Existing literature on the City of London has tended to focus on its ‘structural power’, while neglecting political and narrative agency. This article acts as a corrective by presenting evidence to show that since the financial crash of 2008, the political terrain the City operates on has become more contested, crowded and noisier. The contribution develops a middle course between a positive assessment of the role of civil society in relation to global finance, and a more pessimistic reading. We demonstrate how macro-narratives and public storytelling both construct and contest City and financial sector power. In a new pattern since the financial crash, NGOs have moved from campaigns of limited duration and narrow focus, to a more sustained presence on macro-structural issues. Adopting a supply-demand framework for assessing governance and regulatory change we look at the emergence of the CityUK as a new advocacy arm and the strategies of three of the more prominent and focused NGOs that have mobilised in the aftermath of the crash: the Tax Justice Network’s (TJN) use of the ‘finance curse’; Positive Money on private endogenous money creation; and Finance Watch counterweight strategies at the level of European Union (EU). We suggest these mobilizations highlight the need for a more concerted and orchestrated construction of a global institutional civil society infrastructure in finance (a global financial public sphere) to achieve greater access, resources, scrutiny and oversight for a range of specialist expert NGOs.
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