Lifting the Shroud: Government, Investment Banks and Power in Post Financial Crisis United Kingdom - A critical deconstruction of the relationship between government and investment banks in the United Kingdom post global financial crisis (2007 – 2011)

Abstract

The late 2000s Global Financial Crisis swept the advanced world and spilled into the developing, creating chaos in its wake. At the crux of the crisis were the high-risk activities of investment banks in the developed world – and especially United Kingdom. Since then, academic and public discussion has revolved around the questionable relationship between investment banks and government that resulted in subpar regulation and the costly bank ‘bailouts’ of 2008 and 2009. What this thesis will to do is holistically assess how the power relationship between British investment banks and the United Kingdom government has evolved since the crisis, utilising Doris Fuchs’ Three Dimensional Approach to Business Power and Governance and a wide array of research to address those structural, instrumental and discursive elements of business power.