Varieties of capitalism, varieties of crisis response: bank bailouts in comparative perspective

Abstract

Given recent history it may be necessary to recall that the so-called Great Recession we have been witnessing for more than five years now was, first and foremost, a crisis of financial markets. One reason for rising debt levels at the outset of the crisis have been massive government expenditures to bail out struggling and even failing banks. Yet, I argue that it falls short of a satisfactory explanation to simply view political action as a rational response to “objective” political and economic problems. Therefore, the fundamental question that underlays this study is: How did different institutional settings influence diverging policy reactions to the financial crisis? To answer this question, this study compares bank bailouts in France, Germany and the United Kingdom. Drawing upon the Varieties of Capitalism literature, I identify four central, national institutions that have influenced political decision-making during the financial crisis: the political system, traditions of market intervention, economic discourse and banking and financial systems. The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, reverting to France's dirigiste tradition and resorting to a dense elitist network, used bank bailouts to support the French financial industry and to create “national champions”. This sort of policy was accompanied by a non-liberal discourse criticising “excessive” financial markets. In Germany, on the other hand, the government deliberated with a broad coalition of political and market actors to create a bailout programme aiming at sustaining bank lending to the industry. However, market actors were criticised on a moral and ethical basis and the ordo-liberal state was considered as a necessary corrective safeguarding true economic freedom. Finally, the UK's “elected dictator”, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, used his political power and involved his close political allies to carry out a bailout programme that was predominantly designed to defend the international competitiveness of the British financial industry. Albeit market intervention was inevitable it was announced as being temporarily and leaving as much problem solving as possible to the markets.