Although the subprime crisis regenerated interest in and stimulated debate about how to study the politics of global finance, it has not sparked the development of new approaches to International Political Economy (IPE), which remains firmly rooted in actor-centered models. We develop an alternative network-based approach that shifts the analytical focus to the relations between actors. We first depict the contemporary global financial system as a network, with a particular focus on its hierarchical structure. We then explore key characteristics of this global financial network, including how the hierarchic network structure shapes the dynamics of financial contagion and the source and persistence of power. Throughout, we strive to relate existing research to our network approach in order to highlight exactly where this approach accommodates, where it extends, and where it challenges existing knowledge generated by actor-centered models. We conclude by suggesting that a network approach enables us to construct a systemic IPE that is theoretically and empirically pluralist.

No abstract

How did the most severe global financial crisis since the 1930s affect the organization of the world political economy? Was Anglo-American structural power in finance eroded? I employ network methodologies that have been recently extended for use with weighted and directed networks to shed light on these questions. I draw from complexity science and political economy to link these empirics to prior theories of structural power, which I refine in several ways. This approach provides unique explanations for developments in global banking since the crisis, including expected outcomes that didnotoccur: the continuation – and even expansion – of Anglo-American prominence, the decline of continental European prominence, and the lack of emergence of the BRICS economies into the core of the global banking system.

No abstract

This article resuscitates the idea of structural power in world politics by linking it to modern complex network science, presents a theoretical framework for understanding how global structures develop and change, and empirically analyzes the prominence of leading states within global finance, trade, security, and knowledge networks. It argues that the “fitness plus preferential attachment” (FPA) model of complex network evolution provides a logical explanation for the durability of American influence even as some of its advantages in country-level capabilities has eroded, and it introduces a network methodology that is capable of empirically analyzing the organizational complexity that exists within and across domains in world politics. It argues that the rise of China and other emerging powers has been overstated in some ways, but that a redistribution of structural prominence is taking place, in some domains, as emerging markets increase their transnational connections; this has mostly come at the relative expense of Europe, however, rather than the United States.

Network data on connections between corporate actors and entities -for

The recent “liberal international order” (LIO) debate has been vague about the institutions and issue areas that constitute the order. This is likely driven by competing views of “liberal” and, perhaps more importantly, by security scholars dominating the debate. From the perspective of scholars who explore the elements of the global monetary order (reserve currencies, international financial institutions, and central banks), the picture is different. Where security scholars point to a decline in US influence, scholars of global monetary politics see continued US dominance. Moreover, monetary prominence has been a precondition for the viability of great power projects of order building more generally. This symposium offers such a counter narrative. While the security challenges are real, the crises of the last decade have actually reinforced the centrality of the US dollar and American financial power in the international system.

This article introduces a special issue ofBusiness and PoliticsonProperty Rights, Financial Risk, and the Politics of a Networked Global Financial System. We introduce aspects of the articles in the issue and situate them within existing literatures in financial economics, public policy, political economy, regulation and governance, and network science. We do this through examining four key contributions in the special issue. First, we show that common conceptualizations of property rights in financial markets ignore the multidimensional nature of financial goods; examples of all goods types can be found in modern finance, and this fact has important implications for the politics and regulation of these markets. Second, we argue that models of financial actors as independent, atomistic agents neglect the relational nature of financial markets, and argue that theory and methodology from network science, financial economics and political economy provide useful ways to analyze these interdependent systems. Third, we discuss how the relational nature of risk leads to hierarchical patterns of financial interdependence, which bequeaths substantial amounts of power—within both market and political systems—to those actors that occupy core positions within the structure of interdependence. Fourth, we integrate ideas from papers in this special issue and related literature with concepts from the Ostrom School of political economy to consider how monitoring, self-governance, and polycentric applications might improve financial market governance. This issue's papers thus constitute one of the first combined attempts to bring the Ostrom School into substantive conversation with financial market governance and risk analysis through comparative and international political economy disciplines.