ABSTRACT
The politics of financial governance in the contemporary world are the product of a complex process of historical evolution that is still ongoing. In this process, actors face sets of constraints and opportunities-the distribution of resources, rules of the game, institutional structures, informal practices and the like-that have been put in place over time by others. Yet those structural conditions are never seamless and are more or less open to manipulation and change by both accident and design (Cerny 1990, 2000a). In this context, the role of the nation-state in financial governance is both a historical ‘given’ and profoundly problematic. This chapter will outline certain aspects of the development of financial governance over the past couple of centuries-at the ebb and flow of earlier forms of internationalization, twentieth-century nationalization and now globalization-as a political phenomenon, as actors seek to use finance and money in order to pursue power and shape development, and as the constraints and opportunities provided by financial resources and systems in turn shape those political changes. Obviously in such a limited space it will be necessary to schematize these developments. Much could be added, and some parts of the analysis will be contested. Nevertheless, I hope that the ‘big picture’ presented here will stimulate analysis and provoke debate on these profound transformations in the global political economy.
