Financial deregulation strengthened capital while leaving labour and voters behind.

Evidence

The borders of the nation-state traditionally have circumscribed the arena within which distributive processes take place, but it has long been recognized that the international setting is of significance for constellations of power relations and strategies of distributive conflict within nationstates. During the last quarter of the twentieth century, the cross-border mobility of financial assets has been facilitated by various forms of deregulation, thereby opening up new action alternatives for holders of economic power resources. Actors whose main resources are based on labour power and the right to vote have not benefited in the same way from the decreasing significance of national borders. — Walter Korpi, The Iceberg of Power below the Surface, 22

Categorization

• XREF: Directly parallels Gilens & Page on unequal policy influence, and the financialization-bargaining-power findings on income distribution.
• SEED: Angle: ‘When the arena moved, capital won’ - how the unit of distributive contest (nation-state vs. global) determines which power resource pays off.