The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (hereinafter: WEF) in Davos not only provokes contradictory emotional reactions, depending on the political position one holds, but also periodically triggers a debate on the compatibility of elite gatherings aimed at societal transformation with democratic principles of governance. While some voices specifically target contradictions inherent in the meeting itself – such as discussions on climate change while many participants arrive by private plane – others, on a more structural level, view the WEF as a platform in which influential individuals, including heads of state and representatives of some of the world’s most economically affluent nations, discuss societal transformation behind closed doors. Exactly this aspect, the participation of high-ranking executives of major transnational corporations on one hand, statesmen and non-governmental organisations on the other hand, creates an environment that provides space for rumours and speculations. In this article, I am examining the key aspects of the WEF itself, its history, the normative idea of the WEF and the issues that come along with a technical perspective on it. As our perspective on society is solely driven by societal advancement within a normatively stable framework, this article will not include any positional narratives; instead, the conceptual strategy of the WEF will be evaluated as a positive or negative influence on the intended advancement.
To do so, the article will be centered on the three questions: Why?, What? and How? While the first question allows us to understand the normative argumentation and the framework of the WEF, the second and third questions focus on the description and technique, thereby examining the outcomes of the WEF.
Normative Idea of Stakeholder Capitalism
The Davos summit of the World Economic Forum is not merely a networking event; it is an ideological project rooted in a specific vision of how the world should be governed, justifying its existence through a unique normative thought. This vision traces back to 1971, when Klaus Schwab organised the first European Management Symposium. While it began as a platform to introduce management techniques to European executives, it quickly developed into something far more ambitious. The underlying normative argumentation was that economic success cannot be uncoupled from social and political responsibility, eventually culminating in the WEF’s official mission statement: “Committed to improving the state of the world”. This serves as the ultimate justification for the forum – the belief that a self-selected group of global leaders has a moral obligation and the unique capacity to address systemic global issues that individual nation states or traditional international organisations might fail to solve alone.
The anchor of this project is the concept of Stakeholder Capitalism, a theory championed by Schwab since the early 1970s and codified in the Davos Manifestos. Unlike the traditional model of shareholder primacy, which posits that a corporation’s only duty is to maximise profits for its owners, stakeholder capitalism argues that a company is a trustee of society. From this perspective, corporations must balance the interests of employees, customers, suppliers, local communities and the environment. This presents a normative alternative between unfettered free-market capitalism and state-directed economies, positioning the private sector as a proactive partner in social progress and emphasising long-term value creation over quarterly reports. This normative “Why” is further reflected in the specific composition of its participants. The forum operates on the belief that global problems can only be solved through multi-stakeholder cooperation. By bringing together political and business leaders, civil society and academia, the WEF seeks to create a web of global agency where legislative & executive power align with economic resources. Finally, the choice of the Swiss Alps as a venue is itself a normative statement. The “Spirit of Davos” refers to an atmosphere of informal, off-the-record dialogue. In this secluded, high-altitude environment, the world’s most powerful individuals are encouraged to step out of their rigid institutional roles – a summit in its truest sense.
What is the World Economic Forum?
The WEF is defined by organisational machinery that transforms its normative ideas into a highly structured global event. Headquartered in Cologny, Switzerland, and recognised by the Swiss government as an international body for public-private cooperation, the WEF operates as a year-round foundation, yet its primary manifestation is the annual meeting in Davos. This gathering is not a public convention but a strictly invitation-only summit, governed by a system of memberships and badges that dictate levels of access and influence. The core of the meeting consists of the forum’s strategic partners – roughly 1.000 of the world’s largest corporations – who are joined by heads of state, cabinet ministers and the leadership of the United Nations (hereinafter: UN), the International Monetary Fund (hereinafter: IMF) and the World Trade Organisation (hereinafter: WTO). To maintain its multi-stakeholder identity, the Forum also integrates a selection of civil society representatives, including non-governmental organisation (hereinafter: NGO) leaders, labour union heads and academic experts.
