Public officials adopt financialization not from ideology but from state incapacities

Evidence

The question remains of why politicians and civil servants are throwing themselves into this financialisation of public policies. Overarching explanations that consider these actors converted to a new ideology or ‘‘bought’’ by capital are to be avoided. The difficulties of public action are probably a better starting point to understand why defenders of the public interest rally round these solutions in order to advance their favourite causes (which are not the same as the causes of financial investors). Several theories can be put forward. States’ difficulties in exerting any influence over globalised companies may lead them to enrol market mechanisms, and rely on so-called ‘‘market discipline’’ to achieve through interested action what they cannot achieve through direct coercion. In the case of changes in bank supervision, and changes in accounting standards, States trying to construct common international regulations to influence global financial interaction have believed they had no choice but to use standards resulting from self-regulation, thereby incorporating highly financialised representations into their public action, and these representations then spread to activities of a more local nature. Another factor is that the work of producing global standards is itself dominated by actors with strong links to financial actors. — Ève Chiapello, Financialisation of Valuation, 105

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s finance/culture interest: how financialized standards colonize non-financial public action via state weakness rather than ideological capture. — connects to: US financialization emerged from state responses to 1970s governance crises. — Gerald F. Davis & Suntae Kim, Financialization of the Economy, 32; Statespeople act as trustees rather than self-interested spoils collectors — Abdi Ismail Samatar, Africa’s First Democrats, 105; The state actively drives financialization through policy, while individuals internalize its risk discourses. — Natascha van der Zwan, Making Sense of Financialization, 81 (+2 more)
• SEED: Angle: ‘why good people govern badly’ - the mechanisms by which state incapacities (not corruption) import financial logic into public policy.
• DEEPTHINKING: A genuinely paradigm-shifting move: reframing financialization of the state as a rational strategy by well-intentioned actors, not a capture story.

Related

• The state actively drives financialization through policy, while individuals internalize its risk discourses. (similarity 0.81)
• Statespeople act as trustees rather than self-interested spoils collectors (similarity 0.78)
• US financialization emerged from state responses to 1970s governance crises. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• US financialization emerged from state responses to 1970s governance crises. #corroborates (0.85) — Gerald F. Davis & Suntae Kim, Financialization of the Economy, 32
• The state actively drives financialization through policy, while individuals internalize its risk discourses. #expands (0.80) — Natascha van der Zwan, Making Sense of Financialization, 81
• State financial needs overrode personal antisemitism in ruling officials. #exemplifies (0.78) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1975
• Statespeople act as trustees rather than self-interested spoils collectors #complicates (0.70) — Abdi Ismail Samatar, Africa’s First Democrats, 105