Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-m8qmq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T08:43:20.832Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Not by structure alone: power, prominence, and agency in American finance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Kevin Young
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I examine the challenges of conceptualization and measurement of structural power when the differential power of industries or individual firms are in question. While ascertaining structural power's operation at this level can be very challenging, I point to some issues of conceptualization and measurement that can enhance our analytic leverage at the initial stages of the research process. Specifically I propose a more refined language of “structural prominence” to differentiate between the expected causes of structural power from its hypothesized effects. Using a variety of data I show that researchers have some simple tools at their disposal but must pay careful attention to basic logical inferential limitations when examining structural power arguments. Through an examination of firms’ reactions to policy proposals in US securities regulation I find positive evidence for structural power operating in initial policy proposals. When I examine levels of preference attainment in the policymaking process itself, structural power appears to be playing a weaker and more conditional role. I also find that the preference attainment of firms is greatest when structural and instrumental forces operate in conjunction, a finding supportive of recent research in this area.

Type
Research articles
Information
Business and Politics , Volume 17 , Issue 3: Special Issue: Structural Power and the Study of Business: Guest Editor: Pepper D. Culpepper , October 2015 , pp. 443 - 472
Copyright
Copyright © V.K. Aggarwal 2015 and published under exclusive license to Cambridge University Press 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baumgartner, Frank R., Berry, Jeffrey M., Hojnacki, , Kimball, David C., and Leech, Beth. 2009. Lobbying and Policy Change. Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Baker, A. 2009. “Deliberative Equality and the Transgovernmental Politics of the Global Financial Architecture.” Global Governance 15: 195–218.Google Scholar
Baker, Andrew. 2010. “Restraining Regulatory Capture? Anglo- America, Crisis Politics and Trajectories of Change in Global Financial Governance.” International Affairs 86 (3): 647–663.Google Scholar
Barabasi, Albert-Lazslo, and Albert, Reka. 1999. “Emergence of Scaling in Random Networks.” Science 289 (5439): 509–512.Google Scholar
Bell, Stephen. 2012. “The Power of Ideas: the Ideational Shaping of the Structural Power of Business.” International Studies Quarterly 56: 661–673.Google Scholar
Bell, Stephen, and Hindmoor, Andrew. 2015. “Taming the City? Ideas, Structural Power and the Evolution of British Banking Policy Amidst the Great Financial Meltdown.” New Political Economy 20 (3): 454–474.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernhagen, Patrick and Bräuninger, Thomas. 2005. “Structural Power and Public Policy: A Signaling Model of Business Lobbying in Democratic Capitalism” Political Studies 33: 43–64.Google Scholar
Bernhagen, Patrick. 2007. The Political Power of Business: Structure and Information in Public Policymaking. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Carpenter, Daniel. 2010. “Institutional Strangulation: Bureaucratic Politics and Financial Reform in the Obama Administration.” Perspectives on Politics 8 (3): 825–846.Google Scholar
Carroll, W. K. 2008. “The Corporate Elite and the Transformation of Finance Capital: A View from Canada.” The Sociological Review 56 (1): 44–63.Google Scholar
Compson, Hugh. 2013. “The Network of Global Corporate Control: Implications for Public Policy”, Business and Politics 15 (3): 357–379.Google Scholar
Culpepper, Pepper D. and Raphael, Reinke. 2014. “Structural Power and Bank Bailouts in the United States and the United Kingdom.” Politics and Society 42 (4): 427–454.Google Scholar
Culpepper, Pepper D. 2015. “Structural Power and Political Science in the Post-Crisis Era.” Business and Politics 17 (3): 391–409.Google Scholar
Dür, Andreas. 2008. “Measuring Interest Group Influence in the EU: A Note on Methodology.” European Union Politics 9 (4): 559–576.Google Scholar
Epstein, Gerald. 2005. Financialization of the World Economy. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Fairfield, Tasha. 2015. “Structural Power in Comparative Political Economy: Perspectives from Policy Formulation in Latin America.” Business and Politics 17 (3): 411–441.Google Scholar
Froud, Julie, Leaver, Adam, and Williams, Karel. 2007. “New Actors in a Financialised Economy and the Remaking of Capitalism”, New Political Economy 12 (3): 339–347.Google Scholar
Fuchs, Doris. 2007. Business Power in Global Governance. Boulder: Lynn Rienner.Google Scholar
