, through to Governor De Santis’ most recent “State of the State” address in March 2025. These documents were manually coded by a single coder using the WPR approach to categorize problematizations, asking key questions of the textual data:
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a) What problem is a ban on ESG considerations in investment decisions purported to solve? [i.e. What reason is given for why a ban needs to be introduced? What is suggested as the implications/outcomes of the ban?]
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b) Who (or what) is harmed, according to the asserted problem? [i.e. Who or what is named either implicitly or explicitly as a victim of the problem? Who or what is suggested to benefit from the proposed solution?]
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c) Who (or what) is to blame for the asserted problem? [i.e. Who will be constrained, or what activity will be prevented, by the proposed ban? Who is implicitly or explicitly villainized in the discourse?]
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d) How is the solution to the problem to be pursued? [i.e. What tools will be used to solve the problem? How does the discourse reflect the urgency of the problem?]
The following findings sections answer each of these questions in turn, revealing much about the relationship between business, activists, and the state in the dispute over values-based capitalism, through the lens of discourse on responsible investment. Importantly, this analysis is focused on the question of how discursive power may be deployed through problem representation in this case and does not attend to an analysis of to what extent this deployment may have been successful.
Findings: problematizing woke capitalism
The problem that anti-ESG legislation is intended to address is largely represented through assertions about who is to benefit from this legislation and who is to blame for the purported harms the legislation seeks to stop, both of which will be discussed in subsequent sections. On face value, anti-ESG legislation is asserted as a solution to the specific problem of large institutional investors including pension funds and financial institutions such as banks, considering ESG risk factors in their decision-making. This is represented as a problem, first and foremost, because it allegedly poses a threat to the American economy and “everyday” Americans’ livelihoods. The following phrase is repeated throughout press releases and speeches made on the issue:
ESG is a direct threat to the American economy, individual economic freedom, and our way of life.Footnote 53
Specifically, the consideration of ESG factors in investment decisions is framed as counter to economic prosperity, both in the representation of the problem and the framing of the solution. For example, a flyer produced by the Florida Government and linked in several press releases on the ESG ban titled “Government of Laws, not Woke Politics,” declared that “Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) investment practices prioritize woke ideals and virtue signaling over commonsense financial practices.”Footnote 54
Florida’s Attorney General further characterized the consideration of ESG issues as counter to maximizing investments, declaring that “…we will continue to fight back against ESG agendas that put partisan ideology ahead of financial returns for Florida’s retirees.”Footnote 55 This framing represents the problem as one of a dichotomous choice where consideration of ESG issues is mutually exclusive to maximizing financial returns. This framing is quite disingenuous, particularly as investment funds have long had a fiduciary duty to maximize profits for members and shareholders, and the incorporation of ESG considerations into financial decision-making does not override that responsibility.Footnote 56 Nevertheless, Florida’s “war on woke” political discourse frames consideration of ESG issues as mutually exclusive to profit maximization.
The issue of national security is also invoked in declarations about the need for anti-ESG legislation, with then-Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives Paul Renner quoted as declaring that “Woke elites use ESG investing to prop up far left policies, undermining our national security and raising prices for Americans.”Footnote 57 No explanation is given as to how ESG investing “props up” particular policies that might impact on national security, yet it is not unusual for politicians to appeal to security concerns to justify policy positions in ideational battles.Footnote 58 Ultimately, the problem of “woke capitalism” is clearly defined by the Florida government as more than virtue signaling without action. The “problem,” as represented by Florida’s government, is the action of investors to embed environmental and social values into investment decision-making.
Who benefits? “Disfavored individuals,” everyday Americans, and democracy
The representation of the problem of responsible investment is furthered through characterizations of who is harmed by the current problem, and thus likely to benefit from anti-ESG legislation. Florida’s political leaders draw the net fairly widely around those allegedly harmed by ESG, framing woke capitalism as counter to the interests of “everyday Americans.” One flyer specifically lists the “Victims of ESG” as:
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• Americans who fill up their gas tanks
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• 2nd Amendment supporters
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• Soon to be retirees.
