Jacqueline Best

Bio: Jacqueline Best is an academic researcher from University of Ottawa. The author has contributed to research in topics: International political economy & Global governance. The author has an hindex of 21, co-authored 37 publications receiving 1232 citations.

The Limits of Transparency: Ambiguity and the History of International Finance

Abstract: A decade of crises has reminded us of the fragility of the international financial system Conventional wisdom holds that uncertainty is the basic problem of financial governance, and attempts to contain ambiguity have dominated recent financial reform efforts Jacqueline Best, however, contends that ambiguity can play a valuable role in international political and economic stability The stability of the postwar era depended, Best suggests, on a carefully maintained balance between coherence and ambiguity In her view, the collapse of the Bretton Woods exchange-rate regime was caused in large part by the increasing rigidity of the system and its corresponding inability to accommodate ambiguityThis is a novel argument in an area much discussed by economists and political scientists Their debate has focused on uncertainty as a technical problem and transparency as the solution Although such policies are presented as technical, Best demonstrates that they are also political, have cultural consequences, and may prove counterproductive Rather than assume that transparency is the ultimate goal, Best argues, we must recognize that ambiguity is pervasive, substantive, and potentially constructive To read this book is to comprehend more deeply the ways in which politics is fundamental to economic theory and practice and to understand why the economy requires political leadership in order to flourish

Cultural Political Economy

Abstract: Introduction: Understanding Cultural Political Economy Jacqueline Best and Matthew Paterson Part 1: Interrogating the Classics 1. Undressing the Wound of Wealth: Political Economy as a Cultural Project David L. Blaney and Naeem Inayatullah 2. Works, Products, and the Division of Labour: Notes for a Cultural and Political Economic Critique Matt Davies Part 2: The Cultural Constitution of Economic History 3. 'To the Ends of the Earth': Culture, Visuality and the Embedded Economy Rob Aitken 4. The Culture of Money Doctoring: American Financial Advising in Latin America During the 1940s Eric Helleiner Part 3: Culture as Concealing Political Economic Practices 5. Anti-Political Economy: Cartographies of 'Illegal Immigration' and The Displacement of the Economy William Walters 6. Joyless Cosmopolitans: The Moral Economy of Ethical Tourism Debbie Lisle Part 4: Cultural Futures of Political Economy 7. Cultural Political Economies of the War on Teror Louise Amoore and Marieke de Goede 8. Cybernetic Capitalism and the Global Information Society: From the Global Panopticon to a 'Brand' New World Maxime Ouellet 9. A Perfect Innovation Engine: The Rise of the Talent World Nigel Thrift Part 5: Conclusions/Provocations Conclusion: Cultural, Political, Economy R.B.J. Walker

Ambiguity, Uncertainty and Risk: Rethinking Indeterminacy

Abstract: In this paper, I argue that critical international theory could benefit from a broader and deeper conception of the limits of knowledge—that what is needed is more attention to the role of ambiguity in contemporary politics. In doing so, I am not denying the usefulness of the more prevalent concepts of uncertainty and risk used by scholars applying the frameworks of global governmentality and world risk society. This essay is instead proposing that we understand risk and uncertainty as two specific categories of indeterminacy that have come to preoccupy contemporary neoliberal thinkers and policymakers, and hence their critics, but which nonetheless tend to downplay the interpretive dimensions of the limits of knowledge. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s The Order of Things, as well as the ideas of John Maynard Keynes, I develop an analysis of the role of ambiguity in global governance—as an object of global governance, a tool to be exploited by it, and a limit to its operation. Concluding with the case of international financial governance, this essay suggests that not only will a focus on ambiguity shed light on the historical evolution of global finance, but it also provides us with some clues to the sources of the current sub-prime financial crisis.

Governing Failure: Provisional Expertise and the Transformation of Global Development Finance

Abstract: Part I. Understanding How Global Governance Works: 1. Introduction 2. A meso-level analysis Part II. History: 3. What came before 4. Transformations Part III. New Governance Strategies: 5. Fostering ownership 6. Developing global standards 7. Managing risk and vulnerability 8. Measuring results Part IV. Conclusion: 9. The politics of failure and the future of provisional governance.

From the Top–Down: The New Financial Architecture and the Re-embedding of Global Finance

Abstract: After decades of touting the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a neutral, expertise-based institution, Fund representatives have recently adopted a surprisingly normative tone in their policy statements. IMF staff and leaders have begun to talk about the value of ‘good financial citizenship’, ‘civility’ and the goal of ‘civilising globalisation’. This new institutional vocabulary appears most commonly in the context of calls for a new financial architecture—the most influential of current responses to the recurring financial crises of the past decade. In this article, I will attempt to excavate some of the foundations of this new architecture, paying particular attention to the logic of its newly normative vocabulary. In doing so, I will make use of a concept that has most frequently been used to make sense of the postwar financial system—‘embedded liberalism’. Coined by John Gerard Ruggie but inspired by Karl Polanyi, this term was used to describe the peculiar compromise of the postwar order: while t...