The European Commission's Love Affair with Financial Capital
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2018-07-01
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en
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This thesis seeks to explain the decision of the European Commission to relaunch the securitisation market in the European Union. Securitisation has been at the center of the recent global financial crisis and has been declared a major cause by various global institutions, among which the European Commission itself. Despite the vast condemnation of securitisation, the European Commission proposed to revive securitisation as part of Capital Market Union (CMU). A critical political economy perspective is applied to find an answer to the Commission’s puzzling decision. Using Social Structure of Accumulation (SSA) theory, it is shown that the circulation of financial capital defines the current prevailing pattern of capital accumulation and that it is a core interest of social forces emanating from the financial circuit to find new outlets and profit opportunities. Securitisation provides such an outlet. Insights from Gramsci are used to understand the agency derived from this mode of accumulation and to uncover why and how the decision by the European Commission to reintroduce securitisation in the European Union came about.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen