When US authorities closed the gold window and later perfected sanctions that could push entire countries out of core payment networks, they demonstrated that the monetary order is not just about exchange rates or inflation. It is about who owns the pipes, writes the standards, and controls access. De-Dollar Design shows how a world built around the dollar's infrastructures is now being quietly re-engineered through central bank digital currencies, regional platforms, and new forms of clearing and settlement.
Priya Nadkar-Jain guides readers through the plumbing of payment clearinghouses, correspondent banks, messaging systems, and cross-border corridors, explaining how design choices in these systems create political leverage as well as efficiency. She then examines why states experiment with cbdc corridors, alternative networks, and reserve strategies to reduce exposure to sanctions and legal risk, and how these moves interact with entrenched dollar dominance. Drawing on history, institutional analysis, and contemporary experiments, the book distinguishes symbolic gestures from structural change, and shows where genuine shifts in the international monetary system are taking place.
Written for students of international political economy, policy analysts, central bank and finance professionals, and globally engaged readers, De-Dollar Design offers a method rather than a forecast. Readers come away able to map any payment proposal, identify who controls settlement and data, and judge whether new architectures will reduce vulnerability or merely rearrange dependencies. In an era when financial infrastructures are becoming sites of contestation and experimentation, this book provides a clear, durable lens for understanding how monetary design functions as a form of geopolitical strategy.
