This original book looks methodically at corporate law corporate governance and judicial practice from the perspective of social theory Sciulli explores whether there are identifiable limits legal or normative to corporate power in any democratic society when the corporate judiciary in the U S maintains those limits despite the pressures of intensifying global economic competition and when the judiciary drifts as an institution away from bearing this responsibility Assessing both the promise and the limits of the new institutional approach to the sociology of organizations Sciulli considers the influence of England s Chancery Courts in the U S especially with regard to private power in civil society His study moving from the eighteenth century to the present provides a comprehensive analysis of corporate power and judicial restraints