Credit Ratings and Sovereign Debt

Introduction: Credit Rating Crisis New Analytics of Sovereign Ratings Socio-Technical Devices of Control Government through Risk and Uncertainty Performative Political Economy of Creditworthiness 1. Crisis and Control Emerging Sovereign Bond Markets Asian Flu Hits Ratings The Quest for Fiscal Transparency New Century but Even More of the Old Contagion Risk of Ratings Rating Legacy Lingers On Conceptual Territory of Sovereign Creditworthiness Authoritative Knowledge Beyond Just Ideational Constructs Performativity Politics of Resistance and Resilience Absence of a Singular and Totalizing Neoliberal Capitalism Absence of Singular Centre to Democratic Resistance/Resilience 2. The Rise of Risk and Uncertainty Conceptual Lineage of Risk Period of Hegemonic Risk Financialization Security Profit Market Risk Operational Risk Credit Risk Credit Rating Methodologies Methodologies, Models and Assumptions Sovereign Rating Analysis Secretive and Opaque Modalities of Government 3. Rating Performativity Performativity Terrain Illocutionary and Perlocutionary Performativity Self-Generative Effects for Credit Rating Agencies Conditionality, Reactivity and Interactivity of Risk (and Uncertainty) Contagion Amplified Self-Generation Procyclical Reinforcement Constitutive Effects for Investors Mainstream Functionalist Explanations The Naturalization of Speculators Prohibitive Effects for Governments Potential Performativity Breakdown 4. Epistocracy versus Democracy Credit Ratings and the European Project Regulating the Ratings Space 5. Problematizing the Ratings Space Repoliticization of Creditworthiness