ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book highlights the macro-economic and -political drivers; they map and explain the commonalities and differences produced through a finance that is increasingly global, but far from amorphous or placeless. It deals with contributions from Post-Keynesian and critical macroeconomics that present evidence on how financialization is not only spatially refracted, but also fundamentally shaped by the imbalances of global economic and political structure. The existence of many different approaches within financialization scholarship has also been central to the term’s wide reception and uptake, particularly since the 2007–2008 Great Financial Crisis. Financialization has become the go-to term among a growing field of scholarship that studies the vastly expanded role played by finance in contemporary politics, economy and society. The enormous popularity of the concept of financialization has led to an outpouring of publications.
