Financialization: An Introduction

Financialization has become the go-to term for scholarship that studies the vastly expanded role of finance in contemporary politics, economy and society. The growth of financialization studies reflects the evident need for an analytical vocabulary that can capture these key empirical developments in contemporary capitalism. Since the 1990s, a variety of divergent conceptualizations of financialization have been offered, allowing financialization studies to prosper in a transdisciplinary way. Tracing the evolution of the field’s broad themes and reviewing its key definitions, we articulate what unites the diverse financialization scholarship and touch upon recent debates regarding the concept’s continued value. We suggest that three principles may guide conceptualizations of financialization going forward: being limited, mechanism-oriented, and contextual. Finally, we introduce and review the contributions to six parts of the Handbook of Financialization and conclude with a brief outlook for the field.