Political Power and Corporate Control: the New Global Politics of Corporate Governance

Description

Political Power and Corporate Control: The New Global Politics of Corporate Governance -- CONTENTS -- LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS -- PREFACE -- CHAPTER ONE Introduction and Summary Argument -- Why Fight about Corporate Governance? -- Great Variance and the "Great Reversals" -- Putting the Pieces Together: In Search of a Political Explanation -- Policy Consequences -- Plan of Attack -- CHAPTER TWO Governance Patterns: What Causes What? -- Outcomes: Dependent Variables and Patterns of Control -- Capitalist Economic Policies, Minority Shareholder Protections, and Degrees of Coordination;Why does corporate governance--front page news with the collapse of Enron, WorldCom, and Parmalat--vary so dramatically around the world? This book explains how politics shapes corporate governance--how managers, shareholders, and workers jockey for advantage in setting the rules by which companies are run, and for whom they are run. It combines a clear theoretical model on this political interaction, with statistical evidence from thirty-nine countries of Europe, Asia, Africa, and North and South America and detailed narratives of country cases. This book differs sharply from most treatments by explaining differences in minority shareholder protections and ownership concentration among countries in terms of the interaction of economic preferences and political institutions. It explores in particular the crucial role of pension plans and financial intermediaries in shaping political preferences for different rules of corporate governance. The countries examined sort into two distinct groups: diffuse shareholding by external investors who pick a board that monitors the managers, and concentrated blockholding by insiders who monitor managers directly. Examining the political coalitions that form among or across management, owners, and workers, the authors find that certain coalitions encourage policies that promote diffuse shareholding, while other coalitions yield blockholding-oriented policies. Political institutions influence the probability of one coalition defeating another. Political Power and Corporate Control: The New Global Politics of Corporate Governance -- CONTENTS -- LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS -- PREFACE -- CHAPTER ONE Introduction and Summary Argument -- Why Fight about Corporate Governance? -- Great Variance and the "Great Reversals" -- Putting the Pieces Together: In Search of a Political Explanation -- Policy Consequences -- Plan of Attack -- CHAPTER TWO Governance Patterns: What Causes What? -- Outcomes: Dependent Variables and Patterns of Control -- Capitalist Economic Policies, Minority Shareholder Protections, and Degrees of Coordination Politics: Preferences and Institutions -- Conclusion -- CHAPTER THREE Framing Incentives: The Economics and Law Tradition -- Origins of the Debate -- Incomplete Contracts and Private Order -- Law and Regulation: Minority Shareholder Protections-Information, Oversight, Control, and Incentives -- Varieties of Capitalism: Degrees of Coordination in Market Economies -- Conclusion -- CHAPTER FOUR Politics: Preferences and Institutions -- Mapping Financial Interests on Political Processes: A Causal Model -- Preferences and Coalitions among Owners, Managers, and Workers Political Institutions: Majoritarian and Consensus Mechanisms -- Alternative Arguments: Legal Family and Economic Sociology -- Conclusion -- CHAPTER FIVE Preference Cleavages 1: Class Conflict -- Section 1: Owners and Managers Dominate Workers -- The Investor Model -- Analytic Narrative -- Korea: Changing Institutions, Shifting Preferences -- Section 2: Workers Dominate Owners and Managers -- The Labor Power Model -- Analytic Narrative -- Sweden: The Exemplar of the Labor Power Model? -- Conclusion -- CHAPTER SIX Preference Cleavages 2: Sectoral Conflict -- Section 1: Cross-Class Coalitions The Corporatist Model: Workers and Managers Dominate Owners -- Analytic Narrative -- Germany: From Corporatist Bargain to a Transparency Coalition -- Japan: Concentration without Owners -- The Netherlands: The Evolution of "Poldermodel" Corporatism -- Section 2: Building Coalitions in Authoritarian Systems -- The Oligarchy Model: Owners Dominate Workers and Managers -- Analytic Narratives -- Russia: Oligarchs and Politics -- China: "Selectorate-Electorate" Coalition -- Singapore: Shareholder Protections with "Guided" Democracy -- Conclusion CHAPTER SEVEN Preference Cleavages 3: Transparency, Voice, and Pensions -- Section 1: Workers and Owners Dominate Managers -- From Class Conflict to Corporatist Compromise -- Analytic Narratives -- Chile: Authoritarian Roots of the Transparency Coalition -- Malaysia: Ethnicity and Democracy in Governance Politics -- Section 2: Managers Dominate Owners and Workers -- "Managerism" -- Analytic Narratives -- The United States: A Contested Path from Oligarchy to MSP -- United Kingdom: The Power of Majoritarian Political Institutions? -- France: Without the State, Who Is in Control? -- Conclusion