In the aftermath of the financial crisis, why have reforms been incremental, despite the fact that conditions for rapid transformation appeared to be available? Is there anything specific about financial policy that prevents more radical reforms?
Drawing from comparative politics and historical institutionalism in particular, as well as international political economy, this book answers these questions by examining the particular institutional frictions which characterise global financial governance, and which influence the activity of change agents and veto players involved in global regulatory change.
Chapters demonstrate that the process of change in financial rule-making, as well as in the institutions governing finance, do not fit with the punctuated model of policy change. They also show, however, that incremental changes can lead to fundamental shifts in the basic principles that inform global financial governance.
The global financial crisis was, by any measure, a great systemic shock that has so far led to a series of less-than-great systemic transformations - at least in the area of financial reform. Moschella and Tsingou explain why this is the case. By harnessing the insights of historical institutionalism to those of agent-centred constructivism, they show us why great institutional transformations may take a lot longer, and may be significantly more contingent, than we generally think. -- Mark Blyth, Brown University
Many expected the financial collapse of 2007/8 to provoke significant reform of financial systems around the globe. So far, at least, national governments have been slow to act. Moschella and Tsingou's fascinating and thoughtful volume helps us understand why. The editors have pulled together well reasoned, persuasive essays examining the politics and political economy of financial reform efforts around the globe. Eschewing the temptation to blame specific interests and their compliant politicians, the authors give give us a set of nuanced stories that go beyond the politics of financial reform, helping us better understand why institutional change itself is so difficult.
This book will be of great interest for political economists interested in the politics of banking and financial regulation in the early twenty-first century, as well as for historical institutionalists interested in the politics of institutional change. -- Sven Steinmo,European University Institute
In this timely, tightly argued, and empirically trenchant study, Moschella and Tsingou provide the strongest statement yet of why national and international post-crisis reform packages have fallen short of their most ambitious goals. Covering virtually every area of the international financial system, the editors and their collaborators detail the origins and consequences of incremental policy changes, but note that, in the end, reforms may produce a subtle transformation in financial market regulation. Great Expectations, Slow Transformations will long remain a major resource for scholars of post-crisis capitalism. -- Orfeo Fioretos, Temple University
Manuela Moschella is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Turin. She is the author of Governing Risk: The IMF and Global Financial Crises published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2010. Her research interests include the politics of financial crises and processes of institutional change with a particular focus on the international financial institutions. She has published on these issues in a number of journals, including the Review of International Political Economy, New Political Economy, the Journal of Public Policy, Comparative European Politics and Comparative Economic Studies. She is currently co-editing the new Handbook of Global Economic Governance for Routledge.
Eleni Tsingou is Assistant Professor of International Political Economy at the Copenhagen Business School and Senior Research Fellow at the University of Warwick. She is the author of numerous chapters and articles on the governance of global finance and her work has appeared in Review of International Political Economy, International Politics and International Political Sociology. She was also a member of the Warwick Commission on International Financial Reform.
Andrew Baker is Reader in Political Economy at Queen’s University, Belfast. He is the current lead editor of the British Journal of Politics and International Relations and an Honorary Research Fellow of the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute (SPERI). His research interests cover the politics of the financial crisis, Anglo-American political economy, the knowledge systems and professional cultures of leading finance ministries and central banks, and the history of macroprudential ideas. He has published over 25 refereed chapters and articles on financial governance and has authored two books, The Group of Seven, and Governing Financial Globalization, published by Routledge in 2006 and 2005 repsectively.
Sebastian Botzem is Research Fellow at the Social Science Research Center, Berlin. He studied political science and holds a PhD in business administration. His research focus is on transnational standardisation in accounting, regulation of financial markets, and the role of organisations in international political economy. Recent publications include The Politics of Accounting Regulation: Organizing transnational standard setting in financial reporting (Edward Elgar, 2012).
Martin Carstensen is Assistant Professor at the Department of Business and Politics, Copenhagen Business School. His primary theoretical interests lie within institutional theory and discursive institutionalism, and he has published articles on the question of how ideas develop over time and after crises, using the financial crisis as a case, in Political Studies, European Political Science Review and New Political Economy. He is currently working on a three-year post-doctoral project funded by the Carlsberg Fund.
Iver Kjar is a doctoral student at the Department for Business and Politics of the Copenhagen Business School. He holds a Master of Arts in international political economy from the University of Warwick. His research interests are in international political economy and economic sociology and specifically everyday politics, legitimacy, housing, institutional change, and financialisation.
Stefano Pagliari is a Lecturer in International Political Economy in the International Politics Department at City University, London. His research interests are in global finance and regulation and his work has been published in International Organization, New Political Economy, European Law Journal and Journal of European Integration.
Lucia Quaglia is Professor of Political Science at the University of York. Her most recent research monographs are Governing Financial Services in the European Union (2010) and Central Banking Governance in the EU: A comparative analysis (2008), both published by Routledge. She is also the author with Kenneth Dyson of European Economic Governance and Policies (OUP, 2010). She was guest co-editor, with Dermot Hodson, of the 2009 special issue of the Journal of Common Market Studies on 'The Global Financial Turmoil: European Perspectives and Lessons'.
Thomas Rixen is Professor of Political Science at the University of Bamberg. His research interests are in international and comparative political economy. He is the author of The Political Economy of International Tax Governance (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008) and has published in European Journal of International Relations, Review of International Political Economy and Journal of Common Market Studies, among other journals.
Kevin Young is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His research focuses on the politics of financial regulation, international negotiation theory, transnational policy networks and the role of interest groups in economic policy-making. His published work appears in Public Administration and Review of International Political Economy.
