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AbstractInstitutionalism gives priority to structure over agency. Yet institutions have never developed and operated without the intervention of interested groups. This paper develops a conceptual framework for the role of agency in historical institutionalism. Based on recent contributions following the coalitional turn and drawing on insights from sociological institutionalism, it argues that agency plays a key role in the creation and maintenance of social coalitions that stabilize but also challenge institutions. Without such agency, no coalition can be created, maintained, or changed. Similarly, without a supporting coalition, no contested institution can survive. Yet, due to collective action problems, such coalitional work is challenging. This coalitional perspective offers a robust role for agency in historical institutionalism, but it also explains why institutions remain stable despite agency. In addition, this paper forwards several portable propositions that allow for the identification of who is likely to develop agency and what these actors do.

Sanford Schram's The Return of Ordinary Capitalism: Neoliberalism, Precarity, Occupy (Oxford University Press, 2015) is an ambitious effort to link together three important political realities of our time: the rise of new forms of neoliberal governance, the associated rise of new forms of social and economic insecurity, and the recent development of organized forms of political resistance symbolized by the figure of "Occupy." The argument is relevant to all subfields of political science. And so we have invited a range of experts across the discipline to comment on the book and on the broader question the book poses: Are we confronting a new form of capitalism that engenders new forms of politics, and if so, what does this mean for political science?

AbstractHow was Swiss resistance to international cooperation in tax matters overcome? This article argues that while Swiss banks are structurally dependent on access to the United States (US) financial market, Switzerland is structurally dependent on the economic welfare of its largest banks. Taking advantage of a tax evasion scandal in the midst of the global financial crisis, this indirect dependence gave US law enforcement authorities the opportunity to exercise pressure on Switzerland by threatening to criminally indict Switzerland's largest bank. The tax evasion scandal and subsequent Swiss concessions to the US had two important consequences for international tax cooperation. First, the scandal provided a focal point for collective action that allowed other countries to coordinate their strategies and direct them against the country that had been identified as uncooperative. Second, the scandal undermined Switzerland's ability to impede collective action because the bank's public admission of wrongdoing demonstrated the necessity of international tax cooperation.

How much authority can sovereign states exercise over international banking in times of financial globalization? While most literature on international finance is rather pessimistic, this article argues that in case of US law enforcement, this pessimistic view is increasingly erroneous. The reason is that US authorities can take advantage of international banks' structural dependence on access to the dollar-based financial system to force banks into punitive agreements or to plead guilty in case of criminal offenses. Using the conflict between the USA and Swiss banks over tax evasion by US persons, this article demonstrates that banks in the liberal economic system can no longer survive without access to the US-controlled, dollar-based financial system, thus giving the USA structural power over banks. In addition, it is shown that US structural power can be used strategically during negotiation processes to apply pressure on banks. Finally, while the use of this structural power was originally restricted to smaller banks, whose collapse would not endanger the world economy, US authorities have recently learnt to manage market expectations in a way that allows them to also target banks that were previously considered "too big to jail."

This article analyzes business and union strategies in the reform of job security regulations. It argues that unions are the main political actors pushing for their expansion of regulations, but given employers' opposition, unions are able to enforce better protection only in exceptional periods. Once the first restrictions are in place, employers use their power advantages at the workplace level to circumvent regulations, which unions combat by reducing the level of discretion awarded to employers in interpreting regulations. In recent decades, job security regulations have come under increasing pressure. Unions have reacted to this new situation by consenting to the continuous deregulation of temporary employment, while they fight any attempt at deregulating job security in open-ended contracts in order to protect their members' interests and their institutional involvement in the administration of dismissals. The theoretical argument is supported by empirical evidence from four Western European countries since the postwar period.

AbstractIn parallel to the growing weight of finance in the global economy, the transparency of financial flows and asset ownership has attracted increasing attention, a process further accelerated by the 2007/8 global financial crisis. Tax‐starved governments want to know the assets their residents own but financial intransparency can make tax collection difficult by obscuring both the ownership of assets as well as their real size. This article reviews three interrelated strands of literature on financial intransparency with a special emphasis given to one of its most prominent examples: Swiss‐style banking secrecy. First, I discuss the challenge of financial intransparency in a globalized economy and document the central role Switzerland plays as an offshore financial centre. I show that while Swiss‐style banking secrecy is an important example of financial intransparency, possible tax evaders also have other instruments at their disposal. Second, a review of the literature on the origins of Swiss banking secrecy shows how struggles for interpretive dominance shape the politics of financial intransparency. Third, I discuss the literature on the first OECD campaign against tax havens and demonstrate that representatives of the Swiss political‐economic system could have anticipated the shift of attention from small island states to OECD member states like Switzerland. Given the writing on the wall, it is surprising that recent developments have caught Swiss banks flat‐footed.