Low geopolitics: Credit-rating agencies, the privatization of authority and the new sovereignty

Abstract

The recent global economic meltdown serves as a salutary reminder of the ways in which the world has become hostage to the activities of a range of agents whose activities have rarely figured in discussions about global geopolitics. One of the most controversial aspects has been the role of the Big Three creditrating agencies, whose informational leverage is the way in which have come to exercise authority not simply coercive power within the world economy and over state sovereign debt. We can no longer pretend empirically that states monopolize sovereign authority without engaging and enrolling other private and public actors of various types and vintages. The expropriation of land no longer lies at the center of geopolitical relations but is being replaced by control over financial products and flows.