Description
Book SynopsisIn Public Law and Private Power, John W. Cioffi argues that the highly politicized reform of corporate governance law has reshaped power relations within the public corporation in favor of financial interests, contributed to the profound crises of contemporary capitalism, and eroded its political foundations. Analyzing the origins of pro-shareholder and pro-financial market reforms in the United States and Germany during the past two decades, Cioffi unravels a double paradox: the expansion of law and the regulatory state at the core of the financially driven neoliberal economic model and the surprising role of Center Left parties in championing the interests of shareholders and the financial sector.
Since the early 1990s, changes in law to alter the structure of the corporation and financial marketstwo institutional pillars of modern capitalismhighlight the contentious regulatory politics that reshaped the legal architecture of national corporate governance regimes and
Trade Review
For a number of years, comparative corporate governance research has attempted to explain how politics influence the nature and evolution of corporate governance (CG) regimes. John W. Cioffi's latest book makes an important and topical contribution to this debate.... It will be of interest to scholars of CG, comparative lawyers and anyone interested in modern capitalism. Cioffi draws our attention to the importance of 'regulatory politics' in an era where legal density tends to increase. This is a timely corrective to the shifting focus in comparative political economy towards bottom-up (rule-taker driven) and incremental forms of institutional change.
* British Journal of Industrial Relations *
While other scholars recognized the inter-linkages among what were often seen previously as separate domains, Cioffi's nexus of law approach provides a new and promising alternative way to analyze systematically these inter-linkages.... Indeed, I think Cioffi's book should stand alongside it [Political Power and Corporate Control by Peter Gourevitch and James Shinn] as one of the most important monographs by political scientists on corporate governance. Aside from its theoretical contributions, the book contributes extensive and rich new empirical material to the literature, and the work on the Sarbanes-Oxley reform may be some of the best and most thorough on the topic anywhere,.
* Industrial and Labor Relations Review *
Table of Contents1. Corporate Governance Reform and the Age of Finance Capitalism
2. Corporate Governance as Juridical Nexus and the Politics of Reform
3. Neoliberal Governance and the Neocorporatist Firm: Governance Models in the United States and Germany
4. U.S. Corporate Governance Reform: Boom, Bust, and Backlash
5. German Corporate Governance Reform: The Limits of Legal Transformation
6. Governing the Ruins: The Global Financial Crisis and Corporate Governance
Conclusion: Legal Form and the Politics of Reform
References
Cases
Statutes, Regulations, and Regulatory Materials
Index
