Christopher Bruner, the William Donald Bain Family Professor of Corporate Law at Washington and Lee, presented a seminar for faculty and graduate students at the University of Cambridge on January 27, 2017. Professor Bruner presented his working paper titled “Center-Left Politics and Corporate Governance: What Is the ‘Progressive’ Agenda?” The event was sponsored by the Cambridge law faculty’s Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law (3CL).
The aim of Professor Bruner’s paper is to explain a striking disconnect among the U.S. center-left in terms of political preferences regarding corporate governance. While “progressive” scholars and corporate lawyers have generally favored stakeholder-oriented conceptions of the corporation through state corporate law, when the frame of reference shifts to federal contexts, one often finds actors associated with the political left championing expansion of shareholders’ corporate governance powers and favoring shareholder-centric conceptions of corporate decision-making. Professor Bruner’s paper examines the range of political, economic, legal, and market forces that have driven this state/federal divide among the center-left, and explores implications for the future development of U.S. corporate governance.
Professor Bruner’s visit to Cambridge also marked the launch of a book series that he now co-edits with Dr. Marc Moore of the Cambridge Law faculty. Titled “Contemporary Studies in Corporate Law” and published by Hart Publishing (Bloomsbury Professional), the series aims to advance innovative legal and interdisciplinary perspectives on corporate law and related legal fields.
Read more about Professor Bruner’s scholarship here.
