Recent financial crises in Europe, Asia and Latin America have reminded us of the fragility of our international financial system and of the delicate political and cultural accommodations that rely on its stability. This dissertation seeks to understand the roots of this increasing economic instability by examining the role of ambiguity in international financial governance from the founding of the Bretton Woods regime in 1944 to the present re-liberalized financial order. Working at the intersection of international relations, political economy and political theory, this research suggests that the ambiguities that persist in the realm of international finance can play a constructive role in enabling international political and economic stability
At the heart of this dissertation is a study of the history of international financial governance, from the negotiations of 1942--44, through the achievement of European convertibility in 1958, the golden era of the 1960s, the system's collapse in 1971 and its evolution into the contemporary re-liberalized regime. I argue that the problem of ambiguity---and attempts to contain it---have played a crucial role in shaping the theory and practice of post-war finance. The stability of the post-war era depended not simply on a reduction of ambiguity through consensus building, but rather on a careful balance between coherence and ambiguity
Since the collapse of the Bretton Woods regime, there has been a dramatic shift in the form of international financial governance. Whereas the emphasis in the post-war regime was on managing ambiguity by regulating capital and exchange rate movements, the contemporary re-liberalized regime has instead focused on eliminating ambiguity by deregulating financial flows. Yet this new liberalized regime has proven to be prone to crisis. I argue that the instability of the contemporary re-liberalized era---demonstrated most recently in the Asian financial crisis---is in part a product of our attempts to reduce constructive ambiguities. This insight has important implications for contemporary policy debates, for it suggests that the current emphasis on achieving global financial transparency may in fact be counterproductive if it creates unrealistic expectations about the possibility of eliminating ambiguity
