The Aftermath of the Financial Crisis: Continuity and Little Change
| Published date | 01 February 2017 |
| Date | 01 February 2017 |
| Author | Michael Keaney |
| DOI | 10.1111/1478-9302.12077 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1111/1478-9302.12077
Political Studies Review
2017, Vol. 15(1) 6 –17
© The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1111/1478-9302.12077
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605968PSW0010.1111/1478-9302.12077Political Studies Review X(X) Jeffery et al.
research-article2016
Article
The Aftermath of the Financial Crisis:
Continuity and Little Change
Michael Keaney
Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, Finland
Academic literature on the global financial crisis (GFC) continues unabated, prompted in large part by the lack of
any profound changes arising in its aftermath. In addition to the sifting of evidence, researchers are using the
opportunity to test theories and apply new meta-theoretical tools. Unfortunately, particularly in the case of the
latter, the claims made on their behalf are insufficiently supported by the results of their application. The most
insightful and revealing of the studies under review here are the most conventional with respect to methodology
and theory.
Grant, W. and Wilson, G. K. (eds) (2012) The Consequences of the Global Financial Crisis: The Rhetoric of Reform and
Regulation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
McKeen-Edwards, H. and Porter, A. (2013) Transnational Financial Associations and the Governance of Global Finance:
Assembling Wealth and Power. London: Routledge.
Rethel, L. and Sinclair, T. J. (2012) The Problem with Banks. London: Zed Books.
Thompson, G. F. (2012) The Constitutionalization of the Global Corporate Sphere? Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Keywords: political economy; methodology; globalisation; crisis; finance
Given the assured way in which the neoliberal version of capitalism, corresponding with
the policies assertively promoted by the US, was assumed to be ‘a single sustainable
model for national success’ (Bush, 2002, p. iv), the unraveling of that model, beginning
in 2007 and quickly enveloping the higher income countries, was indeed a rude
awakening. However, the knee-jerk ‘Keynesianism’ it inspired quickly gave way to
policies of austerity, as the nationalisation of private debts turned a crisis of banking and
finance into one of sovereign debt. Optimistic projections of fundamental change in
economic policy and the economics discipline quickly gave way to more pessimistic
appraisals of the apparent lack of real change in either (Crouch, 2011; Mirowski, 2013).
Nevertheless the academic literature inspired by the global financial crisis (GFC)
continues to accumulate. As with the books under review here, it ranges from efforts to
trace the causes of the crisis and thereby suggest preventive and even radical changes
(Rethel and Sinclair), to understanding its unfolding consequences in practice (Grant and
Wilson); from mapping the private and quasi-public networks that form a key element of
the financial sector’s increased political influence (McKeen-Edwards and Porter) to
investigating the transnationalisation of corporate governance and its political, legal and
juridical implications (Thompson). Combined with this to varying degrees are efforts to
advance various methodological and theoretical arguments. The results are mixed, and
success is typically in inverse proportion to the weight of ambition riding upon those
second order agendas.
POLITICAL STUDIES REVIEW: 2015
doi: 10.1111/1478-9302.12077
© 2015 The Author. Political Studies Review © 2015 Political Studies Association
The Aftermath of the Financial
Crisis: Continuity and Little Change
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