Disputes over Global Financial Governance in the Field of Sovereign Debt Restructurings: Contractual or Statutory Approach?

ALEJANDRO GABRIEL MANZO

Córdoba

Congreso; , I Jornadas de Economía Feminista y de las XII Jornadas de Economía Crítica; 2019

UNC

Scholars of international political economy intensely discuss whether the contractual or the statutory approach is the best option at the time of organizing sovereign debt restructurings, analyzing which of these two approaches is the most «efficient». This presentation proposes a different perspective to this debate: it emphasizes the dimension of power to create or resist the creation of regulations in the international arena. It compares the principles and content of the IMF contractual proposal of 2014 with those of a statutory proposal discussed in 2015 at the UN. This perspective with emphasis on power helps to explain why the principles and content of the IMF proposal reinforce, to a greater extent than the one discussed at the UN, the status quo and, thereby, the privileged position in the global financial governance of the agents who promoted it. It is argued that at the moment of analyzing the closure attitude of these agents to discuss a statutory modality ?in this case, in the UN? should be considered reasons of efficiency as most of the literature proposes, but also other reasons related to the power relations which lie behind the institutions that give form to the financial architecture.