Global Economic Governance Since the Twentieth Century

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This chapter starts by analyzing effects of the 1944 Bretton Woods conference. It initiated the American influence over the immediate postwar global economic architecture. During the rest of the Cold War, there was a gradual shift in relative international economic authority, as industrialized states such as West Germany and Japan gained increasing influence from the mid- to late-twentieth century. This led to new forms of cooperation between leading wealthy states after the postwar Bretton Woods monetary system collapsed. The post-Cold War period constituted new forms of multilateral economic cooperation, especially ‘new’ or ‘open’ regionalism, which diminished American political authority, since it was more independent of US influence. The chapter indicates the growing constraints on American international strategic, political, and cognitive authority.