Introduction: the Importance of Finance and the Origins of Developmentalism

Abstract

How does a country progress from the ruins of war to sustained prosperity, from widely rural composition to a modern European economy, from sociopolitical underdevelopment to a full-blown liberal democracy? What are the underpinnings of contemporary financial globalization, how did we get there, and what does it mean for a single country’s political economy? What is the role of the state and of financial institutions in that long trajectory of a nation from destitution to internationalized middle-income economy status? What are the political implications of finance for a postwar developing country, for its democratization, into the Eurozone?