Reading the Asian Crisis: History, Culture and Institutional Truths
Author(s)
Preston, Peter W.
Abstract
The Asian financial crises of 1997-1998 set in motion a long-overdue reform of the formal decisionmaking mechanisms of global financial governance. By “global financial governance” I mean the broad fabric of rules and procedures by which internationally active financial institutions are governed, while the architectural element of governance I understand to be the public mechanisms by which authoritative decisions about these rules and procedures are made. From this perspective, the post-Asia reform efforts center on the creation of two new forums: a technical committee known as the Financial Stability Forum (or FSF) and a new political grouping of countries known as the Group of 20 (or G-20). My purpose in this article is to draw attention to the way in which the creation of the G-20 and the FSF constitutes a potentially progressive development for global financial governance because they include emerging market economies in its decisionmaking mechanisms for the very first time.
