From Bretton Woods to the Global Financial Crisis: Popular Politics, Paradigmatic Debates, and the Construction of Crises

Abstract

How do popular values shape constructions of crises and paradigmatic debates? In this paper, I offer a constructivist framework highlighting the popular bases of paradigmatic ideas and policy interests. In historical terms, I then trace the evolution of values, ideas, and polic]ies across three crises—the Bretton Woods-era inflation and currency crises of the 1960s, the South Korean and Long Term Capital Management crises of the 1990s, and the global financial crisis. In concluding, I stress implications for tensions not only between intellectuals and populists, but also among populists themselves—as in the affective divides between Tea Party and Occupy movements.

Keywords::

• global financial crisis
• Keynesianism
• macroprudential regulation
• constructivism

Funding

This research was funded with the support of Australian Research Council (ARC) Grants: ARC Future Fellowship [grant number FT100100833]; ARC Discovery Project [grant number DP130104088] with Dr. Richard Eccleston.