Neutrality and the International Monetary System

The book advances a clear methodological claim: neutrality cannot be assessed at the level of institutional form or procedural rules but must be understood as an ontological condition of the monetary system itself. It provides a systematic examination of contemporary shifts associated with BRICS expansion and de-dollarisation initiatives.

Neutrality and the International Monetary System develops a new research programme for understanding neutrality, asymmetry, and institutional design in the twenty-first century. Bridging Critical Realism and International Political Economy, it introduces a reformulated Ontological Realism through Ontological Containment Theory, a unified analytical architecture for examining how asymmetries emerge, stabilise, reproduce themselves, and may be better contained within monetary and governance systems. The book reconceptualises neutrality and demonstrates that contemporary monetary tensions within both BRICS and the United States can be understood as differentiated responses to a shared structural condition. Rather than treating these developments as evidence of competing civilisational projects, the analysis explores how they may contribute to the conditions under which greater system-level neutrality becomes possible. The book investigates how structural asymmetry has historically developed, culminating in fiat monetary mechanics, and redefines the “Deep State” as the long-term institutional reproduction of Monetary Ontological Asymmetry, Institutional Egoism, Sovereign Misalignment and Epistemic Closure. The book concludes that concentration need not necessarily produce domination. By rendering the architecture of asymmetry visible, OCT demonstrates how concentration can function procedurally as a mechanism of coordination, benefitting the common good rather than as a vehicle for a few to profit at the expense of the majority. The book will be of interest to scholars and advanced students in international political economy, global governance, international relations, monetary history, decolonisation studies, international law, and contemporary history. It will also be relevant to policy analysts and practitioners engaged in global financial governance and monetary system reform.