This article unveils the continuous and productive relationship that developed between Chile and the IMF during Salvador Allende's presidency (1970–73). This counter-intuitive relationship was made possible by the systematicdepoliticisationandtechnocratisationof the ties between them. By downplaying ideological discrepancies and keeping a high degree of autonomy, the IMF and Chilean technocrats blurred rigid Cold War divides and circumvented the US-imposed embargo against Allende's regime. The examination of this relationship sheds new light on Allende's positioning in the international arena and provides a unique prism to reconsider dichotomist perceptions of the Cold War in Latin America.
Argentina joined the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) in 1956—ten years later than all other American nations and only one year after President Juan Perón’s overthrow. This fact has led scholars to conclude that Perón refused to join the Fund and Bank because he considered them to be tools of US imperialism. This article reveals that, contrary to populist depictions of Perón, he made significant efforts to make Argentina a member of the IMF and the World Bank. In effect, between 1946 and 1955 Perón conducted intensive and almost continuous negotiations with the IMF’s and World Bank’s most senior officials. During this period of confidential negotiations, Perón’s economic policies became more flexible and liberal.
This article unveils the hitherto overlooked tensions between Chile and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) during the formative years of the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet (from September 1973 to late 1977). This article shows that ideological affinity between the IMF and Pinochet’s economic team of ‘Chicago Boys’ did not necessarily guarantee fruitful cooperation between the parties. The analysis of this intricate relationship sheds new light on the processes of economic neoliberalization that were conducted in Latin America, with different levels of IMF involvement, between the 1970s and the 1990s. By challenging axiomatic and simplistic approaches of IMF–Latin American relations, this article provides a unique prism to reconsider not only the IMF’s motivations and constraints, but also the proactive modus operandi of its borrowing member-states.
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