Ideas, Interests and the Development of the European Banking Systems

What are the grand dynamics that drive the history of economies? The laws of supply & demand, most economists would argue. For the history of European banking, this book offers an alternative explanation: Rather than market forces, the coincidence and coalitions of charismatic ideas and powerful interests is what shaped banking in Europe! In “Ideas, Interests and the Development of the European Banking Systems”, Florian Brugger traced decisive moments in the history of the European Banking Sector: from the time of the Italian City-States to the post World War I period, he shows how coalitions of ideas and interests built the tracks along which the European Banking Sector developed.

Inspired by Max Weber he argues that economic organizations and institutions, like the Banking Sector, are embedded into three fundamental orders: the economic, the cultural and the political order. Enforced and institutionalized by vested interests, ideas of the cultural order legitimate and empower interests of the economic and political order. What is more, decisive moments were frequently characterized by coalitions of ideas and interests between parties that in normal times had nothing in common or were even confronting each other in a hostile way.

About the Author

Florian Brugger holds a PHD in Sociology and in Economics. His main research interests are in the field of financial markets, banking, technological change, economic sociology and the influence of ideas and interests on economic institutions. He works at the Institute for Sociology at the Karl-Franzens-University Graz.