Currency Statecraft and Monetary Cooperation: The Geopolitical Foundations of International Economic Order

Diplôme Thèse Currency Statecraft and Monetary Cooperation: The Geopolitical Foundations of International Economic Order eng 2025-08-28 2025-09-22 author Leitner Gabriel 823205 director Flores Zendejas Juan 0000-0003-2800-7258 685481 Service enseignement, recherche, administratif et technique (SdS) (SCSPS) 10.13097/archive-ouverte/unige:191430 urn:nbn:ch:unige-1914307 SdS 290 <p>This work highlights several instances of monetary cooperation during times of economic fragmentation and great power competition in the 1930s. The first chapter investigates the attitude of British policymakers to currency internationalisation. Due to the importance of geopolitical ambition as a motivating factor, the chapter finds a twofold British strategy regarding Sterling internationalisation. Within its sphere of economic influence, Britain pursued a policy of proactively safeguarding the international role of Sterling and developing mechanisms and policies supporting this aim. Outside, however, British statecraft was much more limited and conservative, illustrating geopolitical and economic constraints. The second chapter investigates the origins of the US Exchange Stabilisation Fund and its emergence as an International Lender of Last Resort. Using a historical institutionalist approach, the chapter finds that the Fund was confronted with a critical juncture in the form of the US silver purchasing act and its consequences, combined with geopolitical tensions. This increased policy options for policymakers, which fostered a transformation of the ESF into an International Lender of Last Resort, driven by domestic political motivations, as well as considerations of grand strategy. By investigating the case of the Nordic countries in the Sterling bloc, the third chapter explores the workings of currency blocs and the role of stabilisers played by the core country more in-depth, showing the crucial role of the Bank of England in the case of the Sterling bloc. The dissertation particularly highlights the importance of geopolitical motivations for economic cooperation, as well as the crucial role of agency.</p> Dewey 330 Dewey 330.9 123 Département d'histoire, économie et société T5 193 Institut d'histoire économique Paul Bairoch TE false 23526526-1a97-4624-88d7-14974a090c3b Thesis Restricted Leitner_final_manuscript.pdf 1841711 application/pdf 6006bc1d29c30ac99e2d4d89f4b68ccaae4b122b096d120846b471be5a8b3164 d88e97a5-3c16-4d4a-a9b1-628207e8e9dd Imprimatur Public LEITNER_Gabriel_POLECO.pdf 59094 application/pdf c8630e9d42c03c94770c71967913818860fcce39d65b6b0b53ee34415d67412c restrictedAccess Faculté des sciences de la société / Département d'histoire, économie et société Faculté des sciences de la société / Institut d'histoire économique Paul Bairoch

Title	Year	Views	Downloads

Currency Statecraft and Monetary Cooperation: The Geopolitical Foundations of International Economic Order	2025	63	4
City-states as international financial centres: towards a political economy of the city-state	2020	339	374

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