Financialization

The concept of financialization may be viewed in terms of an attempt at grasping the increasingly hegemonic position of financial markets and their actors in the economic, political, and social affairs of the global economy across national and regional varieties. The underlying expansion of financial markets is commonly understood as a politically shaped process that goes together with policy efforts in the restructuring of regulation efforts. Accordingly, financialization may contribute to the replacement of nonmarket mechanisms of economic coordination with market schemes and therefore fuel further institutional changes that redefine economy-society relationships. In this vein, financialization is held responsible for the international financial crisis that hit the world economy in and following 2007.

Set in the context of ongoing debates in economics, sociology, political science, and ...