Transatlantic Politics and the Transformation of the International Monetary System
By Michelle Frasher
To Be Published July 25th 2013 by Routledge – 304 pages
Series: Routledge Advances in International Political Economy
Description
Michelle Frasher shows how the 1970s marked a watershed in the transformation of international monetary affairs that forced significant changes in the state-market relationship, and created the conditions for currency crises for the past forty years. Through archival documents and interviews, she brings the reader into the negotiating room as American, French, and German officials confronted the encroachment of the global market upon their domains of power.
The result was a system that has allowed national and market interests to exert a greater influence on financial affairs – to the detriment of global stability. She argues that the current system discourages interstate cooperation, despite deep interdependencies among states and markets, except when prompted by crisis. Yet in this analysis, the state’s role in international finance has not diminished, it has evolved. Governments are becoming managers in the global economy, and crises are important for states to learn these managerial roles.
This viewpoint presents a new paradigm for American, European, and global financial power that uncovers the inherent weaknesses in the system, and emphasizes the importance of interstate cooperation and consultation. Frasher’s work places the 2008 and European debt crises into historical perspective, showing that these events, like the turbulent 1970s, represent another episode in the evolution of the international economy and the state that will continue through the 21st century.
Reviews
"Frasher's book is an informative and fascinating analysis of how transatlantic policy-makers confronted structural changes in the system due to globalization, national and regional interests, and the decline of US hegemony during the transition from fixed to floating rates. Unlike a lot of other analyses on international relations, it does not take a one-side approach to the state (that the state was either retreating or advancing). Frasher shows how both actually occurred in this fascinating historical case study. While much has been written about Bretton Woods and its aftermath, few analyses have as many nuances to offer. Indeed, while Bretton Woods and is aftermath are old subjects, many new things can be said about them. Frasher has masterfully accomplished such a feat in this book."
—Giulio M Gallarotti, Wesleyan University
"The transition to today's international monetary system is often presented as a relatively straightforward structural adjustment process in a neoliberalizing world. Michelle Frasher's meticulous analysis, in contrast, exposes the underlying and ongoing conflicts of interest and ideas involved in that transformation. These included painful and often improvised negotiations between states with competing aims, quarrels among domestic political, economic and bureaucratic interests, and rising pressures from globalizing market forces, usually resolved in ad hoc fashion. These conjunctural factors laid the groundwork for the continual renegotiations and endemic crises of the past half century. Based on deep archival research and groundbreaking interviews, Frasher recounts the messy and incomplete outcomes that are still shaping the 21st century international political economy."
—Philip G. Cerny, University of Manchester and Rutgers University
Contents
Foreword; Jacques de Larosière. 1. Introduction: Crisis & Change. Part I: Commitments, Compromise & Discord, 1945-1971. 2: The Embedded Liberal Consensus & Its Challengers, 1945-1970. 3: The Nixon Shocks, 1971 Part II: An Emerging Neoliberal Consensus, 1972-1976. 4: The "Half-Way Route" to de Facto Floating, January 1972-September 1973. 5: The Foundations of "Backlash," October 1973 – January 1976. Part III: Defensive Regionalism, 1976-1979. 6: The European Monetary System. Conclusions.
Author Bio
Michelle Frasher is Assistant Professor in the Department of History and Political Science at Molloy College. Dr. Frasher specializes in transatlantic relations, international monetary policy, and security issues.
Name: Transatlantic Politics and the Transformation of the International Monetary System (Hardback) – Routledge
Description: By Michelle Frasher. Michelle Frasher shows how the 1970s marked a watershed in the transformation of international monetary affairs that forced significant changes in the state-market relationship, and created the conditions for currency crises for the past forty years...
Categories: International Political Economy, International Relations, International Organizations, International Relations Theory, Global Governance, Regionalism, European Integration, Political History, Political Economy
