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Review highlights the influence of politics and policy on sovereign ratings, suggesting implications for political economy.
Zsófia Barta and Alison Johnston’s recent book, Rating Politics, delves into the role that politics and policy play in the process of sovereign ratings. In this short review, I discuss its main arguments, drawing particular attention to the author’s remarkable attempt at recovering the political thought of ‘sovereign raters.’ I then raise some concerns regarding the potential limitations of their findings, and the blindspots of the type of political economy at work in this project.
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Quentin Bruneau (2026) studied this question.
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