ABSTRACT
The City of London is the top exporter of financial services in the world and plays a crucial role in processes of capital accumulation. This chapter is focussed on the main local authority with capacity to shape financial governance in this space: the City of London Corporation. The chapter argues that the Corporation has been unnecessarily overlooked in existing accounts of the City and financial politics. The discussion consists of two parts. First, there is an introduction to the institutional politics of the City and how scholars have tended to examine such dynamics. Second, the discussion explores how the Corporation reproduces and deploys its powers for the purpose of capital accumulation, including funds and property acquired over centuries that it manages. This helps to explain the Corporation’s expanded role as a facilitator of financial profit-making within the UK, as well as transnationally (such as via lobbying, networking, and hosting functions). In a cultural analysis, the chapter examines the importance of elite-specific rituals which tends to cultivate a symbolic power for the organisation. The Corporation continues to be a powerful entity in respect to the socio-political life of the City and the reproduction of capital within larger processes of financialisation.
