Recasting the Power Politics of Debt: Structural Power, Hegemonic Stabilisers and Change

The 2007/8 financial crisis exposed and exacerbated the debt pathologies of the ‘West’. The paper examines whether the new global debt relations that have been generated by this crisis have transformed global power politics, changing the way in which the ‘global South’ and the ‘global North’ interrelate and interact. To do so the paper juxtaposes the G20 advanced and emerging economies and examines a number of key indicators related to debt, indebtedness and financial leverage. This research leads to two main findings: (i) the crisis has indeed given rise to new global debt relations. Any reforms, therefore, in the post-crisis global political economy will take place in an environment that favours the emerging powers (ii) The US maintains its capacity to control the parameters of this new global debt politics and economics, but cannot impose a solution to the existing ‘global/hegemonic imbalances’ on the emerging powers.