The Politics Of International Debt

The Politics of Global Debt is a detailed political analysis of the origins and consequences of the `global debt crisis' which emerged in the early 1980s. It assesses both `imperialist' and `New Right' interpretations of the crisis, and also presents a series of case studies of the effects of external debt upon Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe and Asia. The book focusses upon the `sovereign debt' of states, and its management, and examines the ways in which global economic structures, inefficient policies, weak institutions, and corrupt political leaders contribute to a global debt crisis which has both international and domestic roots.

This book analyzes public debt from a political, historical, and global perspective. It demonstrates that public debt has been a defining feature in the construction of modern states, a main driver in the history of capitalism, and a potent geopolitical force. From revolutionary crisis to empire and the rise and fall of a post-war world order, the problem of debt has never been the sole purview of closed economic circles. This book offers a key to understanding the centrality of public debt today by revealing that political problems of public debt have and will continue to need a political response. Today’s tendency to consider public debt as a source of fragility or economic inefficiency misses the fact that, since the eighteenth century, public debts and capital markets have on many occasions been used by states to enforce their sovereignty and build their institutions, especially in times of war. It is nonetheless striking to observe that certain solutions that were used in the past to smooth out public debt crises (inflation, default, cancellation, or capital controls) were left out of the political framing of the recent crisis, therefore revealing how the balance of power between bondholders, taxpayers, pensioners, and wage-earners has evolved over the past 40 years. Today, as the Covid-19 pandemic opens up a dramatic new crisis, reconnecting the history of capitalism and that of democracy seems one of the most urgent intellectual and political tasks of our time. This global political history of public debt is a contribution to this debate and will be of interest to financial, economic, and political historians and researchers. Chapters 13 and 19 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Investigates the world of offshore finance, capital flight, money laundering, and tax evasion. The author details the origins of "hot money", explains how corporations and governments have become hostage to it, and discusses the price the world is currently paying for this problem, e.g. Third World debt, international terrorism, etc.

Since 1981 Latin America has been in the midst of a protracted external debt crisis due, among other reasons, to emergency borrowing at record-high real interest rates and the decline in the region's export proceeds. Until now, most literature on the subject originated in industrial lender countries, whose primary concern is the impact of the debt

Five papers on the political dimensions of the debt crisis at national, international and geo-political levels. There are case studies of Sudan, Senegal, Ivory Coast and Mexico. One conclusion is that the erosion of the powers and legitimacy of government is the most damaging consequence.

This original work combines technical analysis of the North-South, Third World debt crisis with a description of the political frameworks used to analyze this issue. . . . Business professionals who want a deeper understanding of the debt question, as well as scholars of international banking and economic development, can use this book as a roadmap toward understanding the assumptions behind debt analysis, as well as a way to frame more clearly the issues associated with efforts to resolve this lingering international economic problem. International Executive In this book, Dr. Bouchet, a leading economist and banker who has more than ten years' direct experience in the international lending process, cuts through the confusion that surrounds the subject. His clear and original analysis delineates the debt situation in terms of the behavior of the major participants, their conflicting motivations, and the external pressures and theoretical frameworks that determine their roles and actions. A wealth of previously unpublished data and the author's constructive synthesis of these disparate elements will enable professionals, scholars, and students to develop more realistic approaches to this intractable problem.