Disciplining the 'black sheep of the Balkans

Financial supervision and sovereignty in Bulgaria, 1902-38

Bibliographic Data

ID4352906
AuthorsAdam Tooze (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences), Martin Ivanov (0000-0002-3912-4014, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences)
Year2011
Volume64
Issue1
Pages30-51
Publication date2011-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Economic History Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0013-0117 • E-ISSN: 1468-0289
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1468-0289.2010.00544.x
OpenAlexW1586571409
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited20

Using the example of Bulgaria, we argue that familiar models of international political economy fail to capture the tension between national sovereignty and access to capital markets experienced by peripheral debtors in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Existing accounts exaggerate the significance of the gold standard as a good housekeeping seal of approval and underestimate the role of direct financial controls. Furthermore, they underestimate the linkage in zones of inter-imperial rivalry, such as the Balkans, between foreign borrowing and strategic alignment. We show how Bulgaria found its politics destabilized prior to 1914 by the demands of its creditors. After defeat in the First World War, Bulgaria was forced to submit to an even tighter system of creditor control. Though it obtained substantial debt relief during the 1930s, these concessions were gained not through an assertion of national sovereignty and default, but at the price of even closer supervision. This in turn casts new light on the conventional view of Bulgaria as a victim of Nazi 'informal imperialism'. In light of Bulgaria's previous experience, the more striking feature of its trade relations with Hitler's Germany is that they were conducted on a basis of sovereign equality

Creditor · Debt · Economics · Economy · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Rivalry · Sovereignty · Finance · Global Economic and Social Development · Global Financial Crisis and Policies · Law · State Capitalism and Financial Governance