MPhil Politics, MA Int'l Political Economy (Newcastle)Thesis Topic: Disabilities and prostheses of global finance: The role of credit rating agencies in coping with instability in global political economy
Since their founding in the early 1900s, credit rating agencies (CRAs) have become both norm setters and norm diffusers in global finance. While many authors have highlighted the influence/power wielded by CRAs, insufficient attention has been paid to two questions: (1) What were the structural conditions that facilitated the rise of CRAs in the first place, and does the power/influence wielded by CRAs co-vary with changes in the structural conditions? (2) How, and to what extent has CRAs contributed to a conceptual/discursive transformation of "debt" and "risk"?
Supervisors: Professor Philip Nel and Dr Bryce Edwards