The operational rhythm of the meeting is a carefully calibrated balance between public visibility and private, high-stakes negotiation. The official program typically features hundreds of sessions, ranging from specific addresses by world leaders to moderated panel discussions and workshops. These public-facing events are characterised by strict timing and a rapid exchange of ideas, designed to set the global agenda and signal policy directions to the international community. However, the architecture of the meeting deliberately facilitates a dual-track experience where the most significant outcomes often occur in the white space of the schedule. This informal track takes place in secure bilateral rooms within the Congress Centre or in private hotel suites, allowing for “corridor diplomacy” shielded from public and media scrutiny. It is within these unscripted environments that executives, Prime Ministers and activists engage in the private deal-making and conflict resolution that define the World Economic Forum’s role as a global intermediary at Davos.
Ultimately, the “What” of Davos is a hybrid model of governance that operates outside of traditional, binding international law. It functions as a global space for ideas and interests, where the tempo is dictated by a mix of formal intellectual exchange and fluid networking. By synchronising the calendars of the global elite, the Forum creates a concentrated window of time where the world’s most influential actors can align their strategic priorities. This structure ensures that while no formal treaties are signed, the consensus reached during these four days often ripples through national policies and corporate strategies long after the delegates have left the mountain, cementing the meeting’s status as the pre-eminent non-institutional platform for global coordination.
How does the Forum operate?
The mechanics of the “How” lie in the WEF’s unique capacity to function as a global get-together for soft governance, where the primary output is not legislation, but the formation of strategic coalitions. This process is driven by the Forum’s ability to provide an exclusive environment where high-level deals and policy alignments can be fast-tracked outside the bureaucratic friction of formal international institutions. Historically, this has led to breakthroughs, such as the 1988 “Davos Declaration,” which prevented a looming conflict between Greece and Türkiye, or the GAVI alliance, which was conceived in Davos to revolutionise global vaccine access through public-private financing. The “How” is therefore a process of accelerated diplomacy, where the proximity of corporate capital to political power allows for the rapid mobilisation of resources that traditional multilateralism often lacks.
However, the efficacy of this model is intrinsically linked to its exclusivity, which introduces a significant tension between the Forum’s multipolar rhetoric and its unipolar tendencies. Because participation is strictly invitation-only, the WEF acts as a gatekeeper of global relevance, effectively deciding which nations and which interests are at the table. This selective identity often leads to a form of factional politics, where a specific consensus – frequently aligned with European and Neo-European liberal economic norms – is solidified among a core group of powerful actors. While the Forum theoretically advocates for a multipolar world order, the practical reality of its invitation policy can lead to the marginalisation of dissenting voices or less influential nations, creating an unipolar policy drift where global agendas are set by a self-selected elite. This dynamic transforms the meeting into a platform for the consolidation of power blocks. When a specific coalition of executives and G7 leaders agrees on a technological standard or a trade framework in a private Davos suite, that agreement carries the weight of a fait accompli when it later reaches formal bodies like the WTO or the UN. Consequently, the “How” of Davos operates as a precursor to official policy, where the alignment of interests among a curated inner circle pre-determines the direction of global governance.
Davos 2026
The 2026 annual summit, held under the thematic statement of “A Spirit of Dialogue,” marked a significant departure from previous years by directly confronting a world order in a state of what Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney described as a rupture (learn more about Disruptions) rather than a mere transition. Against a backdrop of heightened geopolitical friction, the meeting functioned as a high-stakes arena where the “spirit of dialogue” was tested against the reality of geoeconomic confrontation (learn more about this dynamic) – identified by the Forum’s 2026 Global Risks Report as the top short-term risk to global stability. The summit was defined by a record-breaking level of political attendance, including over 60 heads of state and the return of Donald Trump, whose “Special Address” and subsequent negotiations underscored a shift toward a more transactional, “minilateral” form of global engagement.
One of the most striking diplomatic flashpoints at this year’s summit was the so-called “Greenland crisis”. The President of the United States of America (hereinafter: USA), namely Donald Trump, used his Davos platform to push for an expanded role in Greenland, framing the Arctic island as essential to national security. After weeks of threatening punitive tariffs on European allies who opposed his ambitions, Trump announced he had agreed with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte on a framework of a future deal that would grant the USA extensive economic and military access to Greenland – including unfettered use of installations and the potential deployment of strategic defense systems – while dropping those tariff threats. The announcement was met with immediate pushback from both Copenhagen and Nuuk, as Denmark and Greenland’s leadership reiterated that sovereignty over the island is non-negotiable and that Greenland itself was not a party to the discussions. Danish officials stressed that any real agreement must respect Greenland’s autonomous status and abide by existing treaties on the military presence of the USA.
