front cover of Brokers and Bureaucrats
Brokers and Bureaucrats
Building Market Institutions in Russia
Timothy Frye
University of Michigan Press, 2000
A classic problem of social order prompts the central questions of this book: Why are some groups better able to govern themselves than others? Why do state actors sometimes delegate governing power to other bodies? How do different organizations including the state, the business community, and protection rackets come to govern different markets? Scholars have used both sociological and economic approaches to study these questions; here Timothy Frye argues for a different approach. He seeks to extend the theoretical and empirical scope of theories of self-governance beyond groups that exist in isolation from the state and suggests that social order is primarily a political problem.
Drawing on extensive interviews, surveys, and other sources, Frye addresses these question by studying five markets in contemporary Russia, including the currency futures, universal and specialized commodities, and equities markets. Using a model that depicts the effect of state policy on the prospects for self-governance, he tests theories of institutional performance and offers a political explanation for the creation of social capital, the formation of markets, and the source of legal institutions in the postcommunist world. In doing so, Frye makes a major contribution to the study of states and markets.
The book will be important reading for academic political scientists, economists (especially those who study the New Institutional Economics), legal scholars, sociologists, business-people, journalists, and students interested in transitions.
Timothy Frye is Assistant Professor of Political Science, The Ohio State University.
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Brokers of Power
The Financialization of the US Electricity System
Conor Harrison
University of Minnesota Press, 2026

A detailed look at the financial interests impacting the energy transition

The twenty-first century has seen major transformations in the US electricity sector—but while the use of coal power wanes and the need for renewable energy becomes more urgent, financial actors maintain a complicating influence on the trajectory of energy transition. Brokers of Power identifies changing patterns of investment intertwined with the shift from state-regulated electricity monopolies to a market-driven price model and the embrace of wind and solar hookups to the grid.

Drawing from case studies such as catastrophic Winter Storm Uri that hit Texas in 2021 and in-depth interviews with people working in the electricity and financial sectors, Conor Harrison reveals how the various entanglements of private equity, investment banking, and financial modeling are shaping the future of this vital infrastructure. Today’s financial firms, he shows, are engaged in the electricity industry beyond matters of investment: they own electricity generation infrastructure, trade electricity on markets, capture federal renewable energy tax credits, and advise on electricity firm operating strategy.

Looking beyond technology and policy, Harrison interrogates what it means to have powerful financial institutions as the primary agents of change in the fraught and ongoing energy transition. A timely and invaluable contribution to the fields of geography, environmental studies, and the energy social sciences, Brokers of Power is a cautionary delving into the complexities surrounding the push for decarbonization.

Retail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly with images accompanied by short alt text and/or extended descriptions.

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