1. Creating, Diffusing, and Enforcing Norms: The Role of Intermediaries in the Global Political Economy.
- Author
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Cohen, Edward S.
- Subjects
- *
ECONOMICS , *INTERNATIONAL relations , *ACCOUNTING firms , *CREDIT ratings , *CORPORATION law - Abstract
Over the past three decades, business and professional intermediaries have become key players in the governance of the global political economy. These agents, which include accounting firms, credit-rating firms, corporate law firms, business consulting firms, and financial market regulators, are omnipresent in the making of major business deals, structuring corporate governance, allocating corporate finance, and shaping the priorities and strategies of public policy-making. To this point, however, scholars have only begun the task of understanding who these intermediaries are and what they do. In this paper, I develop a framework for analyzing the contemporary role of business and professional intermediaries. This framework draws heavily on the literature on networks and norm diffusion, and provides an orientation for ongoing research on the ways in which intermediaries are implicated in the governance of the global economy, while exploring the similarities and differences in the roles played by intermediaries. My overall analysis suggests that these actors are particularly crucial in the application of norms to specific problems and contexts, and in the monitoring of business and policy practice. I apply this framework to the role of private lawyers and law firms in the global political economy, with a focus on transnational competition policy. The paper concludes with a consideration of how the study of business intermediaries can inform our understanding of the role of networks in shaping the use of power in the global system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2004
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