BETWEEN STATE AND MARKET - HEGEMONY AND INSTITUTIONS OF COLLECTIVE ACTION UNDER CONDITIONS OF INTERNATIONAL CAPITAL MOBILITY

This article rejects the atomistic conception of international capital mobility as individual, uncoordinated decision-making. It argues that non-state institutions exist in the global political economy which co ndition the thoughts and actions that comprise the investment process. Because these structure investment, such institutions can be understo od as private makers of global public policy. Credit rating agencies a re used as an example of these mechanisms. The article examines transf ormations in the organization of capital markets which underpin the gr eater influence of these agencies. Functional accounts of rating insti tutions are evaluated, and their scope for transcending a strict agenc y role with regard to investors is assessed, based on their possession of specialized forms of knowledge from which they derive control. Som e description of the agencies, their international growth and the rati ngs process is provided. Three arguments about the pressures on the ec onomic and financial structures identified by Zysman (1983) generated by rating agencies are considered. Rating institutions create pressure s for fundamental analyss of investment, for a particular View of appr opriate management forms and policy lines along new constitutionalist lines, and contribute to a more abstract investment process which is l ikely to have the effect of transforming social relationships within t he dominant alliances of social forces, The article concludes with som e consideration of the implications of these hybrid forms of authority and policy for world order.