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• Conservative Americans
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• Americans with strong held religious beliefs
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• Victims of the Biden Border Crisis.Footnote 59
These characterizations leave young, non-Conservative, non-religious Americans who do not drive gas-fuelled vehicles as the only ones not harmed by responsible investment. Notably, this list particularly highlights what a Florida Government press statement described as “disfavored individuals” who DeSantis claims are being targeted by a so-called woke ideological agenda that uses social credit scores to decline access to loans and other financial products.Footnote 60 A flyer titled “Government of Laws, Not Woke Politics” offers some insight into how people may be “victimized” by an ESG regime, declaring that the anti-ESG legislation will “Stop financial institutions from discriminating against customers for their religious, political, or social beliefs—like owning a firearm, securing the border, or increasing our energy independence.”Footnote 61 Very little explanation is offered of exactly how these individuals are being targeted in practice, but the list of the “victims of ESG” creates a very intentional us-and-them divide, appealing to a particular type of voter most likely to support a Florida Republican candidate. This partisan rhetoric positions the issue of responsible investment as a political problem that favors one side of the political divide over the other. The political framing of the issue thus positions it as a problem to be solved by the state, rather than something that is primarily the domain of corporate governance.
Beyond this list of “victims,” the “ESG regime” is framed as a threat to “everyday” Americans. A flyer titled “People Before Corporate Power” summarizes why the anti-ESG legislation matters:
Everyday Floridians and Americans invest their hard-earned money to maximize profits and generate the most return on investment possible, but fear of retribution by the woke mob has resulted in the rise of ESG investing which sacrifices returns at the altar of the select few, unelected, corporate elites and their radical woke agendas.Footnote 62
This statement not only positions responsible investment as counter to maximizing profits but also positions “everyday” Americans in opposition to “corporate elites.” This characterization is a consistent theme in the problematization of responsible investment, with a clear framing of who is to blame for the asserted harms caused by consideration of ESG issues. How the blaming of “corporate elites” contributes to the politicization of this issue will be discussed further in the next section.
Woke capitalism is also framed as causing a problem for democracy itself. Democracy is framed as a victim of the “ESG regime,” with repeated statements that voters’ democratic will is being perverted by the “corporate elite.” In one such statement, Florida Governor DeSantis declared that:
From Wall Street banks to massive asset managers and big tech companies, we have seen the corporate elite use their economic power to impose policies on the country that they could not achieve at the ballot box.Footnote 63
DeSantis further declared that applying ESG considerations to investment decisions is evidence of corporate elites “circumventing the ballot box to implement a radical ideological agenda.”Footnote 64 Paul Renner also framed the problem as a circumvention of democratic will, declaring that the Florida Government “will join the fight to stop woke financial titans who seek to dictate policy to Floridians regardless of our choices at the ballot box”.Footnote 65
The introduction of anti-ESG laws to guide state investment decision-making was described as ensuring that decisions “are in accordance with the voters’ values as expressed through the democratic process rather than blindly in lockstep with the ESG mania taking hold of Wall Street and Washington.”Footnote 66 The representation of the problem of responsible investment as posing a threat to the democratic rights of Americans positions this issue as squarely within the political, rather than the financial, realm. Consideration of ESG issues is, again, characterized as a partisan political issue, with the suggestion that social change is being pursued through the market because it cannot be achieved through the political arena. This representation of the problem discursively positions the issue as a matter for the state, not just corporations. This representation of the problem as a power struggle between corporate elites and everyday Americans is furthered through representations of who is to blame for the problem.
Who is to blame? “Martini millionaires” and the ESG movement’s “woke mob”
The politics behind problem representations are often most clearly revealed through an assessment of who is positioned as to blame. In Florida’s war on woke capitalism, corporate elites are frequently castigated as blameworthy for the asserted harms of threatening the livelihoods and circumventing the democratic rights of everyday Americans. In early 2023, Florida’s Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis clearly laid the blame on the C-suite, declaring “…we’re not going to let a bunch of rich people in Manhattan or Europe try to circumvent our democracy.”Footnote 67 Paul Renner added to this villainizing language, referring to supporters of responsible investment as “martini millionaires” who “silence debate in the political process, weaken investment strategies for Florida’s retirees, and discriminate against any individuals’ beliefs.”Footnote 68 A flyer titled “People Before Corporate Power” also clearly blamed “ESG investors” as “corporate elites who do not represent the will of the people.”Footnote 69 This framing achieves two ends, placing the blame on an unpopular elite, while also justifying the right of government to intervene as those who claim to represent “the people.”
