The Limits of Incrementalism: The G20, the FSB, and the International Regulatory Agenda

At their very first summit in Washington in November 2008, the G20 leaders placed the reform of international financial regulation at the core of their agenda. The issue has retained a central place in discussions and communiqués at every subsequent meeting. It has been remarkable to see heads of state commit such detailed attention in their communiqués to a topic which has historically been the more obscure preserve of technocratic officials. Equally striking has been the fact that policymakers have looked beyond the immediate task of managing the crisis to focus on this more forward-looking agenda to prevent future crises. It took more than a decade after the crisis of the early 1930s for political leaders to agree at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference on international financial reforms designed to prevent a repetition of that economic calamity. This time around, the crisis has been used as an immediate catalyst for reform. But what have the G20 leaders actually accomplished so far in this field? There is no question that they have successfully negotiated more initiatives in this area than in any other, initiatives that are aimed at reforming both the content and the governance of international financial regulation. While the breadth of these reforms has been impressive, they also suffer from some important limitations. Despite the scale of the crisis, the reforms have been much more incremental than radical. Their implementation has also been slow and uneven, and some important issues have been neglected entirely. As we have entered a new phase of financial instability unleashed by the eurozone’s difficulties, these limitations have become increasingly evident, with political consequences that are very difficult to predict

Globalising the classical foundations of IPE thought*

Current efforts to teach and research the historical foundations of IPE thought in classical political economy in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries centre largely on European and American thinkers. If a more extensive 'global conversation' is to be fostered in the field today, the perspectives of thinkers in other regions need to be recognised, and brought into the mainstream of its intellectual history. As a first step towards 'globalising' the classical foundations of IPE thought, this article demonstrates some ways in which thinkers located beyond Europe and the United States engaged with and contributed to debates associated with the three well-known classical traditions on which current IPE scholarship often draws: economic liberalism, economic nationalism and Marxism. It also reveals the extensive nature of 'global conversations' about IPE issues in this earlier era.Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canad

India and the Neglected Development Dimensions of Bretton Woods

This paper helps correct two common misconceptions about the origins of the Bretton Woods institutions. The first is that the negotiations were primarily an Anglo-American affair in which developing countries had little input. The second is that international development issues were largely ignored during the negotiations. This examination of India's role in the origins of Bretton Woods shows that both assumptions are flawed. Understanding the history of the birth of the Bretton Woods institutions in a more accurate way provides a useful perspective for contemporary debates about their future.Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canad

Conservative Economic Nationalism and the National Policy: Rae, Buchanan and Early Canadian Protectionist Thought

Two distinct strands of conservative Canadian economic nationalism—associated with the ideas of John Rae and Isaac Buchanan—helped to inform the country’s protectionist National Policy of 1879. These strands of nationalism were much less influenced by Listian ideas than was economic nationalist thought in many other countries at this time. This study of their content, intellectual sources and influence contributes empirically and analytically to debates in Canadian political economy and international political economy, while also advancing historical scholarship. The arguments also have some potential contemporary relevance in an age when protectionist economic nationalism is rising in the US and elsewhere.Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Grant 435-2015-0571 Killam Fellowship Progra

Civilisational values and political economy beyond the West: The significance of Korean debates at the time of its economic opening

This paper analyses the prominence of civilisational values in Korean political economy debates in the late 19th and early 20th centuries concerning their country’s dramatic opening to the world economy at the time. Korean supporters of economic opening saw this policy change as part of a wider embrace of Western civilisational values, while opponents argued that their country’s longstanding economic autarchy upheld traditional Neo-Confucian civilisational values that had been imported from China. For international political economy (IPE) scholars interested in the historical relationship between civilisational values and political economy, the analysis shows how these values shaped understandings of international economic relations outside the West in quite distinctive ways. For IPE scholars interested in the diffusion of ideas, the analysis highlights different dynamics involved in the ‘localisation’ of ideas emanating from dominant powers. More generally, the study of this Korean history also contributes to the building of a more ‘inter-civilisational’ approach to IPE today.Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Grant 435-2015-057

Gatekeepers of financial power: from London to Lagos

The main premise of this paper is that, until recently, African elites did not regulate or control financial flows moving across the continent. They were not financial gatekeepers. In Africa Since 1940, Cooper identified African elites as gatekeepers regulating access to resources and opportunities passing through strategic sites. This paper makes a case for revision of existing notions of the gatekeeper state in an ongoing effort to (re)negotiate the continent’s colonial past through two new arguments. The first is that financial power was never located at a ‘peripheral’ African gate, but resolutely held onto within leading financial centres, circumventing any opportunity for African elites to control financial flows. Failure to distinguish between types of flows distorts analysis of African political economic power under colonialism. It is only in the post-2000 period, that we see powerful African states driving the integration of African markets into the global financial system. The second argument is that these African goals to control financial flows correspond more to ‘gateway’ strategies than to gatekeeper. Drawing on the case of Lagos, I demonstrate how this ‘gateway’ concept better captures trans-scalar processes of new financial clustering in Africa’s emerging markets than a concept associated with ‘gates’ under Empire

The role of role theory in International Political Economy

This article demonstrates the benefits of using a role theory approach in the field of International Political Economy (IPE) by demonstrating the benefits of role theory relative to variants of the social constructivist paradigm, especially vis-à-vis identity based accounts of IPE. This article also documents why and how role theory has always had a home in IPE even before the constructivist revolution in the 1990s. The social interactionist dimension in the work of Herbert Mead and his notion of a general other are linked to the relational ideas of friendship and impartial spectator present in the works of the founding father of classical political economy, Adam Smith. These similar ideas about the self and their surrounding social environment is a useful starting point to locate role theory in IPE and demonstrate its analytical advantages within social constructivism. After showing the “forgotten” place role theory has always had in IPE, the article illustrates the potential of using a role theory approach within the field of IPE through an illustrative analysis of the Greek economic crisis