The financial crisis was a moment of singular importance for the interaction of politics and markets. It inspired numerous and varied works within the American Political Economy (APE) framework and continues to do so, from Hacker and Pierson's Winner-Take-All Politics, to Jacobs and King's Fed Power, to SoRelle's Democracy Declined, and many others. These works examine different dimensions of the relationship between financial markets and political power, including economic inequality, the Federal Reserve, and the politics of consumer protection.
Yet despite the importance of finance for American politics, and its significance as a site of policymaking, scholarship on the political consequences of the crisis remains relatively fragmented. Researchers studying political behavior, financial regulation, and the political influence of financial institutions often work in different scholarly communities, despite their overlapping interests. The workshop aims to strengthen the APE scholarly community by bringing together researchers working on different aspects of the crisis and its aftermath. In particular, it seeks to build and strengthen the community of scholars focused on finance, financial regulation, and financial policymaking. An important consideration is the transatlantic character of scholarship on financial politics. Many researchers in this area are based in Europe, while others work in North America, and opportunities for sustained interaction across these groups are relatively limited. Convening the workshop in Berlin, shortly before EPSS in Copenhagen offers an opportunity to bring these scholars together. With nearly two decades of distance from the crisis, this is also an opportune moment to take stock of what scholarship has established about its political and policy consequences. The passage of time allows researchers to assess which political changes and institutional reforms have proved durable, which have not, and what questions remain unresolved. What do we still not know about the political consequences of the last financial crisis even after all these years?
