As for the term hegemony, such a system presumably benefits the hegemon. But what of the less agent-centric notion of a hegemony of ideas and principles that make up international capital markets? While particular groups associated with these ideas may be understood to benefit from the system, others one can think of the IFIs refute the notion that it is designed for their benefit, per se. Instead, they contend that they merely support, and improve upon, a system that for all its faults should eventually come to serve the greater good.
To the extent that the benefits that result from such a system fall unevenly across the global population, this pattern of inequality can be presented, at least by some, as more neutral and therefore less politically problematic and objectionable. How does this translate to sovereign debt? The distributional implications in contemporary sovereign debt can be difficult to paint with a broad political brush, even as compared to several decades ago.
The traditional North—South distinction that is historically central in international finance has at least partially broken down.
To begin with, the increase of South—South capital flows, with steep rises beginning in the early s, has arguably made the distinction less salient World Bank, This traditional dividing line has been blurred further as countries traditionally associated with the Global South have increased their investment in the US and Europe. And of course, especially in recent years, there has been greater political attention paid to inequality within countries of the Global North as well, and an p.
In the US, for example, the language of colonialism and imperialism has recently been used to reconceptualize the internal American experience at both a broad historical level Rana, and as a way of discussing contemporary issues of racial inequity and criminal justice Hayes, In short, it is complicated to use accepted geographic and political boundaries as a shorthand to clearly delineate between those exploited by and those who benefit from sovereign debt.
While these boundaries have always been more problematic than popularly imagined, the more open contemporary discussion of class in even the traditional centres of post—Second World War international finance has deepened such ambiguity in recent years.
Still, the use of the terms neo colonial and neo imperial in particular express a genuine yearning for an identification of those unduly benefited from the current system of sovereign debt and for restitution for those unduly harmed—even if the map of benefit and burden fits less neatly onto traditional nation state geographies than it once did. Finally, it is important to note briefly the ongoing appeal of neo colonial, neo imperial, and even hegemonic narrative frames in shoring up national support for regimes of wavering popularity or legitimacy.
This effort to identify or construct an external adversary in times of political difficulty is of course hardly new. Neither is it unique to countries in financial trouble; indeed, it is among the most popular weapons in the arsenal of public officials seeking to strengthen domestic support. But the use of such terms for internal political ends can take on particular urgency in a sovereign debt context, especially for those debtor countries whose histories include control by foreign actors through financial means or debt burdens inherited from colonial or externally imposed rulers.
Although such history may be considered long irrelevant by creditors, it can seem vivid for vulnerable groups burdened by austerity measures, making them more susceptible to populist appeals based in part on narratives of challenging neo-colonialism and neo-imperialism. In short, in thinking through sovereign debt in light of these terms, it is important to keep in mind that such narrative frames do not belong to history or academic analysis alone.
They are very much alive in the contemporary world, regularly used by activists and politicians and still resonant with broader populations.
This is especially so in many of those countries dealing with sovereign debt problems, some of which have historical memories of past forms of colonial and imperial financial control. Given that this is the case, scholars have a special responsibility p. This raises an additional question worth brief consideration: what are the ways in which scholars themselves might deal sensitively with this popular engagement? To begin with, as demonstrated by many of the contributions in this volume, scholars can fill in the historical and analytical narrative in light of a conceptual framework that explicitly takes into account the concepts of neo colonialism, neo imperialism, and hegemony.
They can put these broader political concepts at the centre of sovereign debt analysis in a way that is done all too infrequently. Such an approach would not only improve our understanding of the past but also might make it accessible and legible in terms that resonate with non-expert populations. This type of project could connect to creditor-side actors as well, who may be resentful of the accusatory rhetoric sometimes associated with these narratives on the borrower side.
In demonstrating how sovereign debt historically and conceptually connects to these terms in a measured and less inflammatory way, scholars can try to bridge this divide and start breaking down some of the resistance to such analysis that occasionally exists. Thus, resistance may stem less from an objection to the popular use of language per se than from a suspicion that even a more careful use of such terms could shift the playing field.
Nonetheless, to the extent that a mismatch or resentment of language is one factor that undermines good faith cooperation, this form of scholarly intervention may help. Scholars can also take up more directly the project of translation that I hinted at above.
