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Sovereign Debt Diplomacies aims to revisit the meaning of sovereign debt in relation to colonial history and postcolonial developments. It offers three main contributions. The first contribution is historical. The volume historicises a research field that has so far focused primarily on the post-1980 years. A focus on colonial debt from the 19th century building of colonial empires to the decolonisation era in the 1960s-70s fills an important gap in recent debt historiographies. Economic historians have engaged with colonialism only reluctantly or en passant, giving credence to the idea that colonialism is not a development that deserves to be treated on its own. This has led to suboptimal developments in recent scholarship.
The second contribution adds a 'law and society' dimension to studies of debt. The analytical payoff of the exercise is to capture the current developments and functional limits of debt contracting and adjudication in relation to the long-term political and sociological dynamics of sovereignty. Finally, Sovereign Debt Diplomacies imports insights from, and contributes to the body of research currently developed in the Humanities under the label 'colonial and postcolonial studies'. The emphasis on 'history from below' and focus on 'subaltern agency' usefully complement the traditional elite-perspective on financial imperialism favoured by the British school of empire history.
Author(s): Pierre Penet, Juan Flores Zendejas
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2021
Language: English
Pages: 384
Cover
Sovereign Debt Diplomacies: Rethinking Sovereign Debt from Colonial Empires to Hegemony
Copyright
Acknowledgements
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Contributors
Introduction: Sovereign Debt Diplomacies
I.1 Debts, Defaults, Disputes
I.2 Sovereign Debt Diplomacies
I.3 Analytical and Methodological Contributions
References
1: Rethinking Sovereign Debt from Colonial Empires to Hegemony
1.1 Imperial Solutions to Sovereign Debt Crises (1820–1933)
1.2 Debt Disputes in the Age of Financial Repression: When Repayment Takes a Backseat (1933–70s)
1.3 Postcolonial Transitions and the Hopes for a New International Economic Order (1960s–80s)
1.4 Post–Cold War Sovereign Debt Disputes: Hegemony or Fragmentation?
1.5 Organization of the Volume
Imperial Debt Diplomacies (1820–1933)
Interstate Debt Diplomacies (1933–70s)
Postcolonial Debt Diplomacies (1960s–80s)
Hegemonic Debt Diplomacies? (1990s–present)
References
Section 1: Imperial Solutions To Sovereign Debt Crises (1820–1933)
2: Sovereignty and Debt in Nineteenth-Century Latin America
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Sovereign Debt and Theoretical Debates on Dependency and Informal Empire
2.3 Sovereign Debt as a Control Mechanism
2.4 Legal Tools and Foreign Interventions
Diplomatic Conventions: Mexico, 1861
Direct Contracting: Peru, 1890
Sovereign Debt Enters International Law: Venezuela, 1902
2.5 Conclusion: The Law and Economics of Foreign Interventions in the Aftermath of Debt Defaults
References
3: Foreign Debt and Colonization in Egypt and Tunisia (1862–82)
3.1 Introduction
3.2 First International Borrowing
3.3 Default and International Financial Commissions
3.4 From International Financial Control to Colonization
3.5 Conclusion
References
4: Independence and the Effect of Empire: The Case of ‘Sovereign Debts’ Issued by British Colonies
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Implicit Guarantee Mechanism
4.3 Data and Methodology
4.4 Results and Discussion
Baseline Results
Australian Debt Crisis
Indian Independence Pressures
4.5 Conclusion
References
Appendix
Section 2: Debt Disputes In The Age Of Financial Repression: When Repayment Takes A Backseat (1933–70s)
5: The Fortune of Geopolitical Conditions in Debt Diplomacy: Mexico’s Long Road to the 1942 Foreign Debt Settlement
