Protection of Domestic bank Ownership in France and Germany: The Functional Equivalency of Institutional Diversity in Takeovers

We investigate the character of the market for corporate control (i.e. takeovers) in French and German banking. The key feature of this character is the marked ability of French and German banks to resist unsolicited takeover bids, especially – although not exclusively– those from foreign competitors. We present an institutional perspective to account for the restrained character of takeovers in French and German banking. Our perspective is composed of two elements. First, institutional arrangements are important since they structure power relations among firm stakeholders by providing opportunities, as well as imposing constraints, to influence the decision-making process in which takeover transactions take place. Second, institutional arrangements provide firm stakeholders with several potential opportunities, not just one, to block unsolicited bids since takeover contests are composed of sequences of decisions for which approval is needed at each stage. French and German banks have used different mixes of institutional arrangements, themselves located at different stages of takeover transactions, to secure restrained markets for corporate control. Our institutional analysis, in turn, also illustrates an important shortcoming of banking sector protectionism, namely the contribution of protection from unsolicited takeover bids to the building of banks carrying systemic risks

The management of the Eurozone in crisis times: Actors, institutions and the case of bailout packages

The adjustment to the financial crisis was particularly brutal for Eurozone countries targeted by private bondholders. Financial assistance through the newly created Eurozone governance system was conditional on the implementation of austerity measures and the introduction of structural reforms in industrial relations (decentralization of collective bargaining and liberalization of employment protection). Our analysis focuses on the formation process and the structural features of Eurozone supranational institutions. Building from the insights of actor-centred institutionalism, we illustrate the importance of coalitions among some, but not all, important actors based on the overlapping of their non-monolithic preferences in the process of institutional innovation. The structural features of Eurozone institutions curtailed member states’ ability to effectively resist the imposition of internal devaluation policies. A contested outcome, these institutional features were secured by a specific coalition of important actors – most notably, the German government and the European Central Bank – based on their overlapping interests around internal devaluation policies

EU integration as uneven and combined development

International audienceThis paper documents the EU integration process using the uneven and combined development framework. Because capitalist social relations are territorially defined and politically built, unevenness between countries is not unconnected with that within countries and both involve antagonism between capital and labor. This is manifest in the 'state form' of the EU and its anti-democratic tendencies: public institutions at the community level play a major role in reinforcing unevenness in favour of leading countries, in both the productive and financial spheres