Conclusion: Policy and practice implications

Since the fall of 2008 the global economic and financial systems have undergone a series of crises. These crises – some of which are systemic and structural – are not yet resolved. While there appears to be signs of growth and a reduction in unemployment in the United States, there seems little evidence that Europe has emerged from the crisis. Indeed the possibility of a slowdown in China has increased (rather than decreased) the fragility of the global economic system.

These developments – ongoing and unresolved – are, also, part of a much broader set of crises which might be described as ones which cut across economic institutions, but political and social ones too. The global crisis demonstrated the fragility of the global political institutions and structures too. The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation represent the considered (and settled) institutional frameworks and structures which were designed to avoid precisely the global meltdown from 2008 onwards. The European crisis illustrates very clearly the claim that these structures (including the European Union and the EuroZone initiative) are vulnerable to a worldwide collapse of confidence.