Abstract

This chapter explores the relationship between globalisation and national economic policy through a case study of the political economy of the third way implemented by the New Labour administrations between May 1997 and May 2010. The third way was based upon the central conceit that domestic modernisation could be reconciled with the constraints imposed upon it by globalisation, and indeed that globalisation could be harnessed for domestic political and economic purposes. The chapter concludes that the third way failed in its project of reconciliation, and the onset of the 2007–08 financial crisis demonstrated the limitations of a ‘risk-based’ approach to the governance of financial markets.