Title The meddlers : sovereignty, empire, and the birth of global economic governance / Jamie Martin

Published Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2022

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Description 1 online resource (345 pages) : illustrations, map Contents Introduction -- Managing the Global Economy during the First World War -- Enforcing Austerity in Postwar Europe -- An Independent International Bank -- The Origins of International Development -- Controlling Commodities -- Sovereignty and the IMF Summary A pioneering history traces the origins of global economic governance--and the political conflicts it generates--to the aftermath of World War I. International economic institutions like the IMF and World Bank exert incredible influence over the domestic policies of many states. These institutions date from the end of World War II and amassed power during the neoliberal era of the late twentieth century. But as Jamie Martin shows, if we want to understand their deeper origins and the ideas and dynamics that shaped their controversial powers, we must turn back to the explosive political struggles that attended the birth of global economic governance in the early twentieth century. The Meddlers tells the story of the first international institutions to govern the world economy, including the League of Nations and Bank for International Settlements, created after World War I. These institutions endowed civil servants, bankers, and colonial authorities from Europe and the United States with extraordinary powers: to enforce austerity, coordinate the policies of independent central banks, oversee development programs, and regulate commodity prices. In a highly unequal world, they faced a new political challenge: was it possible to reach into sovereign states and empires to intervene in domestic economic policies without generating a backlash? Martin follows the intense political conflicts provoked by the earliest international efforts to govern capitalism--from Weimar Germany to the Balkans, Nationalist China to colonial Malaya, and the Chilean desert to Wall Street. The Meddlers shows how the fraught problems of sovereignty and democracy posed by institutions like the IMF are not unique to late twentieth-century globalization, but instead first emerged during an earlier period of imperial competition, world war, and economic crisis Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on May 20, 2022) Subject International Monetary Fund -- History SUBJECT International Monetary Fund fast Subject International finance -- History -- 20th century Economic councils -- History -- 20th century Economic history -- 1918- World War, 1914-1918 -- Economic aspects. Sovereignty -- Economic aspects -- History -- 20th century Capitalism -- History -- 20th century BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Economic History Capitalism Economic councils Economic history Economics International finance Sovereignty -- Economic aspects Genre/Form History Form Electronic book ISBN 9780674275768 0674275764 9780674275775 0674275772

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