ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses particularly on the cultural-performative perspective and argues that the latter exemplifies a 'cultural turn' in political economy that does not account for the tactical scenario constraining, or enabling, the realization of any given performance. Rather than focusing on the material and quantitative reality, as in the case of Regulation School, Post-Keynesian economics and Marxist political economy, culture-oriented studies explore financial markets as domains constituted by conventional habits and discourses. Besides importing the European Capital Adequacy Directive and the Investment Services Directive, the Parliament gave the government also the task to consolidate financial market regulation into a single law. Far from depicting financial developments as abstract entities, they examine the microcosm of actors, technologies, no-nonsense practices and bricolage-like innovation producing such phenomena. In contrast, critical researchers have shown how derivatives are inherently linked to capitalist exploitation and unstable financial cultures.
