Suchergebnisse

This text examines the historical significance and contemporary relevance of a body of thought about rejuvenating liberalism that has tended to be neglected in the English-speaking world in favour of the rise of social liberalism.

Prologue : The perils of sleepwalking -- Contextualizing debt : history, morality, and the triple structural dimension -- The nature of sovereign creditworthiness : hierarchy, sovereignty, and responsibility -- Moralizing credit : bad debt, good debt, and the troubled conscience -- pt. I. Debt and political rule in European history -- The evolution of public debt -- Financial repression, debasement, and the historic arc of default -- Theological traces and social contexts -- The dynamics of public debt in historical perspective : the limitations of formal economic reasoning -- pt. II. Law, culture, and statecraft -- Law, public debt, and the paradoxes of power -- Economic cultures, ideologies of debt, and state virtue -- Space, time, and statecraft : saints, fallen angels, false prophets, redeemers, and sinners -- pt. III. State liability and territorial control -- States and financial markets : the imbalance of power -- Professional consensus, political silence, and sovereign creditworthiness -- The dynamics of external imbalances and debt -- Which truth? the power of numeric indicators and probabilistic reasoning about public debt -- Public debt dynamics : political will and state capacity -- Public debt and multilevel statehood : sub-national fiscal governance, structural imbalances, and 'stand-alone' fiscal capacity -- pt. IV. Sovereign creditworthiness and European integration -- Still the 'old' Europe? historical legacies and long-term political challenges -- The Achilles heel of post-war European integration : endogenous preference formation and the boundaries of creditor-state power -- Epilogue : History as oracle

'States, Debt, and Power' deals with one of the most pressing political and policy issues of the 21st century: the so-called 'crisis of debt' with its effects on perceptions of state power and of the relevance and value of democratic politics and of European integration.

The author examines the main political questions raised by the birth of the Euro-zone on 1 January 1999, and argues for a more informed analysis and assessment of its nature, operation and prospects. He stresses the central role of the European Central Bank in the Euro-zone and explains the extent of the ECB's authority and power.