Capital Rules: The Construction of Global Finance
In this era of globalisation, Rawi Abdelal's analysis of the foundations of global financial markets is a valuable contribution towards advancing the cause of global governance. (Pascal Lamy, Director General of the World Trade Organisation)This book addresses one of the most significant shifts in the organization of the international economy--the lowering of national border level controls to the entry and exit of capital--and explains how and why states renounced this powerful lever of national control over their economies. In place of the standard explanations, Abdelal develops a sociological argument about the construction of norms and their spread across institutions. Beautifully and engagingly written with brio and clarity,Capital Rulesis a brilliant work that will become a mainstay of political economy literatures. (Suzanne Berger, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)Drawing on extensive documentary evidence, as well as dozens of interviews with high-level finance officials and midlevels bureaucrats, [Abdelal] tells a fascinating (and largely unknown) tale: how a clutch of French socialists helped to upend economic orthodoxy and lead the charge for lifting restrictions on capital flows within Europe and throughout the world...The book is a mix of accessible political history and counterintuitive insight, bringing to our attention one of the most important, and least appreciated, developments in the postwar global economy. (Matthew ReesWall Street Journal2007-02-14)Brilliant and authoritative...Abdelal's book is the definitive account of the politics of global financial deregulation--and its increasingly disastrous consequences...This book deserves the widest general audience of serious people. (Robert KuttnerAmerican Prospect2008-11-01)Capital Rulesis an engaging description of the history behind changes in capital flow doctrine...Abdelal...accomplishes an excellent and quite thorough treatment of the subject matter. (Ikee GardnerJournal of Economic Issues2008-12-01)Offer[s] original insights into the politics of international financial regulation. (Tim BütheReview of International Organizations2008-08-01)Rawi Abdelal supplies a valuable historical perspective. He explains that the liberalization of capital markets emerged not from a conspiracy of global financiers or the hegemony of Wall Street, but from a turn towards liberal economics by the French Socialists under François Mitterrand. (Robert HowseHarvard Law Review2008-04-01)