Book Review: Odette Lienau, Rethinking Sovereign Debt: Politics, Reputation and Legitimacy in Modern Finance and Maurizio Lazzarato, Governing by Debt
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929916673762 |
| Author | Fernando Losada |
| Date | 01 February 2017 |
| Published date | 01 February 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Book ReviewsGeneral Politics |
130 Political Studies Review 15 (1)
and its dissemination mechanisms and focuses
primarily on the organisations’ ideas about the
financing, provision and regulation of HCS.
The analysis spans five chapters and includes
organisations within the United Nations (UN)
system – International Labour Organization
(ILO), World Health Organization (WHO),
World Bank and International Monetary Fund
(IMF); those outside the UN system –
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD) and World Trade
Organization (WTO); global forums – G8 and
BRICS; the Global Fund as a hybrid organisa-
tion; and non-governmental organisations
(NGOs). Kaasch concludes that while across
the organisations no common understanding
of the ‘best model’ of an HCS exists, most
actors share the common idea and knowledge
that an HCS ought to be designed to be inclu-
sive and to provide equal access to all.
The book’s comprehensive approach to the
topic can be seen as both its strength and weak-
ness. Reviewing the ideas of five types of inter-
national actors in one short monograph of 144
pages is clearly an ambitious goal and it is only
natural that some conclusions appear some-
what broad-brush. For instance, the author
argues that despite a shared understanding
about HCS, ‘dividing lines’ (p. 137) exist
between individual actors. How organisations
differ in their ideas about HCS is explored only
briefly and it seems that the book would bene-
fit from exploring these differences in more
detail. It also appears that some organisations
receive more attention than others. For
instance, UN organisations are explored across
more than 50 pages, while only 5 pages are
dedicated to the Global Fund. This also
becomes evident in the conclusions, which pri-
marily focus on comparing the main actors –
the World Bank and the WHO – while
somewhat neglecting other organisations dis-
cussed in the book. Apart from this defect, this
book is arguably the first to provide an over-
view of a wide array of key international actors
in one place, and Kaasch has unquestionably
produced a piece of great value to those study-
ing HCS and international organisations.
Andreas Ochs
(University of Edinburgh)
© The Author(s) 2016
Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1478929916677771
journals.sagepub.com/home/psrev
Rethinking Sovereign Debt: Politics,
Reputation and Legitimacy in Modern
Finance by Odette Lienau. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2014. 331pp., £36.95
(h/b), ISBN 9780674725065
Governing by Debt by Maurizio Lazzarato.
South Pasadena, CA: Semiotext(e), 2015. 278pp.,
£9.95 (p/b), ISBN 9781584351634
Debt is among the most pressing and most
hotly discussed topics in recent years. The two
books reviewed here deal with one of its
dimensions, namely, its specific relation with
the state, either regarding the latter’s obliga-
tions towards creditors (Lienau) or the deeper,
structural implications of debt for the socio-
economic system (Lazzarato).
Odette Lienau’s Rethinking Sovereign Debt
explores how the narrative about ‘sovereign
debt continuity’ became dominant during the
twentieth century. Advocating that states must
repay their debts regardless of the circum-
stances in which they originated, under penalty
of closing any further access to financial mar-
kets, this narrative has overcome – or at least
managed to disregard – the once well-estab-
lished notion of ‘odious debt’ (defined as debt
‘(1) incurred without the consent of the people
and (2) not for their benefit’ (p. 8)). In legal
terms, the basic conflict concerns the question
of who is to repay: whether it is the state, no
matter who governs it and how, or the sover-
eign, which opens the door to assess the legiti-
macy of the borrowing according to the above
criteria. By supporting the latter option, Lienau
aims at counteracting the currently prevailing
narrative of debt continuity.
In her quest for an alternative narrative
Lienau delves into historical examples. She
takes these from the post-First World War era,
analysing both a radical change in the political
regime (the Soviet Union’s repudiation of
Russian debt) and the return to democracy after
a (relatively short) period of dictatorship (i.e.
Costa Rica after Tinoco’s coup in 1917), which
could justify the cancellation of sovereign debt
repayment – at least partially. Although Lienau
proves that these two case studies may estab-
lish the foundations of a different narrative,
later developments and events (the establish-
ment of international public financial institu-
tions and the progressive distortion of their
aims, the return of private finance to the scene
and, finally, the success of the financialisation
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