The Prisoners' Dilemma: Political Economy and Punishment in Contemporary Democracies by Nicola Lacey

Published date01 May 2009
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.2009.00755_1.x
Date01 May 2009
AuthorTim Newburn
ownership structures which do not ¢t neatly within the usual regulatory frame-
work of corporate governance. In terms of the optimal form of regulation for
these ¢rms, Chapter Seven moves on to the third pillar-optional guidelines-
which addresses the‘softlaw principles,guidelines and recommendations’regulat-
ing non-listed ¢rms and especially private equity funds. Chapter Eight looks at
hybrid business forms and the regulation of illicit transactions such as related
party transactions, and Chapter Nine concludes by drawing together the books
ideas on the future of non-listed ¢rms.
In sum, McCahery and Vermeulen o¡er an insightful analysis of two very
interesting recent developments ^ the increasingadoption by non-listed ¢rms of
governance codes andpractices designedfor listed ¢rms, and the increasing use of
‘soft-law’ to regulate non -listed ¢rms. They have succeeded i n giving an i ndica-
tion of the direction reform is taking around theworld, thereby o¡eringa nexcel-
lent overviewof recent trends in corporate law.They suggest that corporate lawin
Europe makes it more di⁄cult and costly for‘close corporations’to avoid onerous
legal requirements as compared to the US, but that the proliferation of close cor-
porations suggests that ultimately, ¢rms are able to sidestep these di⁄culties with
relative ease so that corporate law is, in this context, trivial (32). This suggests that
the lackof a speci¢c legal regime governing close corporations does not matter,as
¢rms are able to modifyand adapt their structures su⁄ciently. Nevertheless, they
argue that corporate law could do more to‘provide an adequate basis to govern
relations between the majority and minority and the ¢rm itself in a closely held
¢rm setting’, by regulating the problem of minority oppression and reducing or
eliminating the costs which ¢rms incur in transacting around the law (33). The
book is therefore a most interesting, highly instructive, and very welcome addi-
tion to the corporate governance debates.
Wa n j ir u N j o ya
n
Nicola Lacey, The Prisoners’ Dilemma: Political Economy and Punishment
in Contemporary Democracies
,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008,
234 pp, pb d12.99.
Nicola Lacey’s 2007 Hamlyn Lectures concern one of the more interesting and
pressing public policy issues of our times. Across the world, liberal democracies
are imprisoning ever greater numbers of people and there appears little or no
political appetite to challenge this state of a¡airs. As I write, the prison system in
England andWales is all but full to capacityand the population inside is almost
twice that of 20 years ago. However, though we are the leader in this regard in
Europe we remain some way behind others, and we only have to cast our eyes
across theAtlantic to see where all this might lead.The United States ^ now the
world’s great incarcerator ^ imprisons at approximately ¢ve times the rate of the
UK.Well over two million American citizens are imprisoned on any given day
n
WadhamCollege, Oxford.
Reviews
510 r2009 The Authors.Journal Compilation r2009 The Modern Law Review Limited.
(2009) 72(3) 507 ^518

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