When politicians or activists speak of neo colonialism, neo imperialism, or hegemony, what, more precisely, do they aim to take to task? What, in any given instance, is being asserted or sought through this terminology? Such language in popular usage can be understood as an invitation to study more explicitly, and in finer detail, the demands and concerns for which these terms sometimes serve as shorthand. These scholarly projects would involve an effort to think through the claims and arguments implied by the linguistic usage on the ground in a more specific case.
Such a practice of translation could assist not only the external targets or audience of this language. It might also help speakers within the sovereign debtor political community clarify for themselves the problems or concerns that they identify and perhaps articulate the connections between these problems and previous country experiences.
Although these terms will no doubt continue to have blunt rhetorical appeal, helping to convert them into more precise language could encourage broader engagement and more successful communication on the ground.
At what point and under what circumstances does it make sense to introduce analyses of sovereign debt that use the politically laden terms at the centre of this volume? And, particularly for those scholars more attuned and sympathetic to these narratives, is there a point at which the narrative or conceptual framing can go too far?
It might be asserted that sovereign debtors cannot engage in even plain vanilla commercial bond transactions without raising the spectre of neo-colonialism or neo-imperialism, for example. If this is so, is it the transaction itself that is problematic, and is any commercial transaction involving sovereign states problematic? Or is any state necessarily less powerful than the hegemonic global financial markets writ large? Alternatively, perhaps what makes such terminology more or less apt rests not so much with the characteristics of particular states as with the historically contingent nature and the varying practical application of a broader institutional or legal framework.
For example, do changes in the understandings and legal approaches to sovereign immunity shape the appropriate boundaries for these terms? Or does the absence of something like a global bankruptcy regime or another collective safety net render the initial transactions more demanding of scrutiny? Of course, the introduction of particular policy tools to address these issues is unlikely to eliminate these dynamics and narratives. For example, if a more institutionalized sovereign debt restructuring framework existed, it is not difficult to imagine that its procedures and staff would suffer the charge of acting in a neo-imperial fashion, at least from some quarters.
Certainly there is no clear or single answer to these questions—or to the more general question of when the use of such concepts becomes so broad as to lose meaning and power—and there will likely be as many opinions as commentators.
But the questions themselves are worth explicit and careful consideration; they should not be merely an afterthought. In short, I suggest that there may be value in asking two layers of questions that align with the idea of sovereign debt diplomacies. A second layer, implicitly suggested by these chapters and highlighted through these concluding remarks, takes up more explicitly the matter of how these politically laden terms themselves frame discussions of sovereign debt in ways that have impact in the world.
Especially in the public p. Given this popular salience, it is important for scholars to be aware of their own use of these terms, and of how they might participate in a project of translation or clarification when these narratives arise. Although such attentiveness is not likely to shift the underlying material issues and inequities that so profoundly impact the sovereign debt arena, it might nonetheless contribute to greater understanding and collaboration. In other words, there is and should be a diplomacy to speaking and writing about sovereign debt diplomacies themselves.
Chang, H. Daniel, L. Giannacopoulos, M. Hayes, C. A Colony in a Nation. New York and London, W. Lienau, O. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press. Hastings Law Journal , 68, — 3. Mallard, G. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Rana, Aziz The Two Faces of American Freedom. Wittgenstein, L. Philosophical Investigations. London, Macmillan. World Bank All Rights Reserved. OSO version 0.
University Press Scholarship Online. Sign in. Not registered? This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access. Mentioned already in Chapter 4, Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, — London: Abacus, , provides a lot of information and an always fascinating analysis of imperial issues both before and after independence from the perspective of an open-minded and scholarly Marxist. Google Scholar. Charles Reynolds gives a very interesting account of different ways of explaining imperialism in Modes of Imperialism Oxford: Martin Robertson, The expansion of Europe is discussed in W.
Jack Gallagher, Decline, Revival and Fall of the British Empire Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, , is interesting and controversial and the source of some figures about investment flows.
CrossRef Google Scholar. Figures for the Indian population are taken from Robert M. Other information about India comes from E. Thompson and G. Michael Nicholson There are no affiliations available. Personalised recommendations. Cite chapter How to cite? ENW EndNote.
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