Financially engineering a “self-generative” political economy of creditworthiness: expertocratic exemption problems for sustainable debt and democracy

Paudyn, Bartholomew ORCID: 0000-0001-8587-3799 (2023) Financially engineering a “self-generative” political economy of creditworthiness: expertocratic exemption problems for sustainable debt and democracy. Competition and Change, 27 (2). 354 - 379. ISSN 1024-5294

Text (B. Paudyn - CC 2022 LSERO - Financially Engineering a Self-Generative Political Economy of Creditworthiness) - Accepted Version Download (428kB)

Abstract

Repeated crises have proven credit rating agency (CRA) models/methods erroneous and “business-as-usual” unsustainable. Nevertheless, considerable dubious “default risk” management and technoscientific capitalist expertise remain unchanged. Unpacking sovereign ratings, we appreciate how “debt sustainability analysis” (DSA) distortions underpin expertocratic CRA (default) anomaly. Their neoliberal “politics of limits” performance helps market (shareholder) imperatives trump those of democratic (stakeholder) politics. Given surging inflation and debt (distress) to remedy Covid-19-induced shocks, ratings aid constitute and (re)validate the subjectivities/affinities and organizational conditions advancing a “self-equilibrating,” “self-generative” agencement political economy of creditworthiness (PEC). Antagonizing sustainable budgetary government’s programmatic/expertocratic and operational/democratic asymmetry, econophysics ratings diminish fiscal sovereignty. Universal PEC management through hybrid credit risk/uncertainty qualculation mitigates negative externality contestation shielding CRAs from serious reform. Ratings procyclicality and contagion reinforce this precarious sociotechnical agencement PEC as the status quo.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://journals.sagepub.com/home/cch
Additional Information:	© 2022 The Author
Divisions:	LSE
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory H Social Sciences > HG Finance
Date Deposited:	23 Jun 2022 10:24
Last Modified:	03 Jul 2025 21:09
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/115426

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