‘Questioning Finance’: A Special Issue of Competition & Change Editorial

At a time when finance is increasingly challenged by academic, media and other commen-tators, we are very pleased to be publishing this special issue of Competition and Change. Much to the surprise of many whom had previously considered that the growth and reach of finance was a manifestation of its ability to manage risk, the global credit crunch that began in mid-2007 provides a reminder that finance is unstable and that uncertainty has not been eliminated by more complex financial innovations and models. The financial crisis also underlines the connections between finance at the local and global level and many other aspects of economic and social life, including housing, consumer credit and employment. In doing so, recent events have contributed to the increasing importance of understanding the phenomenon of financialization. While there is much agreement on the significance of finance and of financialization as a collection of processes that have the effect of making finance a more important part of the corporate, the economic and the social, there are several existing definitions of and approaches to understanding financialization. Of course, this is entirely appropriate to an area like finance, which cannot be comprehended in simple terms. Thus, if social scientist