# Sociological Perspectives on the Bank Failures of 2023 #### calendar\_today Date and Time **April 19, 2023** 11:00AM - 12:00PM EDT #### pin\_drop Location **Via Zoom** Wednesday, April 19, 11:00am-12:00pm ET Zoom link: Following the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, as well as the forced acquisition of Credit Suisse, banks are back in the headlines. This panel considers recent events in light of the flowering of sociological research since the financial crisis of 2008. Sociologists have mapped the networks that tie financial actors together, investigated the institutional structures of banks and regulatory agencies, and studied the materiality of trading floors. Fifteen years after Lehman Brothers, the financial system has come under stress yet again, raising a number of theoretical and policy questions. How do sociological perspectives help illuminate the current situation? What are similarities with and differences to earlier crises? For instance, how have the network dynamics of bank runs changed with the rise of venture capital investors? How does organizational culture at banks help explain recent events, e.g., the downfall of Credit Suisse? This panel brings together six sociologists for an early attempt at making sense of the most recent crisis. **Organizers:** **Daniel Beunza** Bayes Business School, City University London Author: *Taking the Floor: Models, Morals, and Management in a Wall Street Trading Room* Princeton University Press, 2019 **Pierre-Christian Fink** Visiting Scholar, Harvard University Author: “Caught between Frontstage and Backstage: The Failure of the Federal Reserve to Halt Rule Evasion in the Financial Crisis of 1974” *American Sociological Review*, 2023 **Additional Panelists:** **Neil Fligstein**, University of California, Berkeley Author: *The Banks Did It: An Anatomy of the Financial Crisis* Harvard University Press, 2021 **Kim Pernell**, University of Texas, Austin Co-author: “The Hazards of Expert Control: Chief Risk Officers and Risky Derivatives” *American Sociological Review*, 2017 **Gillian Tett**, Financial Times and Provost-Elect of King’s College, Cambridge Author: *Anthro-Vision: A New Way to See in Business and Life* Simon and Schuster, 2021 **Matthias Thiemann**, Sciences Po Author: *The Growth of Shadow Banking: A Comparative Institutional Analysis* Cambridge University Press, 2018 **Cornelia Woll**, Hertie School of Governance Berlin Author: *The Power of Inaction: Bank Bailouts in Comparison* Cornell University Press, 2014 See also:- [ Harvard Events ](/warren-center-events/harvard-events) Save: [ Add to calendar calendar\_today ](https://warrencenter.fas.harvard.edu/node/1682151/event-feed.ics) Copy link link