“They Already Exist”: Don’t They? Conjuring Global Networks Along the Flow of Money

Abstract

Internationalism, a concept of the nineteenth-century, still shapes the way globalisation is discussed in the twenty-first century. This essay explains why internationalism contributed to a powerful discourse on international organisations, based on national comparability, and how twenty-first century research on international relations still follows the path of nineteenth-century internationalists. The paper elaborates what the nineteenth-century master narrative of international organisations omitted. The numerous lists of organisations published since the nineteenth century hide, astonishingly enough, the role of money. The border crossing and networking function of money, the financial aspect of the building of international organisations and their contribution to the global economy constitute a neglected topic in this field. Introducing the role of money as an obvious border-crossing element, this paper first of all raises methodological concerns. The main question is to what extent the understanding of international organisations as border-crossing versions of national associations overlooked crucial functions of the international institutions. Taking the Bank for International Settlements as an example, the approach asks whether international organisations represent a specific form of porosity within the international system, an idea that is constantly and inevitably locked in a struggle with historical forms of nationalism and methodological nationalism in modern historiography.