5.1 Introduction
5.2 An Attempt to Frame the Story
5.3 The Point of Departure in the Mexican Story
5.4 The Beginning of a Difficult Path for Negotiations
5.5 The Pani–Lamont Amendment
5.6 The Montes de Oca–Lamont Agreement
5.7 Second Stage: From the Impasse to the Beginning of Bilateral Agreements
5.8 Debt Diplomacy: Negotiation of the Debt for the 1942 and 1946 Agreements
References
6: The Multilateral Principle-Based Approach to the Restructuring of German Debts in 1953
6.1 Introduction
6.2 The Road to Official Recognition of Pre–Second World War Debts
6.3 Principles and Procedure of the LDA
Principles (I): Capacity to Pay
Principles (II): Equality of Treatment
6.4 The Multilateral Principles-Based Approach to German Debts at Work
6.5 Conclusion
References
Archives
7: The Revenge of Defaulters: Sovereign Defaults and Interstate Negotiations in the Post-War Financial Order, 1940–65
7.1 Introduction
7.2 The Political Economy of Debt Dispute Settlement: A Long-Term Perspective
7.3 When Debt Repayment Takes the ‘Backseat’
7.4 Bumpy Legal Roads Towards Repayment
7.5 Inter-Period Performance Assessment
7.6 Conclusion
Sources
References
Section 3: Postcolonial Transitions And The Hopes For A New International Economic Order (1960s–80s)
8: We Owe You Nothing: Decolonization and Sovereign Debt Obligations in International Public Law
8.1 Introduction
8.2 A Contradictory Task: Codification in the Age of Decolonization
8.3 Boundary Crossing Between Private and Public International Law
8.4 Reversible Identities between Creditor and Debtor States
8.5 Conclusion
Bibliography
9: Decolonization and Sovereign Debt: A Quagmire
9.1 Introduction
9.2 Universal Succession Versus Clean Slate
9.3 The Quagmire of State Practice
9.4 A Perennial Quagmire?
9.5 Conclusion
Bibliography
10: The Global South Debt Revolution That Wasn’t: UNCTAD from Technocractic Activism to Technical Assistance
10.1 Introduction
10.2 Negotiating Debt at UNCTAD in the 1970s: A Tale of Two Competing Narratives
The View From the Global South Countries: Institutional Remedies for Structural Debt Problems
The View From Western Countries: Technical Remedies for Domestic Debt Problems
10.3 ‘Downstream’ Expertise Boundaries and the Individualization of Debtor Nations
When ‘Entrepreneurial Bureaucrats’ Engage in Debt Politics
Disentangling the Technical Assistance from Political Claims
When the Debt Branch Strikes Back
10.4 Conclusion
References
Section 4: The Legalization Of Sovereign Debt Disputes Between Wish And Reality (1990s–Present)
11: Placing Contemporary Sovereign Debt: The Fragmented Landscape of Legal Precedent and Legislative Pre-emption
11.1 Introduction
11.2 Bringing Place Back In
11.3 Litigation, Legislation, Location
Background: Holdout Litigation in the 1990s
The Injunctive Remedy in Argentina’s Battle in US Courts
Resolution
Repercussions of the Legal Battle
The UK’s Debt Relief Act of 2010
The Belgian Anti-Vulture Fund Law
France’s Sapin II
11.4 Connecting the Dots: Local Laws, Global Reach, Ov
11.5 Conclusion
References
12: Maduro Bonds
12.1 Introduction
12.2 Hunger Bonds and the Hausmann Effect
12.3 Some Possible Legal Challenges to Future Maduro Bonds
Misbehaving Agent
Unauthorized Transaction
12.4 Democracy, Corruption, and Sovereign Spreads
12.5 Conclusion
References
13: Contract Provisions, Default Risk,and Bond Prices: Evidence from Puerto Rico
13.1 Introduction
Main Findings
Background on Puerto Rico’s Crisis and Puerto Rican Debt
Puerto Rico and the Problem of Quasi-Sovereignty
Related Literature
13.2 Background on Puerto Rican Debt
COFINA Debt
PROMESA
New York Law Debt
13.3 The Pricing of GO and COFINA Debt
13.4 The Pricing of PROMESA
13.5 The Pricing of New York Law Debt
13.6 Conclusion
Appendix
A.1. Puerto Rican Debt Summary
A.2. Data Appendix: Section 3
References
Concluding Remarks. (Neo)Colonialism, (Neo)Imperialism, and Hegemony: On Choosing Concepts in Sovereign Debt
References
Index
