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ANTI‐PUBLIC FINANCE? The Democratic Effects of Municipal Bond Markets.
- Source :
- International Journal of Urban & Regional Research; Nov2023, Vol. 47 Issue 6, p917-939, 23p
- Publication Year :
- 2023
-
Abstract
- Municipal bonds are a financial instrument once largely limited to North America. Today, they are appearing in international development reports as a novel best‐practice for closing the world's infrastructure funding gap and for promoting democracy. Critics of financialization have argued that municipal bonds have had the opposite effect: they have deepened austerity, ceded control of democratic municipalities to the global financial industry, and depoliticized public decision‐making. Yet in this article, I observe a relationship between democracy, politics and finance which contrasts with the now common uses of 'financialization' popularized by critical scholars in Euro‐American universities. I argue that, elsewhere in the world, capital markets have come to be understood as an important element of democratization. To make this argument, I develop the concept of 'financial publics'—a group of strangers participating in a reflexive and reciprocal style of address through which they negotiate their financial relationships with one another. Using this concept, I analyze data drawn from over two years of ethnographic research on one of the most noteworthy experiments in municipal finance in the global South: the City of Dakar's failed attempt to issue the first ever municipal bond on the Regional Stock Exchange of West Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- MUNICIPAL bonds
BOND market
FINANCIAL instruments
MUNICIPAL finance
CAPITAL market
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 03091317
- Volume :
- 47
- Issue :
- 6
- Database :
- Complementary Index
- Journal :
- International Journal of Urban & Regional Research
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 173439138
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.13181