Beyond corporate elites, politicians advocating for anti-ESG legislation also frequently referred to an “ESG movement” as to blame for the alleged harms of responsible investment.Footnote 70 This language depicts the trend towards responsible investment as a social or political movement, pursued on a partisan basis, and in opposition to the status quo. The anti-ESG legislation is described as necessary:
To protect Floridians from the environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) movement which threatens the vitality of the American economy and American’s economic freedom.Footnote 71
The depiction of advocates of responsible investment as a “movement” reinforces the political and partisan nature of the issue, again discursively framing the problem as emerging as a result of a political clash of ideas, rather than as a component of corporate governance and financial risk assessment.
Corporate elites and the ESG movement are represented as to blame for imposing their “woke ideological agenda” on Americans, in contravention of their alleged financial best interests and their democratic will. The framing of responsible investment practices as a political ideology is woven throughout the rhetoric employed by Florida’s leaders over the last few years. For example, Governor DeSantis declared:
Corporate power has increasingly been utilized to impose an ideological agenda on the American people through the perversion of financial investment priorities under the euphemistic banners of environmental, social, and corporate governance and diversity, inclusion, and equity.Footnote 72
Paul Renner also invoked ideology, declaring that:
The goal of corporate activism seen in environmental, social, and governance investing (ESG) is to bypass democracy and transform capitalism to serve an ideological agenda.Footnote 73
In a statement from 19 State Governors declaring their commitment to anti-ESG legislation, they justified their laws as necessary to fight back against the ESG movement that they claim is:
…putting investment decisions in the hands of the woke mob to bypass the ballot box and inject political ideology into investment decisions, corporate governance, and the everyday economy.Footnote 74
In this statement, and others, then-US President Joe Biden’s government is criticized for allowing or supporting a woke ideological agenda, further positioning this issue as a partisan political struggle.
Importantly, in statements from Florida’s political leaders, responsible investment is more frequently framed as a problem because it is an ideological agenda subverting democracy, rather than a problem because it may pose a threat to individuals’ financial wellbeing. While both problematizations are clearly present, are not mutually exclusive, and are frequently used in tandem with each other, the financial problem posed by responsible investment is not invoked as frequently as the political problem. Advocates for responsible investment are characterized as pursuing an ideological agenda, essentially framing an anti-ESG stance as a non-ideological, apolitical position to hold. Indeed, the rhetoric about a woke ideology subverting democratic will positions the state as seeking to de-politicize financial decision-making, as though the pursuit of profit at all costs is not itself a political value. Yet, despite the framing of one side of this debate as ideological and the other not, the battle over responsible investment is undoubtedly characterized as an ideological power struggle, and one that is frequently described utilizing the rhetoric of war.
How must the solution be pursued? It is war!
The pursuit of anti-ESG legislation is highly politicized in the representation of the problem, the solutions to the problem, those who are characterized as “victims” of the “ESG movement,” and those who are villainized as to blame. In all of these representations, Florida’s political leaders position the issue of responsible investment as partisan, as political, and necessitating state intervention. However, the politicization of the issue is perhaps clearest in the rhetoric around how the woke ideological agenda of the ESG movement must be resisted. Florida’s politicians explicitly invoke the language of war to represent the ideational battle they are waging. This is clear in DeSantis’ characterization of the whole endeavor as part of his “War on Woke,” but is amplified in his use of rhetorical devices in his speeches on the topic.
De Santis, in a misappropriation of UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s famous “on the beaches” speech, declared:
We will fight the woke in the businesses, we will fight the woke in government agencies, we will fight the woke in our schools, we will never ever surrender to the woke agenda.Footnote 75
The irony of invoking Churchill’s battle-cry against Nazism to herald the adoption of a series of policies that Nazis would likely approve of may well be lost on DeSantis. Nevertheless, in this statement he declared that “Florida is where woke goes to die” adopting a war framing to position himself as the protector of Floridians against progressive politics. This rhetoric was echoed by Florida’s CFO Jimmy Patronis in 2023, declaring that “Just as the Governor fought Fauci—and won—he’s fighting a WOKE-Wall Street that looks down upon every-day Americans.”Footnote 76, Footnote 77 He further declared that:
Our stance against ESG is another signal to the rest of the world that Florida believes in prosperity, we believe in freedom, and we’re a place where WOKE GOES TO DIE! [original emphasis].Footnote 78
The battle imagery is extended through several references to the rather violent practice of kneecapping, with DeSantis declaring in back-to-back State of the State Addresses in 2024 and 2025 that he successfully “Kneecapped ESG” in Florida.
