The Disintegration of the Ruble Zone

Abstract

How money and credit are organized within a particular society and across societies has important implications for the institutional capacity of states, as well as for the life chances of the individuals who live within them. Because the right to issue and validate money provides an important power resource that can be used to expand national economic wealth and military strength, modern centralized states tend to place great importance on maintaining the privilege to control the organization of monetary arrangements within their borders (Dodd, 1994: 31–5; Cohen, 1998: 42–4). Moreover, because monetary arrangements influence how wealth is distributed throughout a society — as well as the extent of a government’s policy autonomy from economic decisions taken by other countries — monetary policy choices continue to be regarded as sensitive aspects of state sovereignty despite moves toward the legalization of international monetary relations through the IMF after WWII (Simmons, 2000; Gold, 1983).