Do corporations rule the world? The role of corporate power in contemporary society

Critical Corporation Project

Panel discussions

Monday 9 December 2013, 18:00-20:00 
Cass Business School, 106 Bunhill Row, London EC1Y 8TZ
Room: LG001  

Public Panel Debate on Corporate Power part of the Critical Corporation Project's ESRC Seminar series

Description

In recent years, we have witnessed growing anti-corporate sentiment across the world. A wide range of groups are concerns that corporations have become too powerful. Some claim they have become impossible to control. In this evening debate we want to explore how accurate the claim that corporation rule the world is. We will ask what the consequences of changing corporate power is for wider society. We will also ask whether anything need to be done to stem corporate power? To examine these questions, we have bought together a panel of leading experts on corporate power.

We are proud to present:

· Dan Danielsen (Professor of Law, Northeastern University, Boston), a critical international lawyer who writes on "How corporations rule" through law and regulation and will discuss the need to shift focus from the impact of corporate power on state power to a broader conception of the firm as among the most significant institutional forms in modern life and culture, and 

· Susanne Soederberg, Professor of Global Political Economy, Queen's University Canada who will speak about 'Debtfare States and the Poverty Industry', and draw on cases such as the bankruptcy and securitization aspects of student loans, the role of a large Mexican cement producers in supplying microfinance loans to the poor. 

· Anastasia Nesvetailova (Reader in International Political Economy, City University) – whose research focuses on the role of shadow banking in the latest financial crisis, and who will discuss The Power of Finance and Financial Innovation 

· Lorraine Talbot (Associate Professor of Law, University of Warwick – a critical company lawyer who writes on 'progressive corporate governance' and will speak on shareholder empowerment and ask why shareholders shouldn't vote.