ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the postwar institutional framework the North developed to manage the global economy. The keystone international economic organizations (KIEOs) are often credited with contributing to unprecedented global economic growth and change over the past five decades. Delegates from 44 countries convened the Bretton Woods Conference in New Hampshire, and within 22 days they endorsed a framework for international economic cooperation after World War II. It also focuses on the South, and particularly the growing role of China in challenging the framework. Hegemonic stability theorists attribute the economic instability in the interwar period to the lack of a global hegemon, and today a major issue is China’s increasing role as it gains power relative to the West. Business firms are the most influential non-state actors in the global economy.
