Global Capitalist Restructuring and Corporate Governance Regulation in the European Political Economy

Abstract

The shareholder-oriented model of corporate governance – the point of reference in most debates regardless of whether they be critical or in support of this perceived ‘standard model’ (Hansmann and Kraakman 2001) – is a relatively recent phenomenon. As Aglietta and Rebérioux observe (2005: 2), ‘until the 1970s, corporate governance, though assuming a different form on each side of the Atlantic, nevertheless concurred on one point: the weakness of market mechanisms in general, and of capital market mechanisms in particular.’ A comprehensive account of how the practices and discourses of the shareholder model came to dominate policy debates in most capitalist economies from the 1990s onwards is beyond the scope of this study (see e.g. Lazonick and O’Sullivan 2000; Aglietta and Rebérioux 2005). Still, while the focus of this analysis is primarily on the politics of regulatory transformation within EU integration, these developments need to be contextualized in the broader process of global capitalist restructuring.