Performing Agency Theory and the Neoliberalization of the State
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2370641 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Tim Christiaens (0000-0002-8676-1980, KU Leuven, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 46 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 393-411 |
| Publication date | 2020-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Critical Sociology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0896-9205 • E-ISSN: 1569-1632 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0896920519826646 |
| OpenAlex | W2972400912 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 100 |
According to Streeck and Vogl, the neoliberalization of the state has been the result of political-economic developments that render the state dependent on financial markets. However, they do not explain the discursive shifts that would have been required for demoting the state to the role of an agent to bondholders. I propose to explain this shift via the performative effect of neoliberal agency theory. In 1976, Michael Jensen and William Meckling claimed that corporate managers are agents to shareholding principals, which implied that their main task was the procurement of shareholder value. Agency theory subsequently prescribes a series of measures to ensure the alignment of principal and agent interests in corporations. The diffusion of agency theory, however, moved beyond corporate governance to reconfigure the state. Due to its reliance on capital markets, the state supposedly likewise becomes an agent of the investment public and should procure bondholder value
Agency cost · Business · Corporate governance · Economics · Emerging markets · Law and economics · Management · Market economy · Principal–agent problem · Procurement · Shareholder · Shareholder value · Sociology · State ownership · Banking stability, regulation, efficiency · Corporate Finance and Governance · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Finance
American Sociological Association
Stockholders' Ownership and Control
The Road from Mont Pèlerin
Liquidated
The Reputation Economy
Capitalism and Freedom
The Architecture of Markets
New constitutionalism, democratisation and global political economy∗
The value of connections in turbulent times
Origin and theoretical basis of new public management
Agency Problems and Residual Claims
Value Maximization, Stakeholder Theory, and the Corporate Objective Function
Theories of Economic Regulation
Theory of the firm
Buying Time
The citizen and the State
Austerity
New Studies in Philosophy, Politics, Economics, and the History of Ideas
An Engine, Not a Camera
The Retreat of the State
Le temps des investis
Constitutionalizing Austerity
The Principal Agent Model and the European Union
Governance without Government
Handbook of Neoliberalism
Workplace Suicide and States of Denial
World Development Report 2017
Public policies, pressure groups, and dead weight costs
Transformations in Statehood, the Investor-State Regime, and the New Constitutionalism
After the Crisis and Beyond the New Constitutionalism? The Case of the Free Movement of Capital
The relevance of Nicos Poulantzas for contemporary debates on ‘the international’
European governance and new constitutionalism
At the Systemic Edge
The New Normal is “Maximizing Shareholder Value”
When Managerial Capitalism Embraced Shareholder-Value Ideology
Austerity and constitutionalizing structural reform of labour in the European Union
Globalisation, Market Civilisation, and Disciplinary Neoliberalism
The Global Panopticon? The Neoliberal State, Economic Life, and Democratic Surveillance
Transnationalizing Capitalist Hegemony
Neo-liberalism and the symbolic institution of society
Agency Problems and the Theory of the Firm
The Emergence of Managerial Capitalism
The Capitalist Machine
The Invisible Hand of Friedrich Hayek
From Government to Governance
Democratic Governance
Introduction
Standardizing and disseminating knowledge
A Theory of Competition Among Pressure Groups for Political Influence
The Washington Consensus as transnational policy paradigm
The Rise of Authoritarian Neoliberalism
Les laboratoires de l'antipathie
A Capitalism That Kills
The Social Construction of Market Value
The Social Trajectory of a Finance Professor and the Common Sense of Capital
Making sense of financialization
Takeovers
Introduction
Expulsions
Undoing the Demos
The Capitalist State, Corporate Political Mobilization, and the Origins of Neoliberalism
Neoliberalism and the American State
After the Corporation
Agency Theory
The Construction of a Global Profession
Performativity, Misfires and Politics
Risk, reward and discipline at work
Shareholder value and corporate governance
Maximizing shareholder value
From social control to financial economics
Business restructuring, management control, and corporate organization
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,8 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2026 (6) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |