'Rating agencies as a corporate governance mechanism: Power and trust production in debt capital markets’

The chapter explores the voluntary corporate governance role played by credit rating agencies, closing the ‘trust at a distance’ gap which might otherwise hinder fundraising in debt capital markets. The chapter draws on Giddens’ system trust theory and Foucauldian perspectives of knowledge/power to unpack trust production as a discursive process in financial markets.The texts analysed illustrate the influence of rating agencies in producing trust as well as mistrust in debt instruments.