Description
Book SynopsisThe Covid-19 pandemic has brought the nagging issue of the Global South's debt back into the spotlight. With declining export earnings and tax revenues, many countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia have found themselves objectively unable to service their foreign currency debt. This situation, reminiscent of the international debt crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, is the backdrop of the 38th volume of the Research in Political Economy series edited by Ndongo Samba Sylla.
In Imperialism and the Political Economy of Global South’s Debt, expert contributions connect the history of this issue with a range of factors including class dynamics, the changing landscape of sovereign debt markets, the global liquidity cycle, the enduring constraints of commodity dependence, ecological sustainability and the limitations of the current ad hoc sovereign debt restructuring procedures. In contrast to orthodox accounts that view debt crises in the Global South as a cyclical problem or as consequences of 'mismanagement' or 'fiscal irresponsibility'. Imperialism and the Political Economy of Global South’s Debt recognises the systemic nature of the Global South’s external debt, revealed only further by the economic uncertainty of the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the need to analyse it in relation to existing imperialist structures.
Table of ContentsPart 1: Case Studies
Chapter 1. The Political Economy of Debt in the Global South: The Case of Argentina (2001–2022); Juan E. Santarcángelo and Juan Manuel Padín
Chapter 2. Can debt be sustainable, if life isn’t? Argentina’s debt crisis and social reproduction; Mariano Féliz
Chapter 3. Colonial Hangover in Global Financial Markets: Eurobonds, China, and African Debt; Olufunmilayo Arewa
Chapter 4. Tightening the Grip: Foreign Creditors and Sudan’s Political Transition (2019-2022); Harry Cross
Part 2: The Elusive Quest for a Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanism
Chapter 5. Refusing to improve: sovereign debt and the political economy of inertia in UNCTAD 1964 – 1979; Christina Laskaridis
Chapter 6. Limits of sovereign debt restructuring mechanisms and possible alternatives; Milan Rivie
Part 3: Foreign Debt, Development and Imperialism
Chapter 7. Managing the balance-of-payments constraint: dilemmas and perspectives; Basil Oberholzer
Chapter 8. Imperialism and Global South’s Debt: Some insights from MMT, Ecological Economics and Dependency Theory; Ndongo Samba Sylla
Chapter 9. China and Debt-Trap Diplomacy: A Brief Assessment; Shalendra Sharma
