"This book is about why debt relief was a salient political issue for so long and why it then ceased to be one. It is also about the United States' constitutional tradition, and the contradictions it embodies. Tracing the geographic, sectoral, and racial politics of debt relief over time--and examining the roles that social movements, interest groups, and constitutional interpretation played--Emily Zackin and Chloe N. Thurston show how the politics of debt relief has interacted with race and other social hierarchies that have conditioned both state action and debtors' opportunities to mobilize. Although the twentieth and early twenty-first century saw the erosion of debt protection, history reminds us that Americans once mounted large-scale grassroots campaigns for debt relief. These activists made radical claims about economic justice, and they reshaped constitutional law and the American state"--

A political history of the rise and fall of American debt relief. Americans have a long history with debt. They also have a long history of mobilizing for debt relief. Throughout the nineteenth century, indebted citizens demanded government protection from their financial burdens, challenging readings of the Constitution that exalted property rights at the expense of the vulnerable. Their appeals shaped the country’s periodic experiments with state debt relief and federal bankruptcy law, constituting a pre-industrial safety net. Yet, the twentieth century saw the erosion of debtor politics and the eventual retrenchment of bankruptcy protections. The Political Development of American Debt Relief traces how geographic, sectoral, and racial politics shaped debtor activism over time, enhancing our understanding of state-building, constitutionalism, and social policy.

This first historical study of U.S. budget policy covering the last three decades places the budget at the center of modern American politics and adds an important dimension to the understanding of recent events.

The international debt crisis that erupted in 1982 threatened the world financial system and turned the 1980s into a lost decade for Latin America. But the crisis jolted governments throughout the region into adopting sweeping economic reforms. By the early 1990s inflation was lower, growth was reviving, the major debtors had reached "Brady Plan" workout agreements reducing bank debt in exchange for collateral, and capital was entering the region in unprecedented magnitudes. This study tries to make sense of this historic financial episode and to derive lessons for future policy. Cline first returns to his 1983 projection models that figured importantly in the debate at that time, and reruns them with the benefit of hindsight to see what went wrong (e.g., capital flight) and what went right (e.g., revival of industrial country growth). He provides a critical survey of the voluminous economics literature that emerged from the debt crisis. The study evaluates performance of the evolving international debt strategy, which eventually succeeded brilliantly in preserving international financial stability and restoring debtor access to credit markets but failed to achieve debtor country growth in the 1980s. The study reviews policy reform and Brady plan results for major Latin American countries; provides new analysis of today's debt problems in Russia and Africa; and analyzes the degree of vulnerability of Latin Americas capital market renaissance to such factors as overvalued exchange rates and a resurgence of US interest rates. It concludes with suggestions for institutional change and policy guidelines to help avoid future crises.

This up-to-date book provides a balanced, in-depth background to main IPE theoretical approaches, examines IPE issues in historical perspective, and discusses domestic-international linkages.Managing the Global Economy Since World War II: The Institutional Framework; The Realist Perspective; The Liberal Perspective; The Historical Structuralist Perspective; International Monetary Relations; Foreign Debt; Global Trade Relations; Regionalism and Global Trade Regime; Multinational Corporations and Global Production; International Development; Current Trends in the Global Political Economy.Anyone interested in international political economy.

This book examines the interrelationship between the external debt problem and the consolidation of democracy in Latin America in the 1990s. It considers the interplay of actors, including creditor governments, international financial institutions, debtor countries, commercial banks, and multinational corporations, and environment in the new decade, focusing on whether or not Latin America's political regimes can strengthen and democratize their respective economies while continuing to guarantee the country's democratic politics. The foreign debt problem casts an especially long shadow on the Latin American democracies. While important in its own right, understanding the Latin American experience is also essential in light of changes in Eastern Europe. Despite many obvious cultural differences and historical experiences, there are many parellels between the two regions--democratization at a time of economic crisis and of heavy external debt. This important new book underscores the lessons of the Latin American experience, making it essential reading for anyone concerned with the global economy.