The politics of 'green' finance as knowledge contestations

Taeger, Matthias ORCID: 0000-0001-9653-686X, Stenström, Annika, Trapp, Torben, Liu, Felicia and Golka, Philipp (2025) The politics of 'green' finance as knowledge contestations. Finance and Society. ISSN 2059-5999

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Abstract

This essay argues for an integrative move in the investigation of the politics of ‘green’ finance. We suggest that approaching the politics of ‘green’ finance in the form of knowledge contestations can bring out complementarities and bridge divides between different levels of analysis and theoretical traditions. Our focus is motivated by the pivotal role of knowledge and ignorance in the organisation and governance of financial markets identified in economic sociology, political economy, and neighbouring disciplines. Drawing on this scholarship, we consider knowledge both a forum for and a means of politics. We then illustrate how this conceptualisation provides insights into the politics of ‘green’ finance on different levels of analysis and following different theoretical traditions: in the context of tracing elites in their dissemination of specific ideas shaping governance regimes; when following market devices which produce partial calculative representations of the world; in problematising how financial organisations both produce and accept certain types of knowledge to further their interests; and when examining the role of ideology and imaginative capture in stabilising financial capitalism during climate crisis. We conclude by identifying the connective tissue between these different analytical and theoretical approaches made visible by the integrative concept of politics as knowledge contestations.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© The Author(s), 2025
Divisions:	Grantham Research Institute
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HG Finance J Political Science Q Science > QC Physics
Date Deposited:	14 Oct 2025 11:45
Last Modified:	01 Dec 2025 04:04
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/129797

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