ABSTRACT
Th is chapter addresses the question whether the regulatory actions are indicative of a return of a “strong” (i.e., interventionist) nation-state, which was until recently supposed to be an outdated model (Genschel and Zangl, 2008). In the following, it will be argued that the banking crisis is not entirely triggered by failures on free markets and “bad” accounting standards but that also regulatory failures signifi cantly contributed to the emergence of the crisis. Hence, increased state interventions seem unlikely to be a reasonable answer to the crisis. Moreover, the return of strongly interventionist nation-states might not only be a wrong answer to the current crisis but in the long run even further the weakening of nation-states.
