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Finance, information and power

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Susan Strange
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Extract

The point of this article can be quickly made: it is just that, there is a big difference between the financial power exercised by the United States and that exercised by Japan, and that the difference is partly explained by the role of information in the global financial structure. It also happens that this difference is a rather good illustration of the difference between structural power and relational power.

What I am comparing is the structural power to extend or restrict the range of options open to others which has been, and still is, exercised by the United States in the postwar decades, in this case specifically in the field of finance, with the relational power which Japan exercises in the same field of finance by virtue of its position as the world's major creditor country and aid donor.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , July 1990 , pp. 259 - 274
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1990

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References

1 Gilpin, R., The Political Economy of International Relations (1987), p. 206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 There is an extensive literature on the origin and development of Eurocurrency markets, though rather less on financial innovation in the period 1975 to the present. For the former, note the bibliography in my Casino Capitalism (Blackwell, 1986)Google Scholar. For the latter, note Dale, R., The Regulation of International Banking (Cambridge, 1984)Google Scholar; de Cecco, M., (ed.), Changing Money (Blackwell, 1987)Google Scholar and the unpublished PhD thesis for University of London by S. Enkyo, ‘Financial Innovation in the United States and Japan’.

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4 See Lessard, D. and Williamson, J., Capital Flight: The Problem and the Policy Responses (HE, Washington, 1987)Google Scholar and Naylor, R., Hot Money and the Politics of Debt (New York, 1987)Google Scholar for discussion of this issue.

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7 Hence the big debate on protection for manufacturing and the role of service jobs in the US economy. See Zysman, J., Manufacturing Matters (Berkeley, 1987)Google Scholar and Aaronson, J. and Aho, M., Trade Talks: America Better Listen (New York, 1986)Google Scholar.

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9 The Economist, 24 12 1988, p. 14Google Scholar.

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11 Shinkai, , in Political Economy of Japan, II, p. 268Google Scholar.

12 Ibid. p. 264.

13 Political Economy of Japan, I, pp. 256–260Google Scholar.

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