Standard setting for capital movements: reasserting sovereignty over transnational actors?

Abstract

Introduction Standard setting with regard to capital movements has never been a state monopoly, at least for countries that maintain relatively open economies. From the first stock exchanges to contemporary rating agencies and hedge funds, institutional and technological innovations that allow capital to be allocated have been driven mostly by the ingenuity of private actors. In a historical perspective, the relationship between private capital owners and rulers appears as an eternal cat-and-mouse game, with the former looking for the best investment opportunities and the latter trying to subjugate these to their own objectives, especially revenue and economic stability. The regulation of cross-border capital movements therefore constitutes a fascinating policy area for analysing the relationship between states and transnational actors. Capitalists rarely bother about borders if the grass is greener on the other side of the fence but their degree of autonomy depends on states' ambitions and capabilities to exercise authority and control over private capital movements. While transnational actors have become important subjects in the study of world politics, most research privileges them as autonomous. They are being examined in their efforts to create private rules or standards and to influence state actors in order to reach their material or normative goals. Consequently, models of the interactions between transnational and state actors rarely foresee the reverse: states influencing transnational actors to further their own interests. This relationship needs further investigation because states have been very active in reasserting their sovereignty vis-à-vis transnational actors.

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