Introduction: Neglecting, Rediscovering and Thinking Again about Power in Finance

Abstract

The articles in this special issue survey comparatively the shape of power and finance. The introduction sketches the history of the study of the political role of financial markets and examines the reasons for the comparative neglect of the subject by the discipline of political science.

Introduction: The Future of Democracy

“…Economic hard times at the heart of the world economy have posed new challenges for states (see Moran and Payne 2014). In Europe, the great consolidations and enlargement of the integration project has given way to a profound economic crisis engendering a wider set of questions about the nature and wisdom of a wider project of integrating democratic states (see van Biezen and Wallace 2013).…”

Bank Rescue Schemes in Continental Europe: The Power of Collective Inaction

“…Analyses of these events have called attention to the different faces of power (see Johal et al 2014; Moran and Payne 2014). Some have highlighted the resources that the financial industry wields, insisting on the most immediate interactive kind of power where A is able to force B to do something he otherwise would not do (for example, Igan et al 2011; Luechinger and Moser 2012; Renick Mayer et al 2009).…”