Globalization through financial integration holds out the promise of economic growth and development for emerging market countries. (1) Over the past decade, we have witnessed financial crises in emerging economies across the globe, characterized by weaknesses in the domestic financial sector. These weaknesses very quickly took on systemic proportions, which could only be checked through the immediate mobilization of international financing, notably in Mexico (1995), East Asia (1997), Russia (1998), Brazil (1998), and Turkey (2001). (2) Market analysts characterize patterns of global financial crises as a flight to quality, where investment capital moves to stable environments in times of crisis. International policy experts and political leaders alike fear that global economic competition for profits will exacerbate societal and ethnic differences, drive polarization between advanced industrialized and underdeveloped countries, and cultivate political extremism globally. (3) Motivated by these concerns, international financial institutions (IFIs) such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and regional banks such as the Asian Development Bank (ADB) have claimed leading roles in promoting global market governance. Among the range of proposals, consensus has emerged on the global strategy to increase of domestic financial sectors across the globe. (4) Indeed, for many market analysts, is the cornerstone of any global financial architecture aiming to weather the inherent volatility of global financial markets. (5) IFI policy experts reason that distortions of information within financial markets are the key to explaining the large influx of foreign capital into emerging markets as well as its rapid departure in times of crisis. Thus, transparency in global markets holds the promise of fewer foreign investor overreactions due to unclear market signals, quicker and smaller adjustments by investors in reaction to new information, better planning by locally based firms in managing investment flows, and overall greater market efficiency. Global investors also demand greater market transparency, hoping that the greater flow of information regarding the actions of governments and firms in emerging market economies will allow them to better manage their investments. While few emerging-market governments, banks, or private firms openly dispute the need for increased transparency, has proven difficult to achieve. (6) IFIs rely on their existing multilateral mandates for surveillance, financial data collection, and data diffusion. In promoting in emerging markets, however, they have found themselves drawn into battles with a range of transnational, multinational, domestic, and international authorities over the production of financial information and the diffusion of financial information. These political battles cast a critical light on seemingly apolitical assumptions that motivate much of the theoretical rationale for international governance strategies inspired by the goal of a transparent global financial system. This article is fundamentally motivated by IFIs' apolitical bias in framing the promotion of as a global governance strategy. I argue that the challenge of global governance through market is a political challenge and that politics emerge in two dimensions: (1) the standardization of the regulatory processes through which such financial information is produced for global investor consumption; and (2) the procedures that govern the diffusion of this information. (7) The financial information that guides investor decisions--such as credit ratings, bond ratings, and measures of interest rate or exchange rate risk--only proves useful when the processes through which this information is produced are themselves standardized across markets and when these data are indeed accessible throughout global markets. …