Sophie Hill Profile picture
Oct 3, 2020 11 tweets 7 min read Read on X
Ep 2 of "Suspicious Activity" (a podcast on the #FinCENFiles by @pineapplemedia and @BuzzFeedNews) recounts how George Osborne lobbied US regulators NOT to prosecute senior execs at HSBC...

podcasts.podinstall.com/pineapple-stre…
... which is a brilliant illustration of "structural power" as developed by folks like @PepperCulpepper and @RaphaelJReinke, as well as @Cornelia_Woll's "collective power of inaction".

Check out the podcast and then follow-up with some further reading from #polisci! (a 🧵)
Culpepper & Reinke (2014) use the idea of "structural power" to compare and contrast the UK and US bank bailouts in 2008.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.11…
In the US, all the big banks get the majority of their revenues domestically. But in the UK, there are banks like HSBC with huge market share that are truly *international* - this gives them "structural power" vis-à-vis the UK regulators.
@Cornelia_Woll's book "The Power of Inaction" offers a comparative case study of bank bailouts in the UK, Ireland, Denmark and Germany. She argues that banks are able to influence policymakers not just by what they *do*, but by what they *don't do*.

google.com/books/edition/…
"For governments everywhere, the participation and contribution of the financial industry to its own rescue was an implicit or explicit concern. The most unbalanced arrangements arose where the financial industry was capable of refusing to participate."
One factor that emerges from the podcast is the importance of internal corporate "culture". The team responsible for cleaning up HSBC's act was notorious for its regular cocaine + booze-fuelled benders

buzzfeednews.com/article/anthon…
Where does this corporate culture come from? There's a fascinating anecdote about this Woll's book: while HSBC UK near-singlehandedly scuppered the UK's bailout plan, HSBC France took part in the French bailout scheme even though it didn't formally sign the agreement!
The answer, Woll suggests, lies in the common culture shared by French government and banking elites, as well as the fact that HSBC France had a prior history as an independent French entity before being acquired by the megabank.
What's fascinating looking back on this literature is that the banks that managed to exert huge leverage over their regulators because they were relatively unaffected by the 2008 crisis – like Deutsche Bank and HSBC – are now some of the main culprits in the #FinCENFiles!
cc'ing @azeen @a_cormier_ @JasonLeopold @TomBWarren to say: it would be awesome to hear a conversation between investigative journalists and political scientists about the broader implications of the #FinCENFiles! maybe a 6th episode?? 🙏🙏🙏

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More from @sophie_e_hill

Jan 15
Russia hacked ex-MI6 chief's emails and claimed to have uncovered a British "deep state" conspiracy.

But the truth is a LOT more complicated...

👇 by me, for @ComputerWeekly / @BylineTimes

computerweekly.com/news/366565960…
In April 2022, Russian hackers leaked a cache of 22,000 emails from a network of encrypted Protonmail accounts, including ex-MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove.
The emails were uploaded to a site with the domain name "sneakystrawhead" – apparently a reference to Boris Johnson's typically unkempt hairstyle... Photo of Johnson's unkempt hair
Read 19 tweets
Oct 3, 2023
A group of hard-right Brexiteers, including a former head of MI6, secretly attacked a top science journal after their debunked paper on an "alternative" Covid vaccine was rejected.

From @ComputerWeekly & @BylineTimes, this is a MUST READ 👇

computerweekly.com/news/366553435…
This piece raises serious questions about the conduct of Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6 who is best known for his role in the intelligence failures surrounding the Iraq war. a photo of Richard Dearlove
In the early stages of the pandemic, Dearlove began collaborating with a group of scientists who claimed to have proof that the Covid pandemic was the result of a lab leak.
Read 24 tweets
Jul 6, 2022
I am so pleased to join the @AEI in honoring the distinguished career of political theorist and @Harvard professor Harvey C. Mansfield!

Check out this website, which celebrates Mansfield's most important intellectual contributions: mansfieldat90.com #Mansfieldat90
Mansfield's in-depth ethnographic work has given him an unmatched insight into the inner lives of Women. #Mansfieldat90 Quote box: "To a woman...
While feminist scholars pointed to spousal inequalities in domestic work, Mansfield's meticulous research allowed him to uncover previously unacknowledged contributions of men to the running of a household.

#Mansfieldat90 Quote box: "Somehow me...
Read 28 tweets
Feb 9, 2022
In 2021, Harvard apologized to Terry Karl and many others who were sexually harassed by Jorge Domínguez, acknowledging "institutional failures".

At the same time, Harvard was doing the exact same thing to the complainants in the Comaroff case!

And that's not the only overlap...
Jorge Domínguez had been director of the @HarvardWCFIA from 1996 - 2006, a position that allowed him to exert considerable power over funding opportunities.

John Comaroff is affiliated with the Weatherhead Center, as are (by my count) 22 of the 38 signatories to the open letter. Image of text: "Weatherhead affiliates Among the 38 sig
Of course, it's not exactly surprising that many social science faculty are affiliated with one of the main centers for social science research.

But several of the signatories hold (or held) leadership positions, not just affiliations.
Read 18 tweets
Aug 26, 2021
Thanks @allthecitizens for interviewing me about @My_Little_Crony!

Adding new links to the map each week is depressing, but one silver lining is seeing a coalition of journalists, lawyers, academics, and citizens come together to expose this government's corruption.
On the origins of @My_Little_Crony in November 2020:

"I thought, I need a side project that's going to keep me occupied, something useful, that's nothing to do with Trump." Image
Q: Why does cronyism matter?

A: The idea that we created a ‘VIP lane’ for politically-connected firms goes against every set of anti-corruption best practices that's ever been written. By creating that system, the government incentivised all kinds of opportunistic behaviour. Image
Read 9 tweets
Jun 29, 2021
#ENGGER match-up: goalscorers

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 🇩🇪
Sterling vs Havertz
Goals 2 2
Assists 0 0
Attempts 5 9
Speed 33km/h 29km/h
#ENGGER match-up: defensive midfield

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 🇩🇪
Phillips vs Kimmich
Assists 2 1
Attempts 1 1
Distance 33km 34km
Pass 87% 85%
acc.
#ENGGER match-up: keepers

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 🇩🇪
Pickford vs Neuer
Saves 4 3
Punches 3 1
Clean 3 0
sheets
Pass 78% 92%
acc.
Read 4 tweets

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