The Global South in Comparative Corporate Governance
How does the Global South relate to the global debates on corporate governance? Studies in this area, like their counterparts in other areas of law, have traditionally focused on a handful of usual suspects from the Global North, thereby neglecting most of the world. The Global South, here understood as a synonym for developing countries, […]
Mariana Pargendler is Full Professor of Law at Fundação Getulio Vargas Law School in São Paulo. She will join Harvard Law School as Professor of Law in July 2024. This post is based on her SSRN working paper.
How does the Global South relate to the global debates on corporate governance? Studies in this area, like their counterparts in other areas of law, have traditionally focused on a handful of usual suspects from the Global North, thereby neglecting most of the world. The Global South, here understood as a synonym for developing countries, has been repeatedly overlooked. Since the late twentieth century, interest in the “emerging markets”—including those of Brazil, China, and India—has soared in view of their growing economic clout. Nevertheless, the corporate law and governance arrangements of these and other developing jurisdictions have often been examined based on the particular lenses and metrics conceived by the Global North.
In a chapter for the forthcoming Oxford Handbook on Corporate Law and Governance (Jeffrey N. Gordon & Wolf-Georg Ringe eds.), I explore both traditional and novel views on corporate governance in the Global South. The traditional view is that corporate laws in the Global South are antiquated, failed transplants of Global North institutions, or plagued by enforcement problems. Weaknesses in related institutions, such as poor contract enforcement and capital market failures, push for adaptations in ownership structures and governance arrangements. The result is that family ownership, business groups, and state ownership are particularly prevalent in the Global South. This view retains much descriptive and explanatory power, but it offers an incomplete portrayal of corporate law and governance in the Global South.
