Financial order and world politics: crisis, change and continuity

Many insist that the world economy today is in the grip of the most severe financial crisis since 1931. Although the origins of this crisis are in dispute, the extent and scale of the changes prompted by it are becoming clear. Among these changes are a recalibration of the relationship between public and private authority, a reconfiguration of the regulatory responsibilities and capacities of the state with respect to the financial system, and a rebalancing of relations of power among states. While the financial crisis has generated points of stress along all of these axes of change, we should be wary of expecting an entirely new global financial order to emerge from the carnage. The complex links between financial order and world politics suggest that this financial crisis will result in an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary transformation in the world's financial order.