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2017 | Buch

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Professional Authority After the Global Financial Crisis

Defending Mammon in Anglo-America

verfasst von: Malcolm Campbell-Verduyn

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Buchreihe : Building a Sustainable Political Economy: SPERI Research & Policy

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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This book challenges amoral views of finance as the leading realm in which mammon – wealth and profit – is pursued with little overt regard for morality. The author details an enhanced ethical emphasis by leading Anglo–American professionals in the aftermath of the 2007–8 global financial crisis. Instead of merely stressing expert knowledge, professionals sought to overcome the alleged impossibility of serving “two masters” – mammon and God – by embracing religious finance, socio-economic inequality, sustainability and other overtly moral issues. Continuities in liberal values and ideas, however, limited the impact of this enhanced ethical emphasis to restoring the professional authority, as well as to more fundamentally reforming of Anglo–American finance following the most severe period of instability since the Great Depression. Providing a nuanced account of post-crisis change and continuity in a crucially important industry, Campbell-Verduyn advances a dynamic, process-based understanding of authority that will appeal to international political economists and sociologists alike.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

1. Professional Authority and Anglo-American Finance in Crisis

Abstract

How has the persistent pursuit of mammon been justified in the aftermath of the global financial crisis? This chapter outlines the importance of and limits to the enhanced ethical emphasis undertaken by Anglo-American professionals after the instability of 2007–8. Religious finance along with socio-economic inequality as well as sustainability are identified as explicitly macro-level ethical issues whose novelty is contrasted with the long-standing emphasis of professionals on micro-level issues of integrity, confidentiality, conflicts of interest, and objectivity. A three-step genealogical method and the sources of data underpinning the analysis of professional authority in Anglo-American finance are outlined along with the specific sets of professionals examined and wider contributions to research on authority and ethics in Global Political Economy (GPE) and International Relations (IR).

Malcolm Campbell-Verduyn

2. The Dynamism of Authority in Global Governance

Abstract

This chapter outlines a novel approach for examining how, who, and where authority is exercised in global governance. Rather than an attribute, authority is re-framed as a dynamic process by drawing on notions of power and legitimation developed in constructivist literatures on identities and practices in sociology, IR as well as GPE. Post-structuralist insights are engaged along with interdisciplinary studies emphasising the importance of discourses in legitimating power both in finance specifically and in contemporary governance more generally. Professionals are finally identified as a “special” category of non-state actors exercising authority beyond the so-called public-private divide.

Malcolm Campbell-Verduyn

3. The Dynamic Authority of Leading Financial Services Providers

Abstract

This chapter traces the dynamic authority of three sets of UK- and US-based financial services providers: the major American credit rating agencies Moody’s, Fitch and Standard & Poor’s; the global accounting firms Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and PwC; as well as the technology, information, and news corporations (TINCs) whose ranks include Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters and Dow Jones. The pre-crisis authority of these professionals that was long underpinned by expert identities was challenged by tensions stemming from their widespread failures in the 2007–8 global financial crisis. In the immediate aftermath of this period of instability leading Anglo-American financial services providers undertook explicit engagements with macro-level moral issues. These dispersed ethical emphases culminated in attempts to re-legitimate professional power by shifting identities from neutral providers of financial services to overt contributors to wider common concerns.

Malcolm Campbell-Verduyn

4. The Dynamic Authority of Economists

Abstract

The dynamic authority of prominent orthodox economists trained and based in the UK and USA are examined in this chapter. Esoteric discourses known as economese that long underpinned the pre-crisis expert identities of these professionals became widely challenged in the 2007–8 global financial crisis. Discontinuities then occurred in the discursive emphases of leading “centrist” economists like Andrew Haldane, Raghuram Rajan, and Robert Shiller; leading “right-wing,” conservative economists Alan Greenspan, Gregory Mankiw, Kenneth Rogoff, and Robert Lucas Jr.; as well as more progressive, “left-wing” economists Joseph Stiglitz, Lawrence Summers, and Paul Krugman. The shift from neutral, value-free economese to explicitly moral economese stressed previously overlooked macro-level ethical issues and culminated in subtle yet overlooked attempts to re-legitimate the power of these professionals after the crisis.

Malcolm Campbell-Verduyn

5. The Dynamic Authority of Advisories

Abstract

This chapter traces the dynamic authority of prominent actuaries such as David Li; leading financial consulting firms like AT Kearney and Oliver Wyman; as well as the bulge-bracket legal groups Allen & Overy, Baker & MacKenzie, and Clifford Chance. The expert identities that long underpinned the pre-crisis authority of these advisories became deeply contested in the 2007–8 global financial crisis. Discontinuities in the discursive emphases of these professionals subsequently occurred as previously backgrounded macro-level ethical issues became explicitly stressed in the aftermath of the crisis. The agency exercised by leading advisories culminated in subtle attempts to re-legitimate professional power following contestations of authority in the traumatic crisis of 2007–8.

Malcolm Campbell-Verduyn

6. Continuities and Limits

Abstract

This penultimate chapter exposes significant continuities and limits to the enhanced ethical emphasis in the aftermath of the 2007–8 global financial crisis. First, the explicit consideration of ethics was not paralleled by changes in expert knowledge. Second, the emphasis on macro-level moral issue-areas continued to emphasise key liberal values of individualism, economic growth, transparency, and market self-governance. These elements of continuity undermined both post-crisis defences of mammon and attempts to re-legitimate professional power. In a first instance, continual cognitive failures involved professionals in persistent scandals and volatilities. In a second instance, overtly moral niches of global finance were integrated into a volatile Anglo-American financial system marked by crises of increasing frequency and severity. The enhanced stress on overtly moral issues therefore persistently undermines rather than enhances professional authority. More widely, the enhanced ethical emphasis fails to inject new ideas and values in Anglo-American finance.

Malcolm Campbell-Verduyn

7. Professional Authority in Anglo-American Finance and Beyond

Abstract

This chapter concludes that restoring both professional authority and the integrity of finance in Anglo-American society depends crucially on the ideas and values underlying efforts to defend mammon. An overt stress on macro-level ethical issues is limited when liberal values and ideas continue to implicate professionals in ongoing volatilities. Tensions between financial professionals and the financial sector as a whole are likely to persist until more profound cognitive and normative changes integrate a wider range of alternative values and ideas. Besides summarising the central arguments of the book, this chapter elaborates avenues for future research on professional authority as well as on ethics in Anglo-American finance and other crisis-prone areas of contemporary activity.

Malcolm Campbell-Verduyn

Backmatter

Titel: Professional Authority After the Global Financial Crisis
verfasst von: Malcolm Campbell-Verduyn
Verlag: Springer International Publishing
Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-52782-6
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-52781-9
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52782-6

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Über dieses Buch

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

1. Professional Authority and Anglo-American Finance in Crisis

2. The Dynamism of Authority in Global Governance

3. The Dynamic Authority of Leading Financial Services Providers

4. The Dynamic Authority of Economists

5. The Dynamic Authority of Advisories

6. Continuities and Limits

7. Professional Authority in Anglo-American Finance and Beyond

Backmatter

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