The central concern of this thesis is to explore whether the euro is challenging the dollar as the top international currency in the international monetary system (IMS) and, if so, whether this is enhancing European monetary power in global monetary governance. The research has been designed so as to develop an empirical adjudication within the ‘euro vs. dollar’ debate taking place in the fields of International Economics and International Political Economy. The study, which develops a constructivist analytical framework concerned with both the material and ideational footprint of the euro, provides evidential support in favour of the euro- sceptic literature. By analysing through extensive fieldwork the perceptions on the euro and the dollar of financial elites in China, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and Brazil, three key dollar-holding regions, this thesis demonstrates that the euro is far from competing with the dollar for the position of top international currency. The lack of a political authority to underpin its monetary space is the central reason for this underperformance. Nonetheless, this thesis also proves that the financial elites in Brazil, China and the GCC are increasingly frustrated about the malperformance of the dollar as the main anchor of the IMS. The euro cannot compete with the greenback for top international currency status, but its consolidation as the second most used international currency has exposed the weaknesses of the dollar. In this regard, the euro does challenge the dollar, as advocated by the euro-optimist literature. Not as a rival, but rather as a mirror that shows the structural and ideological flaws in the current Flexible-Dollar- Standard (FDS). Hence, while the results of this research demonstrate that the euro is incapable of challenging the dollar in a strict material sense, they provide evidence to support the claim that its legacy does so from an ideational point of view by widening the preferences in the construction of the IMS, and the agenda of international monetary governance, away from dollar-unipolarity.
Otero-Iglesias, Miguel
Supervisors: Ryner, Magnus; Hurt, Stephen ; Kilmister, Andy
Oxford Brookes Business School
Year: 2011
Oxford Brookes University : Banco Santander Scholarship
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