Fuchs, Doris, and Markus, Lederer. 2007. “The Power of Business.” Business and Politics 9 (3): 1–17.Google Scholar
Gill, Stephen, and Law, David. 1989. “Global Hegemony and the Structural Power of Capital”, International Studies Quarterly 33 (4): 475–499.Google Scholar
Gill, Stephen. 1995. “Globalization, Market Civilization, and Disciplinary Neoliberalism”, Millennium, 24 (3): 399–421.Google Scholar
Hacker, Jacob and Pierson, Paul. 2002. “Business Power and Social Policy: Employers and the Formation of the American Welfare State”, Politics and Society 2: 277–325.Google Scholar
Hardie, Iain. 2006. “The Power of the Markets? The International Bond Markets and the 2002 Elections in Brazil”, Review of International Political Economy 13 (1): 53–77.Google Scholar
Helleiner, Eric. 2014. The Status Quo Crisis. Ithaca: Cornel University Press.Google Scholar
Johnson, Simon. 2009. “The Quiet Coup”, Atlantic, May.Google Scholar
Krippner, G. R. 2005. “The Financialization of the American Economy.” Socio-Economic Review 3: 173–208.Google Scholar
Krippner, G. R. 2012. Capitalizing on Crisis: the Political Origins of the Rise of Finance. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Lenin, V. I. 1917. Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. London, UK: Pluto Press.Google Scholar
Lin, K.-H. 2013. “The Rise of Finance and Firm Employment Dynamics, 1982–2005.” SSRN Electronic Journal doi:10.2139/ssrn.2284507.Google Scholar
Mahoney, Christine. 2007. “Lobbying Success in the United States and the European Union.” Journal of Public Policy 27 (2): 35–56.Google Scholar
Maxfield, Sylvia, Kindred Winecoff, W., and Young, Kevin. 2015. “Is there Still Room for Patience? An Empirical Investigation of the Financialization Convergence Hypothesis.” Unpublished Manuscript Currently Under Review.Google Scholar
McKay, Amy. 2012. “Negative Lobbying and Policy Outcomes.” American Politics Research 40 (1): 116–146.Google Scholar
McKeen-Edwards, Heather, and Porter, Tony. 2012. Transnational Financial Associations and the Governance of Global Finance: Assembling Wealth and Power. London: Routledge, pp. 13–14.Google Scholar
Mizruchi, M. S. 1996. “What Do Interlocks Do? An Analysis, Critique, and Assessment of Research on Interlocking Directorates.” Annual Review of Sociology 22: 271–298.Google Scholar
Mizruchi, M. S. 2013. The Fracturing of the American Corporate Elite. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Mosley, Layna. 2003. Global Capital and National Governments. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Nitzan, Jonathan and Bichler, Shimshon. 2009. Capital as Power: A Study of Order and Creorder. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Nölke, Andreas, and Perry, James. 2007. “The Power of Transnational Private Governance: Financialization and the IASB.” Business and Politics 9 (3): Article 4.Google Scholar
Pagliari, Stefano, and Young, Kevin. 2014. “Leveraged Interests: Financial Industry Power and the Role of Private Sector Coalitions.” Review of International Political Economy 21 (3): 575–610.Google Scholar
Posner, Elliot. 2009. “Making Rules for Global Finance: Transatlantic Regulatory Cooperation at the Turn of the Millennium.” International Organization 63: 665–99.Google Scholar
Strange, Susan. 1984. “What about International Relations?” In Paths to International Political Economy, edited by Strange, Susan, 183–197. London: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Strange, Susan. 1988. States and Markets. London: Pinter.Google Scholar
Swank, Duane. 1992. “Politics and the Structural Dependence of the State in Democratic Capitalist Nations.” American Political Science Review 86 (1): 38–54.Google Scholar
Torfason, Magnus, and Kitts, James. 2011. “Prominence.” In Encyclopedia of Social Networks, edited by Barnett, George A. Thousand Oaks: Sage.Google Scholar
Walter, Andrew. 1998. “Do they really rule the world?” New Political Economy 3 (2): 288–292.Google Scholar
Winecoff, Will. 2015. “Structural Power and the Global Financial Crisis: A Network Analytical Approach.” Business and Politics 17 (3): 495–525.Google Scholar
Woll, Cornelia. 2014. The Power of Inaction: Bank Bailouts in Comparative Perspective. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Van Evera, Stephen. 1997. Guide to Methods for Students of Political Science. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Young, Kevin. 2012. “Transnational Regulatory Capture?” An Empirical Examination of the Transnational Lobbying of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.” Review of International Political Economy 19 (4): 663–688.Google Scholar
Young, Kevin and Park, Sung Ho. 2013. “Regulatory Opportunism: Cross-National Patterns in National Banking Regulatory Responses Following the Global Financial Crisis”, Public Administration 91 (3): 561–581.Google Scholar
Young, Kevin, and Spagna, Irene. 2015. “Regulation Under the Influence: An Analysis of Rulemaking by the Securities and Exchange Commission,” Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar