Private Power and Global Authority: Transnational Merchant Law in the Global Political Economy, A. Claire Cutler, Cambridge Studies in International Relations; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. xiv, 306

In Private Power and Global Authority, Claire Cutler presents a theoretically rich and historically detailed account of the interrelationship between transnational merchant law and broader patterns of restructuring in the global political economy. More specifically, she draws upon an historical materialist framework to demonstrate how “fundamental transformations in global power and authority are enhancing the significance of the private sphere in both the creation and enforcement of international commercial law” (1). In doing so, Cutler reveals the power relations and political implications inherent to this seemingly functional realm. At the same time, she looks through the other end of the telescope to show the broadly constitutive role that transnational merchant law has played in the transformation and legitimation of the emerging neoliberal order. In this sense, the changes that Cutler identifies in transnational merchant law both reflect, and help to constitute, broader changes in the global political economy.