Suchergebnisse

Legitimacy is a social source of financial power -- Legitimacy in political economy -- The financial reform nexus in England -- The financial reform nexus in Germany -- The financial reform nexus in the United States -- The financial reform nexus in Japan -- The social sources of international financial orders -- Liquid conventions, saturating norms -- Epilogue : the George W. Bush rentier shift.

"A state's financial power is built on the effect its credit, property, and tax policies have on ordinary people: this is the key message of Leonard Seabrooke's comparative historical investigation, which turns the spotlight away from elite financial actors and toward institutions that matter for the majority of citizens. Seabrooke suggests that everyday contests between social groups and the state over how the economy should work determine the legitimacy of a state's financial and fiscal system. Ideally, he believes, such contests compel a state to intervene on behalf of people below the median income level, leading the state to broaden and deepen its domestic pool of capital while increasing its influence on international finance. But to do so, Seabrooke asserts, a state must first challenge powerful interests that benefit from the concentration of financial wealth." "Seabrooke's novel constructivist approach is informed by economic sociology and the work of Max Weber. This book demonstrates how domestic legitimacy influences the character of international financial orders. It will interest all readers concerned with how best to transform state intervention in the economy for the good of the majority."--Jacket

Over a century ago, John A. Hobson provided a polemic on how social liberal domestic reforms could cure the international disease of imperialism by removing its 'economic taproot'. When read alongside his other works, Hobson saw how state intervention through taxation could boost broader consumption, create wealth, and encourage a peaceful multilateral world order. Conversely, should the state not intervene, rentiers would generate socially negative wealth, or 'illth',that fostered imperialism and protectionism. This article explores Hobson's moral categories for economic action that link taxation, consumption and imperialism, and then applies his arguments to Britain during his lifetime, to the US in the 1965-2000 period and, especially, to contemporary US imperialism under George W. Bush's administration. Hobson's arguments do assist us in understanding the 'economic taproot' of US imperialism, with the conclusion that the US has 'illth at ease' with no means for correction other than Bush's expulsion from office.

Since the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998, the International Monetary Fund (the Fund) has been embroiled in an international crisis of legitimacy. Assertions of a crisis are premised on the notions that the Fund's voting system is unfair, that the Fund enforces homogeneous policies onto borrowing member states and that loan programmes tend to fail. Seen this way, poor institutional and policy design has led to a loss of legitimacy. But institutionalised inequalities or policy failure is not in itself sufficient to constitute an international crisis of legitimacy. This article provides a conceptually-driven discussion of the sources of the Fund's international crisis of legitimacy by investigating how its formal 'foreground' institutional relations with its member states have become strained, and how informal 'background' political and economic relationships are expanding in a way that the Fund will find difficult to re-legitimate. The difference between the Fund's claims to legitimacy and how its member states, especially borrowers, act has led to the creation of a 'legitimacy gap' that is difficult to close. However, identifying the sources of the Fund's international crisis of legitimacy allows us to explore what avenues are available to resolve the crisis.

Who drives domestic institutional change in the face of international economic crisis? For materialists, self-interested actors struggle for material gains during exogenously generated crises. For constructivists, norm entrepreneurs strategically construct how crises should be interpreted to justify certain institutional reforms. While both these approaches are analytically powerful, they suffer from an implicit view of legitimacy as established by elite command or proclamation during periods of uncertainty. This article adds an extra piece to the puzzle of which institutional reforms are selected in the construction of a crisis. It suggests that everyday discourses constructed by mass public agents, or non-elites, provide impulses for elite actors to select institutional reforms that will receive social legitimacy. The article re-examines the case of interwar Britain, arguing that a "legitimacy gap" between elite and mass understandings informed institutional experimentation during the 1920s and 1930s, fertilizing the eventual "Keynesian Revolution." In this way, this article seeks to show how the expressive practices and changing conventions of non-elite agents can shape institutional development. It also suggests that an "agent-centered constructivism" interested in explaining institutional change may be well served by taking into account popular as well as elite views.

Since the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998, the International Monetary Fund (the Fund) has been embroiled in an international crisis of legitimacy. Assertions of a crisis are premised on the notions that the Fund's voting system is unfair, that the Fund enforces homogeneous policies onto borrowing member states and that loan programmes tend to fail. Seen this way, poor institutional and policy design has led to a loss of legitimacy. But institutionalised inequalities or policy failure is not in itself sufficient to constitute an international crisis of legitimacy. This article provides a conceptually-driven discussion of the sources of the Fund's international crisis of legitimacy by investigating how its formal 'foreground' institutional relations with its member states have become strained, and how informal 'background' political and economic relationships are expanding in a way that the Fund will find difficult to re-legitimate. The difference between the Fund's claims to legitimacy and how its member states, especially borrowers, act has led to the creation of a 'legitimacy gap' that is difficult to close. However, identifying the sources of the Fund's international crisis of legitimacy allows us to explore what avenues are available to resolve the crisis.

Who drives domestic institutional change in the face of international economic crisis? For materialists, self-interested actors struggle for material gains during exogenously generated crises. For constructivists, norm entrepreneurs strategically construct how crises should be interpreted to justify certain institutional reforms. While both these approaches are analytically powerful, they suffer from an implicit view of legitimacy as established by elite command or proclamation during periods of uncertainty. This article adds an extra piece to the puzzle of which institutional reforms are selected in the construction of a crisis. It suggests that everyday discourses constructed by mass public agents, or non-elites, provide impulses for elite actors to select institutional reforms that will receive social legitimacy. The article re-examines the case of interwar Britain, arguing that a "legitimacy gap" between elite and mass understandings informed institutional experimentation during the 1920s and 1930s, fertilizing the eventual "Keynesian Revolution." In this way, this article seeks to show how the expressive practices and changing conventions of non-elite agents can shape institutional development. It also suggests that an "agent-centered constructivism" interested in explaining institutional change may be well served by taking into account popular as well as elite views.

An essay in a special journal section on 'Fields of Global Governance: How Transnational Power Elites Can Make Global Governance Intelligible'. Adapted from the source document.