Prior research in corporate governance has extensively investigated the mechanisms through which a variety of actors (financial analysts, investment managers, shareholder activists) monitor and discipline corporate executives. However, one recently emerged actor has received little attention so far: the proxy advisory firm. Mobilising Foucault’s concept of disciplinary power, this study uses historical analysis to examine the role of proxy advisors in corporate governance. This article shows that proxy advisors actively contributed to developing and implementing disciplinary mechanisms. This involves (1) hierarchical observations of corporations and their executives on a global scale. These observations are made available to institutional investors on proxy advisors’ voting platforms which have Panopticon-like features; (2) normalisation of judgements through the provision of generic voting policies, generic voting recommendations and corporate governance ratings prepared by proxy advisors and delivered to many institutional investors; (3) ritualised examination of the performance of corporations and of their executives during the annual general meeting, including record-keeping of all past voting results.

公司治理方面的先前研究已广泛研究了各种参与者（财务分析师，投资经理，股东激进主义者）通过哪些机制来监视和约束公司高管。但是，到目前为止，最近出现的一位演员受到的关注很少：代理咨询公司。为了调动福柯的纪律权力概念，本研究使用历史分析来研究代理顾问在公司治理中的作用。本文显示代理顾问对开发和实施纪律机制做出了积极贡献。这涉及（1）在全球范围内对公司及其高管的分层观察。这些观察结果可在具有Panopticon类功能的代理顾问投票平台上提供给机构投资者。（2）通过提供由代理顾问准备并交付给许多机构投资者的通用投票政策，通用投票建议和公司治理评级来规范判断；（3）对公司及其高管人员在年度股东大会上的表现进行正式检查，包括记录所有过去的投票结果。