States, Debt, and Power: 'Saints' and 'Sinners' in European History and Integration
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| Anteprima |
States,
Debt, and Power argues for the importance of situating our contextually
influenced thinking about European states and debt within a commitment
to historically informed and critical analysis. It teases out certain
broad historical patterns. The book also examines the inescapably
difficult and contentious judgements about 'bad' and 'good' debt; about
what constitutes sustainable debt; and about distributive justice at
times of sovereign debt crisis. These judgements offer insight into the
nature of power and the contingent nature of sovereign creditworthiness.
Three themes weave through the book: the significance of
creditor-debtor state relations in defining asymmetry of power; the
context-specific and constructed character of debt, above all in
relation to war; and the limitations of formal economic reasoning in the
face of radical uncertainty. Part I examines case studies from Ancient
Greece to the modern Euro Area and brings together a wealth of
historical data that cast fresh light on how sovereign debt problems are
debated and addressed. Part II looks at the conditioning and
constraining framework of law, culture, and ideology and their
relationship to the use of policy instruments. Part III shows how the
problems of matching the assumption of liability with the exercise of
control are rooted in external trade and financial imbalances and
external debt; in financial markets and vulnerability to banking crisis;
in the character of the 'private governance of public debt'; in who has
power over indicators of sustainability; in domestic institutional and
political arrangements; and in sub-national fiscal governance. Part IV
looks at how the problems of mismatch between liability and control take
on an acute form within the historical context of European monetary
union, above all in Euro Area debt crises.
