Re-politicizing financial regulation: a sociological analysis of the debate on loan-to-value regulation in Norway

Abstract

While financial regulation became highly contested in the aftermath of the financial crisis, the specifics of such regulation is usually debated among professionals, in specialized fora. This article analyses an exception to this; the debate on the loan-to-value ratio regulation introduced in Norway in 2010. Newspaper articles are analysed, using Boltanski & Thevenot’s pragmatic perspective on how actors legitimize their arguments and critique. Unlike other critical approaches (i.e., critical discourse analysis) this perspective focuses on actors own critical capacity and it is argued that the approach is useful in analyzing re-politicizing efforts of social actors. The main finding is that most arguments opposing the regulation are based in the civic “regime of justification”, while arguments supporting the regulation are based in the industrial regime of justification. Few arguments enact the market regime as justification. The article discusses reasons why the regulation has not been repelled, despite the widespread criticism.