The Transnational Politics of Corporate Governance Regulation

This ambitious volume explores the politics of recent changes in corporate governance regulation and the transnational forces driving the process. Corporate governance has in the 1990s become a catchphrase of the global business community. The Enron collapse and other recent corporate scandals, as well as growing worries in Europe about the rise of Anglo-Saxon finance, have made issues of corporate governance the subject of political controversies and of public debate. The contributors argue that the regulation of corporate governance is an inherently political affair. Given the context of the deepening globalization of the corporate world, it is also increasingly a transnational phenomenon. In terms of the content of regulation the book shows an increasing reliance on the application of market mechanisms and a tendency for corporations themselves to become commodities. The emerging new mode of regulation is characterized by increasing informalization and by forms of private regulation. These changes in content and mode are driven by transnational actors, first of all the owners of internationally mobile financial capital and their functionaries such as coordination service firms, as well as by key public international agencies such as the European Commission. The Transnational Politics of Corporate Governance Regulation will be of interest to students and researchers of international political economy, politics, economics and corporate governance.

1. The Transnational Politics of Corporate Governance Regulation: Introducing Key Concepts, Questions and Approaches Bastiaan van Apeldoorn, Andreas Nölke and Henk Overbeek Part 1: Themes and Approaches 2. Explaining Corporate Governance Systems: Alternative Approaches Peter Gourevitch 3. Regulation- and State-Theoretical Perspectives on Changes in Corporate Governance and Metagovernance Bob Jessop 4. The paradoxical Nature of Shareholder Primacy: A Re-consideration of the Enron-era Financial Scandals in the USA and the EU Antoine Rebérioux Part 2: European Corporate Governance Regulation and the Politics of Marketization 5. The Transformation of Corporate Governance Regulation in the European Union: From Harmonisation to Marketisation Bastiaan van Apeldoorn and Laura Horn 6. Towardsa Market-Based Approach: The Privatization and Microeconomization of EU Antitrust Law Enforcement Angela Wigger Part 3: The Role of Private Authority in Corporate Governance Regulation 7. Coordination Service Firms and the Erosion of Rhenish Capitalism Andreas Nölkeand James Perry 8. The Role of Private Actors in Global Governance and Regulation: US, European and International Convergence of Accounting and Auditing Standards in a Post Enron World Ian Dewing andPeter Russell Part 4: Integrating Emerging Market Economies 9. Transitions Through Different Corporate Governance Structures in Postsocialist Economies: Which Convergence? Wladimir Andreff 10. Corporate Governance Regulation in East Central Europe: The Role of Transnational Forces Arjan Vliegenthart & Henk Overbeek Part 5: Conclusion 11. Marketization, Transnationalization, Commodification and the Shifts in Corporate Governance Regulation: a Conclusion Andreas Nölke, Henk Overbeek and Bastiaan van Apeldoorn Bibliography

Henk Overbeek is Professor of International Relations in the Department of Political Science of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam,The Netherlands. In 2003 he co-founded the Amsterdam Research Centre on Corporate Governance Regulation (ARRCGOR). Bastiaan van Apeldoorn is a Reader in International Relations at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He is also co-founder and programme co-coordinator of the Amsterdam Centre for Corporate Governance Regulation (ARCCGOR). Andreas Nölke is Professor of Political Science at the Institut für Politikwissenschaft of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. He is also Programme Coordinator at the Amsterdam Research Center for Corporate Governance Regulation (ARCCGOR).