Description
In response to recent calls for systematic and in-depth studies of the impact of international forces on local
accounting practices, discourses and institutions, this essay explores the interconnectedness of national politics with
global forces and the ramifications of this interaction for the regulation of accounting and the state–profession relationship.
The paper employs Held’s (1991) framework [Held, D. (1991). Democracy, the nation-state and the global
system. Economy and Society, 20(2), 138–172.] on the role of the nation state in the age of globalisation, extended to
encompass insights from the realist paradigm on international politics, to examine the international aspects of an
attempt by a group of indigenous auditors in Greece to recapture their monopoly status, following the ‘liberalisation’
of the Greek auditing profession in 1992. The paper explores changes in the state–profession relationship in the era of
‘globalisation’ and documents the catalystic role of major states (the USA), politico-economic blocks (the EU), and
other powerful international actors. It is posited that the politics of international accounting professionalism in the
‘globalisation’ era are becoming more polycentric with (lesser) nation-states as merely one level (of diminishing
importance) in a complex system of superimposed, overlapping and often competing national and international agencies
of governance.
doc_614262341.pdf
In response to recent calls for systematic and in-depth studies of the impact of international forces on local
accounting practices, discourses and institutions, this essay explores the interconnectedness of national politics with
global forces and the ramifications of this interaction for the regulation of accounting and the state–profession relationship.
The paper employs Held’s (1991) framework [Held, D. (1991). Democracy, the nation-state and the global
system. Economy and Society, 20(2), 138–172.] on the role of the nation state in the age of globalisation, extended to
encompass insights from the realist paradigm on international politics, to examine the international aspects of an
attempt by a group of indigenous auditors in Greece to recapture their monopoly status, following the ‘liberalisation’
of the Greek auditing profession in 1992. The paper explores changes in the state–profession relationship in the era of
‘globalisation’ and documents the catalystic role of major states (the USA), politico-economic blocks (the EU), and
other powerful international actors. It is posited that the politics of international accounting professionalism in the
‘globalisation’ era are becoming more polycentric with (lesser) nation-states as merely one level (of diminishing
importance) in a complex system of superimposed, overlapping and often competing national and international agencies
of governance.
doc_614262341.pdf