Global Capital National State And The Politics Of Money

The politics of international debt have received increasing attention in recent years. However, discussion of the politics of money has focused on Latin American and 'third' world countries. So far there has been little treatment of the politics of scarce money and of money as a political category in relation to 'advanced' countries. The central theme of the book is the limitations and constraints on state action which arise from the relation between the (nation) state and the global flow of money.

DIVConsiders why some countries are more successful than others in attracting international investment /div

Kessler shows how political considerations distorted the liberalization process in Mexico, leading to inconsistent and unsustainable patterns of financial policy. Although market reform is promoted in developing countries to improve economic efficiency and stimulate growth, in Mexico financial liberalization provided rent-seeking opportunities for privileged groups and increased the states' ability to finance politically inspired obligations. The research examines four periods: the populist administrations of EcheverrÍa and Lopez Portillo, during which the foundations of modern financial markets were paradoxically laid; the debt-crisis years of de la Madrid, who reversed his party's political strategy by favoring the business class with financial opportunities; the economic transformation undertaken by Carlos Salinas, who mixed genuine reform with destabilizing anti-market measures; and the political watershed of the Zedillo administration, whose unpopular bank rescue gave opposition parties unprecedented power within Mexico's policy making process. Kessler also provides a comparison of financial collapse in two other emerging markets, South Korea and Russia, and examines the political roots of crisis in both countries. He concludes by suggesting how greater attention to questions of power, social organization, and challenges to state authority can help the policy-making community avoid giving well-meaning advice that is unlikely to be implemented in a sustainable way.

The growth of global finance since 1960 constitutes one of the most important transformations in social relations during the twentieth century. Using historical, statistical, and graphical techniques, State Institutions, Private Incentives, and Global Capital examines three important aspects of this phenomenal shift in the international political economy. First, Andrew Sobel explores the reawakening of the international financial markets, mapping their extraordinary transformation since the early 1960s and discussing the role of politics in that metamorphosis. The author then offers a fresh understanding of the systematic differences in access for borrowers in this rapidly transforming and expanding global capital pool. He then demonstrates the influence of political factors in producing differential access to the global capital pool. Showing how the character and stability of a country's political system affects investors's decisions to invest in that country, Sobel breaks new ground in understanding the basis for the frequent admonitions by the World Bank and others that a stable political and legal system are essential for states to attract significant foreign investment. With the growing debate about the effect of financial interdependence on the ability of states to conduct economic policy and indeed to preserve their independence in the face of unprecedented economic linkages, this book will be of interest to political scientists and economists as well as policy makers concerned with the impact of financial globalization and the causes of differentials in access to capital. Andrew C. Sobel is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Resident Fellow, Center in Political Economy, Washington University, St. Louis. He is the author of Domestic Choices, International Markets: Dismantling National Barriers and Liberalizing Securities Markets.

Global Capital and National Governments suggests that international financial integration does not mean the end of social democratic welfare policies. Capital market openness allows participants to react swiftly and severely to government policy; but in the developed world, capital market participants consider only a few government policies when making decisions. Governments that conform to capital market pressures in macroeconomic areas remain relatively unconstrained in supply-side and micro-economic policy areas. Therefore, despite financial globalization, cross-national policy divergence among advanced democracies remains likely. Still, in the developing world, the influence of financial markets on government policy autonomy is more pronounced. The risk of default renders market participants willing to consider a range of government policies in investment decisions. This inference, however, must be tempered with awareness that governments retain choice. As evidence for its conclusions, Global Capital and National Governments draws on interviews with fund managers, quantitative analyses, and archival investment banking materials.

The effective governance of global money and finance is under enormous stress. Deep changes over the last decade in capital markets, exchange rate systems, and government finances suggest dramatic shifts in the contours of monetary power, with tensions rising between the functional logic of international economics and the geographic logic of state-centered politics. Governing the World's Money assesses those tensions and the prospects for their peaceful resolution. Governing the World's Money surveys the frontiers of the global monetary system in ten original essays. Leading scholars of international relations and economics explore the evolution of the instruments available to policy officials for monetary governance. As they analyze the contemporary reordering of political authority in a market-oriented global economy, they open new pathways for the study of regional monetary integration and international institutional reform.

Over the last 20 years — and especially over the last decade — the international expansion of money and commodities and the international relocation of production have grown tremendously. As a result, there now exists a real contradiction in accumulation: Although global in orientation, it remains structured by the nation state. Conventional economic literature generally explains the international economy as exogenous to the national economy. Though the former does influence the latter, national economy and policy remain discrete. Conversely, there is a developing literature on globalism that explores the tendency for international capital to eradicate national differences, even to overpower nation states. However, neither interpretation adequately considers the contradictions for national policy that have accompanied the internationalization of capital. In this volume, Dick Bryan examines the influence of the international economy upon domestic accumulation, describing the process as the expression of the contradiction between the international scope of accumulation and the national scope of its regulation. Developing a theoretical framework for understanding the contradiction within Marxist political economy, he addresses the theory of value on an international scale, as well as theories of global restructuring and crisis. These issues are then applied to those domestic policies — such as monetary policy and balance of payments — that interrelate with the international economy. The author argues that the conventional theories informing these approaches have consistently failed to recognize the contradictions in international accumulation. National economic management has, as a result, reverted to explicit class politics, attempting to solve domestic economic problems by targeting the living standards of labor

Focuses on a micro approach to political economy that grounds policy choices in the competitive environments of domestic politics and decision-making processes.