bleibt abzuwarten. Denn angesichts der großen Begeisterungswelle für den neuen us -Präsidenten wird oftmals übersehen, dass Obama wichtige Entschei­dungen nicht im Alleingang treffen kann, sondern der us -Kongress ebenfalls über weitreichende Kompetenzen verfügt. Darüber hinaus gewann die Region Latein­amerika in den vergangenen Jahren an politischer Unabhängigkeit, und ihre staatlichen Akteure vertreten zunehmend selbstbewusster ihre politischen und wirtschaftlichen Interessen. Lena Wörrlein, Hamburg BROOKE HARRINGTON: Pop Finance – Investment Clubs and New Investor Populism Princeton 2008 Princeton University Press, 242 p. A s the disastrous social consequences of the current financial crisis emerge, much has been written recently about political shortcomings and failures to regulate financial markets at the macro-level. Discussions about financial institu­tions such as the stock market are often presented in very technical terms in both the academic literature and in public discourse. The focus on financial markets as a technical macro-level phenomenon neglects, however, an understanding of what these markets actually are, above all, their social underpinnings. In»Pop Finance«, sociologist Brooke Harrington makes good this omission. Examining the social context in which financial decision-making takes place, Harrington of­fers a very interesting and refreshing alternative to the standard accounts of stock market dynamics presented by economics and finance. At a time when faith in economic models based on the premise of rational, self-interested individuals is increasingly waning, Harrington’s book challenges their core assumptions. Harrington’s research is motivated by the massive increase in investment acti­vity in the United States over the last twenty years. While financial investment was considered a rich man’s game in the decades following the Great Depression, during the 1990s the buying and selling of stocks turned into a mass phenome­non, involving more than 50 percent of American adults(p. 12). Investment clubs have played a major role in the rise of»popular finance,« since most private inves­tors are members of such organizations. With a view to understanding the social underpinnings of stock markets, consequently, Harrington examines decision­making processes in investment clubs, employing the conceptual and analytical tools of economic sociology. As formal associations for consultation and discus­sion of financial decisions, Harrington finds that investment clubs provide an interesting arena for scholarly observation in which decision-making processes in ipg 1/2010 Rezensionen/Book Reviews 135