Power and Global Economic Institutions

Ayse Kaya is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania. The co-editor of Global Inequality: Patterns and Explanations (2007), she has published in numerous academic journals on global economic governance.

• 1. Introduction; 2. Conceptualizing political asymmetries in multilateral economic institutions; 3. The origins of states' formal equality in the global financial institutions; 4. The origins of states' voting equality in the post-war multilateral trading system; 5. Shifts in political power in the IMF in 2008–10; 6. Shifts in political power in the World Bank in 2008–10; 7. The G20: a delegatory institution; 8. Conclusions.

'This ambitious study opens up the black box of how power and institutions interact in the rapidly changing post-Crisis world of global economic governance. Kaya exposes the tensions between the formal and informal faces of power in the struggle to influence both rules and outcomes across the World Bank, the IMF, and the emerging G20 process. Her analysis tells us that where the 'declining old' might prove too slow in ceding their formal institutional prerogatives, the 'rising new' may up the ante and take the game elsewhere to new forums. Global governance thus becomes less predictable and institutions less effective at adapting to the need for change. In short, Kaya's analysis shows us how familiar institutions remain a potentially fragile part of an increasingly fragile world order. A 'must' for scholars and students alike.' Geoffrey Underhill, University of Amsterdam