Another important pillar of Davos 2026 was the Artificial Intelligence (hereinafter: AI) Supercycle and workforce resilience. The technology was no longer treated as a future disruption but as a current systemic force. With the IMF warning that AI could transform or displace up to 60% of jobs in advanced economies, the Forum scaled its “Reskilling Revolution” to a target of 850 million people. Discussions moved beyond “AI ethics” toward “AI sovereignty,” as nations debated the infrastructure and licensing standards necessary to prevent a “Great Digital Wall” between competing technological blocs.
Furthermore, the summit signaled a fundamental transition from abstract global goals toward concrete, resource-driven security, most notably through the elevation of water security as a top-tier economic priority. Under the “Blue Davos” agenda, the forum acknowledged the looming crisis of global freshwater demand, which is projected to exceed supply by 56% by 2030 – a staggering figure considering that 60% of global GDP now directly depends on reliable water access. This shift within the “Planetary Boundaries” pillar led to the launch of specific initiatives focused on “Blue Foods” and the creation of water-resilient supply chains, effectively moving the environmental discourse away from distant climate targets toward immediate resource survival.
This focus on resilience was mirrored in the geopolitical sphere through the dominant push for strategic autonomy among European delegates. Leaders like Ursula von der Leyen and Emmanuel Macron underscored a strategy of minimising risk rather than “de-coupling,” aiming to secure domestic resilience in critical sectors such as energy, minerals and finance, a trend that is currently observable in several industrial nations (e.g., Japan’s latest nuclear power programme). The practical manifestation of this sentiment was seen in the signing of a landmark EU-India trade framework and a newly finalised EU-Mercosur deal. These agreements highlight a significant move toward Future of Investment and Trade (hereinafter: FIT) partnerships – smaller, interest-based alliances that prioritise bilateral stability over the increasingly fragile universalism of traditional WTO-style multilateralism. Together, these developments illustrate a world in 2026 that is prioritising regional security and tangible resource management as the primary pillars of a new, more fragmented global order.
Controversy
The controversies surrounding the Davos meeting operate on two distinct levels: a structural critique of its elite, extra-legislative nature, and a practical skepticism regarding the gap between its proclaimed normative framework and its actual technique. Structurally, the WEF presents itself as a neutral platform where global actors can escape the bottlenecks of traditional political bureaucracy to foster social development. In theory, the notion that corporate leaders bear a responsibility toward society is compelling; however, it remains highly questionable whether the forum truly seeks societal improvement or serves primarily as a mechanism for the further accumulation and consolidation of power. To change society is not inherently to improve it, and the normative standards by which progress is measured in Davos are unclear. While Stakeholder Capitalism is used as a central idea, it lacks clear normative substance, leading to a situation where the mere act of participation is mistakenly valued as a moral good in itself.
This structural issue is complemented by a technical and practical controversy: the reality that Davos is less about transformative social processes and more about the strategic alignment of geopolitical and economic interests for the exclusive benefit of its participants. A system driven by financial influence and coercive power – especially evident in the thematically discussed disruptive landscape of 2026 – cannot foster genuine global change when it simultaneously acts as a gatekeeper. Those excluded from the elite circle have no voice in the representation of their own interests or the broader decision-making process. Consequently, the practice of Davos serves to build higher barriers of power through exclusive access to information, agreements, and networks. This suggests that the forum’s primary function is not the development of global society as a whole, but the fortification of a specific power class that operates outside of public accountability.
Ultimately, even if one assumes that the ambitions of many Davos participants are rooted in good intentions, the forum is fundamentally limited by systemic imperatives. The dependencies on state power, the necessity for continuous economic growth, and the inherent inability to challenge the interests of the most powerful nations mean that true systemic change is structurally impossible within this framework. Instead, the forum solidifies existing power dynamics under the guise of progress. This is further illustrated by the summit’s focus on “Realpolitik,” which, while practically necessary, precludes any meaningful debate on post-materialist or post-capitalist societal models. By operating strictly within the confines of the current system, Davos can only offer management of the status quo, leaving no room for the normative shifts required for a genuine global transformation.
