Instrumental and Expressive Governance: Corporate and White-Collar Crime in Contemporary Society

Abstract

This paper analyses the evolution and enforcement of corporate and white collar criminal liability in contemporary societies. It commences by analysing the emergence of a new architecture of corporate enforcement in Ireland. This architecture consists of new ways of thinking about white-collar wrongdoing, new legal structures, and their enforcement in practice. It then proceeds to analyse the extent to which similar patterns of laying blame may be evident in America and England and Wales. While exercising sensitivity for the different cultural, political and legal norms prevailing in these States, it is not a comparative study of regulatory approaches in these jurisdictions. It does not seek to identify common differences or similarities on a point-by-point basis for their own sake, but rather draws together common regulatory experiences to argue that a shared process of social and cultural change has emerged. It is argued that this has produced a generative structure of corporate enforcement in societies which has shaped responses to business wrongdoing. This facilitates a deeper understanding of the characteristics and strategy choices that give a distinctive shape to the modern system of justice in common law countries and how they might be changing as societies transition in the direction of more instrumental and expressive strategies after the global financial crisis.