Chapter 7 assesses how far the foundations for development had been laid by 1940. The chapter argues that the region had some solid legacies from colonial rule.

We are living through a period of growing global disorder. There are various causes, but one is the declining unity and efficacy of the political ‘West’ – the coalition of countries, including the UK and led by the United States, that came together after the Second World War to defend and promote liberal democracy at home and open markets abroad. For countries like ours, in a changed and changing geopolitical landscape, the challenge is not to build a single new world order, but instead to contribute to what the historian Adam Tooze calls ‘world ordering’. This means coalitions of the willing, on a range of issues, to meet the challenges that people and nations need to face together. This imperative makes Britain’s relationship with other European countries, and the EU, more important, not less. These countries, and the EU, have shared values and interests with the UK. We face a common threat from an increasingly anarchic form of ‘might makes right’ globalisation. So we need to renew our cooperation that was sabotaged by Brexit.

Sterling depreciated by around 10 per cent on a trade-weighted basis immediately after the vote, raising prices faced by consumers by an estimated 2.9 per cent in the two years after, with a consequent effect on reducing real living standards. For firms, the referendum and its aftermath of political instability increased uncertainty and raised barriers to investment. We focus mostly on the longer-term consequences. We start by outlining, briefly, the key economic claims and forecasts made at the time of the referendum. These matter not just for historical purposes but because ‘consensus’ estimates and assumptions made by key policymakers, notably at the Office for Budget Responsibility, have changed little since then. We then present some of the basic data on UK economic performance over the period and draw comparisons with similar countries. We then consider in more detail what has happened to trade and business investment, the key routes through which any economic impacts are likely to have been transmitted. We briefly review claims that big regulatory changes might have had positive effects.

This chapter analyses the political economy of Rwanda’s financial sector. It presents the evolution of Rwanda’s national banking sector and the ways the Rwandan Patriotic Front has sought to mobilise domestic resources to invest in strategic sectors. It provides an overview of how African financial sectors have been transformed in varied ways through adapting to three kinds of financial sector reforms: policies influenced by the market-led consensus, developmentalist strategies and the influence of offshore sectors. Rwanda, in its attempt to transform Kigali into a financial sector while mobilising state-driven investments for strategic investments and adopting ‘best practice’ financial sector reforms, encapsulates the contradictions associated with being influenced by these three sets of policies concurrently. Next, the chapter describes how the Rwandan government has innovatively mobilised domestic resources to fund strategic investments. Innovations include its pension fund, the Rwanda Social Security Board. The chapter concludes by discussing how elite vulnerability has constrained the capacity of the Rwandan government to concentrate resources and financial expertise in one specific financial institution, thereby inhibiting the effectiveness of strategic investments.

The First World War occupies a central place in debates about effects of economic interdependence on international politics. This chapter examines how historians and IR scholars have explained the outbreak of war in 1914 between states with deep economic ties. It discusses the reciprocal effects of economic interdependence and power politics upon each other. By the early twentieth century, growing international trade and capital flows constituted an essential part of the international order, along with the institutions and practices of power politics. The chapter argues that the interdependence transformed power politics in ways that both sustained peace and created conditions for war. It sets out how that balance tilted towards militarisation from 1911.

International organizations perform activities in areas in which states can no longer operate effectively in isolation, and in which there is a common interest in cooperation within a permanent international framework. This chapter will examine international organizations primarily from a legal perspective. The chapter aims to present a general overview of the law of international organizations. This chapter discusses the legal status, privileges, and immunities of international organizations. The chapter further deals with membership issues, powers, and institutional structures. The chapter also looks at decisions of international organizations: the way in which they are taken and the different types of decisions. The chapter briefly examines the finances of international organizations. There has been an exponential increase in the activities of international organizations over the years. Not all of these activities have been successful, however, and there have been failures and wrongdoings. In recent years, a much-debated issue is to what extent international organizations and/or their members may be held responsible for such failures and wrongdoings.

Trade and finance together formed the third-largest livelihood type in colonial India. These two activities were interdependent because banks and moneylenders mainly financed commodity trade. The combined share of the two activities rose significantly in national income in the early twentieth century. Behind this growth, the expansion of transport infrastructure and an open economy with few barriers to foreign trade were responsible. It was not, however, a business without friction. A great deal of the historical scholarship around these activities asks how environmental risks, information asymmetry, law and politics shaped the decisions of merchants, lenders and firms, as this chapter shows.

Under the extremes of Indian socialism, the financial system was a handmaiden for state control of the economy, directing resources according to the wishes of the government. State control was achieved through government ownership. A great deal has changed, with a first (1947–1992) and second (1992–2016) phase of central planning where there were conflicting themes of liberalization and enhanced state control. In many areas, private financial firms are now important. The full ecosystem of modern finance, with information processing and risk taking by private persons, blossomed in the equity market. For two decades there was a remarkable policy process that yielded gains in fields such as the equity market, pension reforms, bankruptcy code and so on. But alongside this there was the expansion of the ‘administrative state’ in the form of financial regulators. Regulators engage in micro-management of products and processes. While there is isomorphic mimicry with many things that look like a financial system, officials retain substantial control over how finance works. In a functional perspective, Indian finance today resembles the environment of the 1980s more than meets the eye.

Soon after the establishment of British colonial authority, south India underwent institutional changes in the administrative, military, educational and other spheres. In the countryside, the furthest-reaching of these changes was the introduction of the raiyatwari and zamindari land settlements, which granted a particular class of people in rural society exclusive landownership. The period covered in this chapter, 1850–1950, saw the consequences of these early institutional changes unfold and the emergence of new processes in the urban and service economies, including in transport, trade, finance and industry. The chapter discusses these general trends, paying particular attention to the countryside.

The fragments on the ancients and the moderns are continued. Arguments are presented for and against the role played by the ancients in establishing a modern culture of genius and taste. The effect of writing on oral poetry is discussed together with the invention of paper, printing, and copper engraving. These had an important effect on poetic expression and public culture, and the advantages and disadvantages are weighed. The Middle Ages ended with the Reformation, the discovery of new lands, changes in the financial system, in war, and class relationships. German literature is discussed in relation to other European traditions, and its shortcomings and merits are considered. In conclusion, it is argued that comparison of the national poetic traditions is difficult, perhaps futile, and that every nation should value its own tradition.

In an age where change accelerates at an exponential pace, the world is grappling with a unique and volatile set of challenges. Mohamed El-Erian, the foreword author of our first publication (Reimagining Philanthropy in the Global South: From Analysis to Action in a Post-COVID World), uses the term “permacrisis” to describe the compounding issues of climate change, geopolitical instability, and technological disruption that now dominate the global landscape. These crises have revealed the fragility of systems once deemed resilient, highlighting the urgent need for transformative financing approaches to support sustainable development and achieve lasting systemic change in an ever-evolving world. This book explores the promise of catalytic capital and the emerging dynamics of development finance in this new global landscape.