Seeing like the IMF: Institutional change in small open economies

Broome, André; