Introductory description

Global finance is big business. Around $5 trillion is traded in the foreign exchange markets each day. In this world order, capital moves from one location to another increasingly unhindered by government controls. Bond rating agencies issue judgments on the bonds of foreign governments, affecting their cost of borrowing and the lives of millions.

This module examines the world of contemporary global finance from a political perspective. The module enables students to recognize the profoundly political nature of financial relationships and to understand how finance interacts with other areas of life.

The module will focus in particular on the origins, analysis and consequences of financial crises. Topics covered include manias, panics and crashes, the problem with banks, rating agencies, war finance, and emerging markets. The class does NOT address issues of aid or development.

Informed by a mix of international political economy and social theory, the module focuses on the analysis of global financial politics, with fundamental questions about power, hegemony, social control, and the evolving dynamics of capitalism amongst its central concerns. If you are interested in these aspects of global finance, then this is the right module for you.

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Term 2 Week 1
Introduction: Theory, Power and History
Term 2 Week 2
Issue Area 1: Manias, Panics, and Crashes
Term 2 Week 3
Issue Area 2: The Problem with Banks
Term 2 Week 4
Issue Area 3: Rating Agencies
Term 2 Week 5
Issue Area 4: Financial Innovation
Term 1 Week 6
Reading Week- no seminars
Term 2 Week 7
Issue Area 5: War Finance
Term 2 Week 8
Issue Area 6: Emerging Markets
Term 2 Week 9
Issue Area 7: Islamic Finance
Term 2 Week 10
Issue Area 8: Can We Regulate Global Finance
Effectively?

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• describe what for International Political Economy (IPE) scholars are the major theoretical controversies, historical debates and contemporary issues in the academic study of the politics of global finance;
• analyze, compare and critically evaluate the fundamental assumptions and arguments about the politics of global finance made by IPE scholars; and
• construct and substantiate your own academic [NOT policy] arguments about the politics of global finance, within the terms of the IPE debates.

Indicative reading list

Eichengreen, Barry. Globalizing Capital: A History of the International Monetary System  3rd edition (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2019). Paperback.
Rethel, Lena and Timothy J. Sinclair. The Problem with Banks (London: Zed Books, 2012). Paperback.
Valdez, Stephen and Philip Molyneux. An Introduction to Global Financial Markets 8th edition (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). Paperback.
Aliber, Robert Z. and Charles P. Kindleberger. Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises 7th edition (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).
Polanyi, Karl. The Great Transformation. (Boston: Beacon Press [1944] 2002). Paperback.
Helleiner, Eric. The Status Quo Crisis: Global Financial Governance after the 2008 Meltdown (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). Hardback.
 A Dictionary of Finance and Banking 5th edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). Paperback.
B. Braun, "From Performativity to Political Economy: Index Investing, ETFs and Asset Manager Capitalism," New Political Economy, Volume 21, Number 3, May 2016, pp. 257-273.
A. Nesvetailova, "A Crisis of the Overcrowded Future: Shadow Banking and the Political Economy of Financial Innovation," New Political Economy, Volume 20, Number 3, May 2015, pp. 431-453.
S. Bell and A. Hindmoor, "Taming the City? Ideas, Structural Power and the Evolution of British Banking Policy Amidst the Great Financial Meltdown," New Political Economy, Volume 20, Number 3, May 2015, pp. 454-474.
R. Goldbach, "Asymmetric Influence in Global Banking Regulation," Review of International Political Economy, Volume 22, Number 6, November 2015, pp. 1087-1127.
B. Paudyn, “Credit Rating Agencies and the Sovereign Debt Crisis: Performing the Politics of Creditworthiness Through Risk and Uncertainty,” Review of International Political Economy Volume 20, Number 4, 2013, pp. 788-818.
D. Soudis, "Credit Rating Agencies and the IPE: Not as Influential as Thought? Review of International Political Economy Volume 22, Number 4, July 2015, pp. 813-837.
A. Kruck, "Resilient Blunderers: Credit Rating Fiascos and Rating Agencies' Institutionalized Status as Private Authorities," Journal of European Public Policy, Volume 23, Number 5, May 2016, pp. 753-770.

View reading list on Talis Aspire

Subject specific skills

TBC

Transferable skills

TBC