The Meddlers

Sovereignty, Empire, and the Birth of Global Economic Governance

Jamie Martin

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English

Harvard Uni.Press Academi
14 June 2022

Political science & theory; Central government policies; Economics & Business; Political economy; Economic systems & structures; Economic history

A pioneering history traces the origins of global economic governance-and the political conflicts it generates-to the aftermath of World War I.

International economic institutions like the IMF and World Bank exert incredible influence over the domestic policies of many states. These institutions date from the end of World War II and amassed power during the neoliberal era of the late twentieth century. But as Jamie Martin shows, if we want to understand their deeper origins and the ideas and dynamics that shaped their controversial powers, we must turn back to the explosive political struggles that attended the birth of global economic governance in the early twentieth century.

The Meddlers tells the story of the first international institutions to govern the world economy, including the League of Nations and Bank for International Settlements, created after World War I. These institutions endowed civil servants, bankers, and colonial authorities from Europe and the United States with extraordinary powers: to enforce austerity, coordinate the policies of independent central banks, oversee development programs, and regulate commodity prices. In a highly unequal world, they faced a new political challenge: was it possible to reach into sovereign states and empires to intervene in domestic economic policies without generating a backlash?

Martin follows the intense political conflicts provoked by the earliest international efforts to govern capitalism-from Weimar Germany to the Balkans, Nationalist China to colonial Malaya, and the Chilean desert to Wall Street. The Meddlers shows how the fraught problems of sovereignty and democracy posed by institutions like the IMF are not unique to late twentieth-century globalization, but instead first emerged during an earlier period of imperial competition, world war, and economic crisis.

By: Jamie Martin
Imprint: Harvard Uni.Press Academi
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9780674976542
ISBN 10: 0674976541
Pages: 352
Publication Date: 14 June 2022
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Jamie Martin is Assistant Professor of History at Georgetown University. His writing has appeared in the London Review of Books, The Nation, and Bookforum.

Reviews for The Meddlers: Sovereignty, Empire, and the Birth of Global Economic Governance

The Meddlers is a brilliant and revealing history of the imperial origins of contemporary institutions for global economic governance. It is essential reading for anyone concerned with the past, present, and future of the global economy and the institutions we have created to manage it. -- Tara Zahra, University of Chicago The Meddlers is a deeply-researched and intelligent treatment of an important subject-that is, just how our organs of international economic governance came to exert the influence they do. -- Susan Pedersen, Columbia University This isn't just a study of ideas. The Meddlers charts the evolution of legal norms and institutional practices-the latter being not just one of the most under-studied aspects of global governance, but also the most challenging to reveal. The range of national and international agencies and actors is impressive; the juxtaposition of different agencies, novel and revealing. -- Patricia Clavin, University of Oxford

Short-listed for Susan Strange Book Prize 2023 (United States)
Winner of The World History Connected Book Prize 2023 (United States)
Winner of Transatlantic Studies Association and Cambridge University Press Book Prize 2023 (United States)