How Global Institutions Shape Our World | Annelise Riles | Associate Provost for Global Affairs and a Professor of Law and Anthropology at Northwestern University | Season 13 Episode 1 | #222

In this episode, I sit down with Annelise Riles, Executive Director of the Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs and Professor of Law and Anthropology at Northwestern University, to explore the often invisible architecture that underpins global financial and legal systems. We discuss how institutions, regulations, and professional networks shape markets in ways that are rarely visible to the public but deeply consequential for economic life. Annelise brings an anthropological lens to finance, helping unpack how expertise, documents, and bureaucratic practices function as the infrastructure of global capitalism.Our conversation moves beyond surface-level critiques of markets and into the structural logic of how financial governance actually operates. We examine what financial crises reveal about institutional fragility, how reform efforts often miss the deeper cultural and professional norms embedded in systems, and why understanding the social life of regulation is essential for meaningful change. Annelise challenges the idea that markets are purely technical systems, showing instead how they are constructed through relationships, shared assumptions, and legal design.What stayed with me most is the recognition that institutions are not abstract forces. They are built by people, sustained by habits of expertise, and shaped by cultural expectations. If we want to rethink global governance or economic reform, we must first understand the hidden architecture that holds these systems together. This episode invites listeners to look beneath the surface of markets and consider the deeper institutional dynamics at work.Annelise Riles:- https://www.law.northwestern.edu/faculty/profiles/anneliseriles/Chapters:00:00 – Introduction02:15 – Annelise Riles’ Path into Law and Anthropology07:10 – The Anthropology of Financial Systems12:40 – How Global Financial Governance Actually Works18:20 – Documents, Expertise, and Institutional Practice24:05 – Financial Crises and Institutional Fragility29:50 – Why Reform Efforts Often Fall Short35:30 – The Cultural Life of Regulation41:00 – Markets as Social Constructions46:25 – Rethinking Global Governance52:10 – The Role of Interdisciplinary Thinking57:30 – Closing Reflections