The Private Governance of a Global Market: the London Corn Trade Association, 1885-1914
Abstract: The First Global Era (1870-1914) was not just about the Royal Navy securing the sea lanes and the Pound sterling towering over the international financial system. Rule Britannia, with all its explicit power relationships, rested as well on a wealth of private rules and self-governed institutions that made global trade possible, and even reasonably secure and stable. While this private side of hegemony has been well identified for a long time, the actual construction of global markets, from a micro-perspective, remains largely unexplored – at least when one looks beyond finance
