Baker, A.P. and Wigan, D. (2017) Constructing and contesting City of London power: NGOs and the emergence of noisier financial politics. Economy and Society, 46 (2). pp. 185-210. ISSN 0308-5147
Abstract
Existing literature on the City of London has tended to focus on its ‘structural power’, while neglecting political and narrative agency. This article acts as a corrective by presenting evidence to show that since the financial crash of 2008, the political terrain the City operates on has become more contested, crowded and noisier. The contribution develops a middle course between a positive assessment of the role of civil society in relation to global finance, and a more pessimistic reading. We demonstrate how macro-narratives and public storytelling both construct and contest City and financial sector power. In a new pattern since the financial crash, NGOs have moved from campaigns of limited duration and narrow focus, to a more sustained presence on macro-structural issues. Adopting a supply-demand framework for assessing governance and regulatory change we look at the emergence of the CityUK as a new advocacy arm and the strategies of three of the more prominent and focused NGOs that have mobilised in the aftermath of the crash: the Tax Justice Network’s (TJN) use of the ‘finance curse’; Positive Money on private endogenous money creation; and Finance Watch counterweight strategies at the level of European Union (EU). We suggest these mobilizations highlight the need for a more concerted and orchestrated construction of a global institutional civil society infrastructure in finance (a global financial public sphere) to achieve greater access, resources, scrutiny and oversight for a range of specialist expert NGOs.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2017 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | City of London; structural power; macro-narratives; NGOs; noisy politics; financial crisis; civil society; supply-demand framework; global financial public sphere; institutional infrastructure |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Politics and International Relations (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 10 May 2017 15:48 |
Last Modified: | 06 Nov 2018 11:10 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2017.1359909 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Taylor & Francis |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1080/03085147.2017.1359909 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:116157 |