The struggle to perform the political economy of creditworthiness: European Union governance of credit ratings through risk

Paudyn, Bartholomew ORCID: 0000-0001-8587-3799 (2015) The struggle to perform the political economy of creditworthiness: European Union governance of credit ratings through risk. Journal of Cultural Economy, 8 (6). pp. 655-672. ISSN 1753-0350

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Abstract

Analysing the European Union's regulatory response in the wake of the credit and sovereign debt crises, this paper argues how its adoption of risk management as the core strategy for governing the credit ratings space may undermine European efforts to rebalance the growing asymmetry between private expertise and public democracy. While centralised oversight, enhanced transparency and restorative, technical intervention seem like sound regulatory initiatives, I problematise the methodologies, models and assumptions of sovereign ratings to show how the new ratings framework may actually impede the ability of the technocratic European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) to redress the most egregious deficiencies of ratings. Drawing on the performativity of market relations, the paper argues how ESMA's supervisory conflicts undermine the EU's capacity to perform an alternative political economy of limits. Neither is it democratically sanctioned to interfere in the analytical substance of ratings nor should it distort the social facticity of creditworthiness by relying primarily on quantitative risk analysis, ESMA will be forced to either repoliticise the ratings process or promote the status quo, which diminishes fiscal sovereignty.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rjce20/current
Additional Information:	© 2015 Taylor & Francis
Divisions:	International Relations
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory J Political Science > JA Political science (General) J Political Science > JN Political institutions (Europe)
Date Deposited:	07 Oct 2014 09:10
Last Modified:	24 Oct 2024 03:15
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/59624

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