The tools the Florida government intends to use to wage their war on woke capitalism also offers an insight into the battle between business and the state over ESG. Florida’s Government represents the solution to the problem of responsible investment as occurring not only through legislation, but also through market power. DeSantis declares that part of the problem is “the leveraging of corporate power to impose an ideological agenda on society.”Footnote 79 However, he also explains that this same corporate power can be leveraged to reverse the trend towards responsible investment:
We as freedom loving states can work together and leverage our state pension funds to force change in how major asset managers invest the money of hardworking Americans, ensuring corporations are focused on maximizing shareholder value, rather than the proliferation of woke ideology.Footnote 80
In this statement, DeSantis and other Governors enacting anti-ESG legislation clearly intend to fight their battle not only through legislation but also through markets. The use of state pension and investment funds to push back against responsible investment is one way that they will pursue their own ideological agenda. Leveraging corporate power is thus framed as unacceptable when done in the pursuit of social change but perfectly acceptable when done by the state to resist that change.
Discussion and conclusion: justifying state intervention to protect unrestrained capitalism
The problematization of responsible investment as part of Florida’s “war on woke” reveals an ideational battle being waged by the state against institutional investors and corporate leaders who support consideration of ESG factors in financial decision-making. Through characterizing responsible investment as part of a woke ideological agenda pursued by “Martini millionaires” at the expense of everyday Americans’ financial wellbeing and democratic rights, Florida’s government has positioned responsible investment as a highly salient political issue, seeking to deploy discursive power to lay the groundwork for instrumental power in the form of legislation. This politicization and deployment of discursive power has emerged in three key ways.
First, the issue of responsible investment is politicized through its framing as partisan or ideological. By framing the problem as a battle between a movement pursuing a woke ideological agenda and a government resisting that agenda, responsible investment becomes part of the wider “war on woke.” Intervention by Florida’s government to ban the consideration of ESG issues in investment decision-making is framed as part of a political stance on a broader range of issues. Despite some discussion of the alleged (and largely false) risks that ESG considerations pose to the financial wellbeing of Floridians, the issue is framed primarily as an ideological battle, placing it squarely in the realm of politics, rather than corporate governance.
Second, responsible investment is framed as threatening to democratic rights, further embedding the issue in the political arena. By repeatedly asserting that consideration of ESG issues is counter to the democratic will of the people, Florida’s political leaders frame the issue as fundamentally political, rather than financial. This problem representation essentially serves to invalidate the argument that there are financial benefits to considering ESG risk factors in investments. For those who seek to oppose the ban for any reasons other than financial, they are forced to engage in the political debate about the role of values within investment decision-making, rather than the merits of ESG risk assessment itself. Further, by asserting that responsible investment is mutually exclusive to maximizing financial returns, the problem is represented as wholly an issue of competing values, with the ballot box and the legislature deemed the appropriate place to determine the outcome of that debate. This representation can be interpreted as the state asserting that its “power to” enact laws and “power over” some aspects of business decision-making,Footnote 81 is derived from its claim to sovereign power as the representative of the people.
Third, the problem is represented as rather urgent, through rhetoric that describes anti-ESG efforts as a “war” that must be fought. By adopting such histrionic rhetoric, DeSantis and his colleagues establish the stakes of the issue as extremely high, securitizing the issue, and justifying state intervention. By framing the issue of responsible investment as an ideological battle or partisan war against a threatening social movement, Florida’s political leaders lay the ideational groundwork for politicians, rather than corporate managers, to decide whether ESG issues should be considered in investment decision-making.
By positioning responsible investment as an issue for the political arena, rather than the marketplace, and by framing the situation as an ideological battle, DeSantis and others sought to raise the issue salience of ESG investing. Previous research has established that in battles between business and the state, when issues have high political salience, when they are “noisy politics,” governments are more likely to intervene to regulate corporate behavior.Footnote 82 In this instance, Florida’s government has sought to use their discursive, or ideational, power to set the agenda, to raise the salience of the issue of responsible investment to justify state intervention. This finding is consistent with previous research, but also contributes further to elucidating the power dynamic between business and the state in situations where business interests are not necessarily homogenous, with large institutional investors and some corporate leaders aligning instead with progressive activists.
