Since the emergence of neoliberalism, the power of multinational corporations has dramatically grown. Given the limits of ‘self-regulation’ (e.g. Corporate Social Responsibility), this paper examines the attempt to develop a regime of ‘public governance’ rooted in law-based regulation. The focus is on a referendum voted in 2020 that aimed at regulating Swiss-based multinational corporations. This case is interesting for two reasons. First, Switzerland hosts among the biggest multinational corporations in the world; changing regulations in Switzerland thus implies modifying the rules of globalization as a whole. Second, while corporations are often accused of directly influencing the political agenda through lobby or corruption, in this case citizens were endowed with the power to change the rules for these corporations. While the proposal was finally rejected, the referendum campaign allows reflection on the interplay between globalization and national democratic politics and on the possibilities and difficulties of developing alternative forms of globalization.