Financial Regulation Debates in Hard Times: A Comparative Analysis of Insider and Outsider Pressure during the Global Financial Crisis

This article analyses the nature of policy debates on financial regulation during the onset of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) by considering three elements that shape them: the salience of the debate, the actors that dominate the debate, and the degree of anti-status quo pressure. Theoretically, it contributes to Culpepper’s quiet/noisy politics framework by clarifying its multidimensionality and explicitly introducing the degree of contestation. Empirically, it focuses on two regulatory issues: (1) the restriction of banking and financial activities and (2) the debate on the remuneration of bankers. The data captures political claims during the first 12 months of the GFC and covers 19 established democracies. The findings indicate that policy debates were unevenly politicized across countries and issues, and that structural factors are not enough to account for the observed variation in pressure for reform for all types of actors, thus constituting a puzzle for further research.