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From empire to austerity: the golden thread of international economic law

Macmillan, Fiona (2019) From empire to austerity: the golden thread of international economic law. In: Salomon, M. and De Witte, B. (eds.) Legal Trajectories of Neoliberalism. Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies Working Papers. Florence, Italy: EUI: Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies Working Papers, pp. 7-12.

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Abstract

Long before the politics and practices of austerity arrived on European shores as the neoliberal response to the series of “crises” beginning in 2008, the imposition of austerity regimes was one of the potent weapons used by the Bretton Woods institutions to discipline states, especially states forming part of the so-called “developing world”. In this short paper I comment on the way in which the post-colonial life of international economic law has participated in the creation of the conditions for the extension of the neoliberal politics of austerity from the former subjects to the former metropolitan centre(s) of empire. My argument is, essentially, that the post-colonial “development” project, which has been a main concern of international economic law and which has been central to the accumulation of capital in the post-second world war period, has now been rolled out globally in a new version of empire.

Metadata

Item Type: Book Section
Additional Information: EUI Working Paper RSCAS 2019/43. ISSN 1028-3625
School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Business and Law > Birkbeck Law School
Depositing User: Fiona Macmillan
Date Deposited: 03 Dec 2019 12:46
Last Modified: 17 Mar 2025 22:05
URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/26875

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