The Laws of Finance For a Sociology of Finance and Law Entanglement

Abstract

AbstractIn this special issue, we unpack law and finance entities and consider their co-construction, entanglement and interchanging relationship. Adopting a processual sociology lens, we aim to connect micro-technical devices and controversies to the macroscopic big picture of financialized capitalism. We combine analytical tools from pragmatic sociology, emphasizing how social reality and institutions are (re-)enacted through trials, with a dynamic and historicized sociology of the state and the juridical field. Four avenues illustrate our research program on the sociology of financial law. First, we focus on how this juridical space is co-produced by public and private forces, organizations and initiatives. Second, we look at how financial law displaces and endogenizes core regalian purposes traditionally associated with the state. Third, we show the forms of asymmetries that pervade law enforcement in financial cases. Fourth, we address how power intervenes in normal and exceptional times, such as financial crises. The legal and financial co-production of political regimes shapes economies and legitimate forms of social distribution.