Social Foundations of Global Finance

Chris Clarke is Reader in Political Economy at the University of Warwick. He is the author of Ethics and Economic Governance: Using Adam Smith to Understand the Global Financial Crisis. Ben Clift is Professor of Political Economy and Director of Research at the University of Warwick. His most recent book is The Office for Budget Responsibility and the Politics of Technocratic Economic Governance (2023).

Tim Sinclair was a trailblazer in the modern study of the politics and social foundations of global finance. This volume provides a beautiful reminder of the creative, multi-faceted, and eclectic nature of his ideas by advancing debates on many topics he encouraged us to analyse in his important work. It stands as a testament to the enduring value and legacies of the innovative Sinclairian approach to the subject. A triple-A rating!

• Foreword by Katie Lavelle1. Introduction: Timothy Sinclair’s social foundations approach to global finance Chris Clarke and Ben Clift2. CRAs and the idea of history: the role of synchronic and diachronic mental frameworks in the work of Timothy J. Sinclair Randall Germain3. Tim Sinclair’s iconoclastic relationship with Marxism Magnus Ryner4. Disintermediated knowledge industries: thinking about academic knowledge production with Timothy J. Sinclair Aida Hozic5. From ratings to infrastructures: uncovering the micro-foundations and global politics of finance Johannes Petry6. The political economy of credit rating agencies: American short-termist universalism, Europe’s acquiescence, and East Asia’s resistance Fumihito Gotoh, Norbert Gaillard and Rick Michalek7. Managing multiple audiences: the importance of legitimacy for bond index providers and the politics of bond indexing Dan Wood8. The social foundations of finance in an era of fintech Chris Clarke9. The queen and the perfect bicycle Timothy Sinclair10. Of markets and models: the extended realm of the mundane in the social foundations of finance approach Matthew Watson