From the Great Depression in the twentieth century to the Great Recession in the twenty-first, systemic banking crises have been a recurring problem for both developing and developed countries. This book offers a human rights perspective on financial crises vis-à-vis low-income and least developed countries. It systematically analyzes government’s commitment to women’s economic rights and basic human rights during systemic banking crises. The book combines a wealth of data with rich theoretical arguments that weave together distinct but related bodies of literature from international development, human rights, and political economy.

Financialization, Austerity, and Inclusion in Latin America and the Caribbean examines the spread of financialization since 1980, highlighting the ideational origins of financialization outside the region, its effects on government budgeting and social inclusion, and options for increased inclusivity. Rana S. Gautam, Diogo L. Pinheiro, and Dwight Wilson argue that rather than a mechanistic implementation of external pressures, financialization is a complex social process with ideational origins in which national-level actors participate. Ultimately, the authors find that deeper financial integration, the expansion of credit, and reliance on international bond markets drives governments to cut certain areas of social spending and drives inequality but ameliorates absolute poverty. There is, therefore, space for agents to mold financialization and its inclusiveness.