The Group of Seven We are now in the era of the G8, although the G7 still exists as a grouping for finance ministers and central bank governors. Why do G7 finance ministries and central banks co-operate? What are the implications of this for the power of the United States and the abilities of the other six states to exercise leadership? What influence do the G7 have on global financial governance? How much authority do they possess and how is that authority exercised? This is the first major work to address these fundamental questions. It argues that to understand the G7’s contribution to global financial governance it is necessary to locate the group’s activities in a context of ‘decentralized globalization’. It also provides original case study material on the G7’s contribution to macro- economic governance and to debates on the global financial architecture over the last decade. The book assesses the G7’s role in producing a system of global financial governance based on market supremacy and technocratic trans-governmental consensus and articulates normative criticisms of the G7’s exclusivity. For researchers in the fields of IR/IPE, postgraduate students in the field of international organization and global governance, policy-makers and financial journalists, this is the most comprehensive analysis of the G7 and financial governance to date. Andrew Baker is Lecturer at the School of Politics and International Studies at the Queen’s University of Belfast. He is the co-editor of Governing Financial Globalisation (Routledge, 2005) and has published in journals such as Review of International Political Economy and Global Governance. Routledge/Warwick Studies in Globalisation Edited by Richard Higgott and published in association with the Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation, University of Warwick. What is globalisation and does it matter? How can we measure it? What are its policy implications? The Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation at the University of Warwick is an international site for the study of key questions such as these in the theory and practice of globalisation and regionalisation. Its agenda is avowedly interdisciplinary. The work of the Centre will be showcased in this new series. This series comprises two strands: Warwick Studies in Globalisation addresses the needs of students and teachers, and the titles will be published in hardback and paperback. Titles include: Globalisation and the Asia-Pacific Civil Society and Global Finance Contested territories Edited by Jan Aart Scholte with Edited by Kris Olds, Peter Dicken, Philip F. 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Nesadurai 13 Assessment and Measurement of Regional Integration 9 Regional Integration in East Edited by Philippe De Lombaerde Asia and Europe Convergence or divergence? Edited by Bertrand Fort and Douglas Webber The Group of Seven Finance ministries, central banks and global financial governance Andrew Baker C ENTRE FORTHF S TUDY OF GLOBA LI SAT ION AND R.EGIONALI SATI ON First published 2006 by Routledge Published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 2006 Andrew Baker Typeset in Baskerville by HWA Text and Data Management, Tunbridge Wells The Open Access version of this book, available at www. tandfebooks. com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Baker, Andrew, 1972– The Group of Seven: finance ministries, central banks and global financial governance / Andrew Baker. p. cm. — (Routledge/Warwick studies in globalisation) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Group of Seven (Organisation) 2. International finance. 3. Monetary policy—Group of Seven countries—International cooperation. 4. Banks and banking, Central—Group of Seven countries. I. Title. II. Series. HG3881.B252 2005 332'.042—dc22 2005008334 ISBN13: 9-78-0-415-35492-9 (hbk) For Maeve Contents ix Contents List of illustrations x Foreword xi Acknowledgements xiv 1 Introduction: the Group of Seven and global financial governance 1 2 The evolution of the Group of Seven and the re-emergence of global finance: the historical context 18 3 Situating the Group of Seven in a context of decentralized financial globalization: a four-dimensional framework 38 4 The Group of Seven and the politics of financial ideas: the durability of the economic consensus of the 1990s 66 5 The Group of Seven as a multi-spatial transgovernmental actor in world politics: four-dimensional diplomacy in practice 100 6 The Group of Seven and macroeconomic governance: discourse, declaratory policy and market supremacy 143 7 The Group of Seven and the global financial architecture: the institutional and ideational foundations of market supremacy 183 8 Conclusions: global financial governance and the Group of Seven as a senior transgovernmental coalition 228 Notes 247 Bibliography 273 Index 290 x List of illustrations Illustrations Figure 5.1 Linkages between the actors in the G7 Finance Minister’s and Central Bank Governor’s process and the Annual Summits 112 Tables 5.1 Career details of Finance Ministry and Central Bank deputies in 1996 113 5.2 Fiscal frameworks in G7 countries 119 5.3 Procedures for foreign exchange interventions in G7 countries 123 5.4 G7 countries percentage share of IMF votes 137 6.1 G7 declaratory policy in the 1990s 171 Foreword xi Foreword If money makes the world go round, and foolish would be the scholar who argues that money has little to do with earthly or other rotations in this era of global market integration, then an increasingly coherent club of the most powerful finance ministers and central bank governors in the world, representing the dollar, the euro, and the other serious ‘hard’ currencies of the global economy, must be an important focus of scholarly enquiry. This book is surely about one of the most important issues of the day. How is it that there is so little serious scholarship from the political economy corner on this pressing issue? Of course there is scholarship on the G7 as an institution, and this Baker easily acknowledges. Scholarship on G7 summitry, where agreement is less easily reached and the clash of inter-state conflicts of interest often appears prevalent, however, misses the importance of the more subtle forums which meet in the shadows, but arrive at more consensual and thus more consequential decisions. This forum actually does something, and as such Baker has spotted something which many scholars have missed. A specific focus on the interactions among finance ministries, central banks, and financial market constituencies is therefore rarely seen. Equipped with a strong awareness of methodological proprieties, Andrew Baker is filling in an important gap in our empirical understanding of the world of globalization, and he does so in an original and theoretically innovative way. He has put his finger on probably the most important ‘transgovernmental coalition’ of our day, a crucial underpinning and promoter of global integration and market-oriented economic policy-making. Furthermore, he explores the intimate interrelationships between this transgovernmental club, its constituent agencies, and the market constituencies which it ostensibly governs. His analysis clearly reveals how this club of technocratic expertise and guardian of financial orthodoxy has developed the normative and ideational supports, not to mention the