Adina Luft

Date of Award

2016

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Fitzgerald, Keith

Area of Concentration

Political Science

Abstract

Why no high level executives went to jail for the 2008 Financial Crisis is a topical question without a concrete answer. Just thirty years previously, in the aftermath of the Savings and Loan (S&L) Crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, many high level executives were prosecuted for similar types of financial crimes. Literature claims that the variables for why there has been a shift away from prosecuting financial crimes are the revolving door, money in politics, and lobbying. The answer explored in this thesis, through the lens of critical pluralism, is that these variables were the tools used by the economic elite and pro-business interest group to dominate the political sphere beginning in the 1980s. Corruption is excessive private interests influencing public power, in this case, the domination of one interest group over government. The economic elite and pro-business interest group utilized their resource bias to dominate government and pushed for deregulation of the financial sector, the cause of both crises. From the 1980s until 2008, the economic elite and pro-business interest group further corrupted the political sphere and over a thirty-year time span created a political environment where regulatory agencies and the Department of Justice no longer prosecute financial crimes.

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