Corporations vs. the Court: Private Power, Public Interests

This original book looks methodically at corporate law, corporate governance, and judicial practice from the perspective of social theory.

Sciulli explores whether there are identifiable limits—legal or normative—to corporate power in any democratic society; when the corporate judiciary in the U.S. maintains those limits, despite the pressures of intensifying global economic competition; and when the judiciary drifts, as an institution, away from bearing this responsibility.

Assessing both the promise and the limits of the new, institutional approach to the sociology of organizations, Sciulli considers the influence of England's Chancery Courts in the U.S., especially with regard to private power in civil society. His study, moving from the eighteenth century to the present, provides a comprehensive analysis of corporate power and judicial restraints.

• Introduction.
• CORPORATIONS AND COURTS: AN INSTITUTIONAL APPROACH.
• The Promise of Institutionalism. An Extended Critique.
• Overcoming Conceptual Limitations.
• A Conceptual Framework for the Empirical Study of Institutional Change.
• AMERICAN CORPORATE LAW: FROM VIGILENCE TO COMPLACENCY.
• The Quest for Doctrinal Coherence: Initial Approaches to the Corporation.
• Chancery of Old and the Problem of Social Order.
• The End of Doctrinal Coherence.
• Corporate Law and Judicial Practice From the Mid-1970's toToday.
• CONCLUSION.
• Reconsidering Institutionalism.