In analyzing problematizations, it is often the unproblematized elements that offer the greatest insight into the politics behind the policy.Footnote 83 In the characterization of those who are to blame for the purported problems of ESG investing, there is a notable absence in the political narrative. Political activists who have long lobbied for greater consideration of ESG factors are not discussed in statements from the Florida Government. While there are references to an ESG movement and “woke mob,” it is “corporate elites” that are blamed for advancing the agenda. The omission of political activists who have pressured pension funds, lobbied major institutional investors, and mobilized political investorism to advance the responsible investment agenda is rather surprising. However, it does offer some insight into the political dynamics between business, activists, and the state when it comes to the ongoing debate over values-based capitalism. In this instance, the state has positioned corporate managers and institutional investors as to blame for acceding to activists’ demands and public pressure over time to take more responsibility for the environmental and social harms of capitalism. According to the state, the problem is not that activists have pushed for this, it is not even that corporations have engaged in virtue signaling to preempt stricter government regulation. The problem is that corporations and major investors have actually begun to embed environmental, social, and governance considerations in their decision making as a common business practice. The backlash to woke capitalism in this context can thus be better understood not as a response to virtue signaling, but as a response to a real threat to the status quo of unrestrained capitalism.
The move by state actors to stem the tide towards more socially and environmentally responsible business practices represents a rather unusual evolution in the relationship between business and the state. As activists have pushed for more corporate action on climate change and human rights, corporations have begun to listen, have considered the material risks associated with these issues, and begun to incorporate ESG factors into decision making. Institutional investors have played a major role in driving this change, influenced in part by their own fund members acting as insider lobbyists by engaging in political investorism.Footnote 84 Yet Florida, along with nearly half of the other states in the USA, is now arguing that some business actors have gone too far in considering the harms of capitalism and seeking more sustainable investment. As noted earlier, there are certainly corporate leaders who have actively lobbied in favor of anti-ESG legislation and the cover it gives them to avoid responsibility for environmental and social harms of their business practices. Certainly, more research is required into the vested interests that underpin the anti-ESG movement in the USA. Nevertheless, the significant growth in responsible investment over the last twenty years indicates a genuine shift in the debate about how to pursue profit without causing significant societal harm.
The newly emerging scenario of market actors outpacing governments on social and environmental issues generates a shift in the power dynamic when it is the state, rather than corporations, seeking to arrest a turning tide of discourse on values-based capitalism. This dynamic is further complicated by differing positions by market actors resulting in disputes between business interests who support or oppose ESG considerations and increasingly influential institutional investors occupying a bridging space between fund members and corporate leaders. These actors do not constrain their influence to the market. They seek to influence the political agenda through an expansion of their role in governing society through engagement with corporate social responsibility,Footnote 85 and through traditional lobbying (for example, funding anti-ESG organizations like ALEC).
Ultimately, the dynamic that has emerged in the context of Florida’s war on woke capitalism is one of the state seeking to deploy discursive power to construct interests in such a way to counter the influence of some institutional investors and corporate leaders. Only time will tell how successful this attempt may be. While this paper has sought to examine the way the state constructs interests in the ongoing debate about the role of values within capitalism, questions remain about whether this attempted deployment of discursive power has been successful. Future research should attend to measuring the impact of not only the display of instrumental power through the adoption of anti ESG legislation, but also changes in investment norms that may be the result of the war on woke capitalism. What remains clear is that this war is likely to continue. Activists may have shifted their attention towards lobbying corporate actors to leverage the power of the market to achieve social change, but the state will not be removed from the equation, and continues to wield significant power in the ideational battle over the future of capitalism.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank participants at the 2024 Political Studies Association Conference, hosted by Glasgow University, and the 2025 Academy of the Social Sciences of Australia workshop on Structures of Obstruction to Planetary Health Equity, hosted by the Australian National University, for helpful feedback on earlier versions of this paper. The author also thanks anonymous reviewers for their feedback.
Funding statement
This research was funded by the Australian Research Council (DP250100461).
Competing interests
There is no conflicting interest to declare.
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