Globalization and Economy, Vol. 3: Global Economic Regimes and Institutions (2007) (original) (raw)

Globalizing economic institutions such as transnational corporations and forums of economic governance are a central part of the world today. The World Trade Organization, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Economic Forum, for example, are crucial institutions mediating, administering, or providing forums for discussing economic processes of globalization. They bear the brunt of the critique of the anti-corporate globalization movement discussed in a later volume in the present series: Globalizing Movements and Global Civil Society. However, they are only the most prominent face of the changing institutions and regimes of global economics. The present volume documents the practices of these globalizing institutions, but more importantly it broadens out the discussion to cover questions of power and institutionalization. The volume examines the patterns of change across the globe from the end of the nineteenth century to the present. It includes material which debates the place of these economic institutions and regimes, but the emphasis is on understanding the modalities of economic regulation and institutionalization, and how they relate to state sovereignty, market law, and economic power. Whereas the previous volume in the ‘Central Currents in Globalization’ series focused on the way in which processes of globalization are extended by capitalism as a mode of production and exchange, the present volume focuses on the dominant mode of organization, including the instituting of patterns of power. The volume takes a special interest in the state as part of the globalization process. Expressed in a different way, this volume focuses on global economic integration, regulation and governance, while a complementary volume later in the ‘Central Currents in Globalization’ series, Global Legal and Political Governance, takes up the theme of political governance, including examining the new multilateral political regimes.