SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This article aims to expose the economic and political relations of power disguised in the concept of financial risk as institutionalized in post-crisis economic policies and practices. We do so by examining, from a historical materialist approach, the actors and social struggles implicated in the aftermath of crisis in Mexico and Turkey. We argue that Mexican and Turkish state authorities have targeted workers so that they may disproportionately bear the costs of financial uncertainty and recurrent crises as workers, taxpayers, and debtors in the aftermath of the 2008-09 crisis. We emphasize, though, that there are important institutional mediations and case study specificities. Mexico’s reforms that target labour as one of the main bearers of financial risk have been locked into legislation and constitutional changes. Turkey’s policies have been implemented in a more ad hoc manner. In contemporary capitalism, we see risk as not confined to national borders but as also flowing through the world market. We further argue that the World Bank Report 2014 Risk and Opportunity: Managing Risk for Development emerges out of and reflects such real world responses to crisis that have been predominantly shaped by advocates of neoliberalism, to the benefit of capital. As an expression internal to global capitalism, the World Bank Report functions to legitimise the exploitative content of contemporary financial risk management policy prescriptions. Democratized financial alternatives that privilege the needs of workers and the poor are required.