Review: States and the Reemergence of Global Finance
| Published date | 01 March 1996 |
| Author | Helen Milner |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070209605100117 |
| Date | 01 March 1996 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
REVIEWS/NATION
&
STATE
169
ericton,
teaches
at
the
University
of
British
Columbia
located
in New
Brunswick.
Each
chapter
begins
with
several
pages
of
quotes
from
Wil-
son
and
other
scholars,
and
the
rest
of
the
manuscript
is
derivative.
While
the
book
purports
to
be
academic,
it
is
instead
journalistic.
Poorly
written,
it
is
replete
with
editorial
comments
('Fair
enough'
p
79),
exuberant
interjections, and
exclamation
points
(for
example,
'God
forbid!'
p
192).
Readers
are
apt
to
employ an
interrogative:
'Why
did
Sage
publish
this?'
Students
of
ethnic
conflict
should
skip
this
soph-
omoric
discussion. They
can
eliminate
the
middleman and
read
the
real
sources
on the
tragedy
in
Sri
Lanka.
Arthur
G.
Rubinoff/University
of
Toronto
STATES
AND
THE
REEMERGENCE
OF
GLOBAL
FINANCE
From
Bretton
Woods
to
the
199os
Eric
Helleiner
Ithaca
Nv:
Cornell
University
Press,
1994,
xii,
244pp,
$29.95
This
is
a
fascinating
tale
of
how
the
international
financial
system
arrived
at
its
present
global span.
Helleiner
argues
that
the
liberaliza-
tion
of
financial
markets
worldwide
has
been
driven
largely
by
govern-
ment
choices,
not
by
technological
change or economic
pressures.
American
and
British
government
decisions
not
to
intervene
when
financial actors
were
developing
the
Eurodollar
market
underwrote
the
first
step.
Governments could
have
reversed
the
growing capital mobil-
ity
of
the
late
196os
and
197os
had
they
so
wished.
While
unilateral
capital
controls
might
not
have
worked,
'cooperative
capital
controls'
might
have.
Governmental
decisions
not
to
pursue
these measures
-
'non-decisions'
-allowed
the
internationalization
of
financial markets.
Finally,
when
crises
appeared
which
could
have
destroyed
the
new
global
financial
system,
governments
acted
to
prevent
or
minimize
them.
The
central
puzzle
is
why
governments
made
these
decisions.
One
argument
rests
on
hegemonic
stability
theory
(HST);
the
other
on
sec-
ond
image
reversed
arguments.
A
central
theme
is
that
the
United
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