The trojan horse of sovereign debt

This article analytically attends to the question: ‘what gets activated through’ the regime of sovereign debt today. Beyond the headlines of loans, debt, debt relief, restructuring, default and other terms of the trade, what is it that gets activated through creditor–debtor relations in the Global South? Four answers are set out: extortion and subordination in the guise of official credit; legal construction of an apolitical economy; austerity as a technique of social and political control; and lastly, as part of a quartet of forevering reign by debt, reversing social rights expectations and permanently embedding poverty. The explanation for the mystery of an unfathomable economic logic is that there must be a different scheme at work.