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DECONSTRUCTING CORPORATE GOVERNANCE IN THE UNITED STATES: LIMITS AND CONTRADICTIONS IN THE POLITICS OF ACCOUNTABILITY
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DECONSTRUCTING CORPORATE GOVERNANCE IN THE
UNITED STATES: LIMITS AND CONTRADICTIONS IN THE
POLITICS OF ACCOUNTABILITY
Please note:
The complete paper will be made available at the end of March 2005.
Susanne Soederberg
Canada Research Chair in Global Political Economy & Associate Professor
Development Studies, Mackintosh-Corry Hall E-323
Queen’s University at Kingston, Ontario, K7L 3N6 Canada
Tel: (613) 533-6000 ext. 78391 / Fax: (613) 533-2986
E-mail:
## email not listed ##
ABSTRACT
Good corporate governance has become the siren call of US pundits and policymakers in theirattempts to curb corporate fraud and reinstate investor confidence in the post-Enronenvironment. Against the backdrop of the largely rhetorical Corporate Responsibility campaign,the showpiece of the G.W. Bush Administration’s good corporate governance agenda is theSarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. The aim of this alleged monumental legislation is to increaseshareholder value by strengthening accountability. While the technical aspects of the Act havebeen debated, its social and political dimensions have been largely neglected. This essay seeks tofill this gap by situating the Sarbanes-Oxley Act within power configurations inherent in thecapitalist society-state nexus as well as the contradictions inherent in the credit system andcapital accumulation. From this perspective, I argue that despite its appearance as the most farsweeping federal law concerning corporate governance since the New Deal, the Sarbanes-OxleyAct not only insulates corporate management from shareholder scrutiny, but it also delimits thepower of shareholder activism, which is largely associated with public pension funds.Furthermore, the Act serves to depoliticise conflicts between labour, corporate interests and thestate. I conclude by suggesting that the fiction of corporate democracy imbued in mainstreamcorporate governance discourse has serious domestic and international implications foremancipatory corporate social responsibility initiatives.
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| | Authors: Soederberg, Susanne. |
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DECONSTRUCTING CORPORATE GOVERNANCE IN THE
UNITED STATES: LIMITS AND CONTRADICTIONS IN THE
POLITICS OF ACCOUNTABILITY
Please note:
The complete paper will be made available at the end of March 2005.
Susanne Soederberg
Canada Research Chair in Global Political Economy & Associate Professor
Development Studies, Mackintosh-Corry Hall E-323
Queen’s University at Kingston, Ontario, K7L 3N6 Canada
Tel: (613) 533-6000 ext. 78391 / Fax: (613) 533-2986
E-mail:
## email not listed ##
ABSTRACT
Good corporate governance has become the siren call of US pundits and policymakers in their
attempts to curb corporate fraud and reinstate investor confidence in the post-Enron
environment. Against the backdrop of the largely rhetorical Corporate Responsibility campaign,
the showpiece of the G.W. Bush Administration’s good corporate governance agenda is the
Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. The aim of this alleged monumental legislation is to increase
shareholder value by strengthening accountability. While the technical aspects of the Act have
been debated, its social and political dimensions have been largely neglected. This essay seeks to
fill this gap by situating the Sarbanes-Oxley Act within power configurations inherent in the
capitalist society-state nexus as well as the contradictions inherent in the credit system and
capital accumulation. From this perspective, I argue that despite its appearance as the most far
sweeping federal law concerning corporate governance since the New Deal, the Sarbanes-Oxley
Act not only insulates corporate management from shareholder scrutiny, but it also delimits the
power of shareholder activism, which is largely associated with public pension funds.
Furthermore, the Act serves to depoliticise conflicts between labour, corporate interests and the
state. I conclude by suggesting that the fiction of corporate democracy imbued in mainstream
corporate governance discourse has serious domestic and international implications for
emancipatory corporate social responsibility initiatives.
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