British Journal of Criminology Advance Access published online on September 10, 2009
British Journal of Criminology, doi:10.1093/bjc/azp062
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The British Journal of Criminology 0:azp062 (2009)
© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (ISTD). All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
The Governance of Securities
Ponzi Finance, Regulatory Convergence, Credit Crunch
* Department of Criminology, School of Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands; dorn{at}frg.eur.nl.
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Abstract |
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The unfolding market crisis reveals evasions of regulatory controls and frauds that were less visible in buoyant markets. International networking of regulators and those they regulated resulted in convergence of regulatory standards—and creation of common ‘blind spots’—corresponding to private sector assumptions, ‘models’, data and mood. Moving forward, this paper suggests that the literature on security governance can be used to re-frame market regulation. Going against calls for a tightening of convergence between regulatory regimes, the paper argues for regulatory diversity as a means for reducing market ‘herding’ and the consequent systemic risks. Regulatory diversity would correspond to a political strategy of democratic steering of regulatory agencies, diluting, if not displacing, the currently dominant notion of financial market regulation as a purely ‘technical’ discourse. In concrete terms, this implies shifting systemic regulatory oversight responsibilities away from ‘independent’ agencies, to government bodies and/or departments that are held accountable to their parliaments and electorates.
Key Words: regulation • financial markets • convergence • systemic crisis • public good • democratic oversight • diversity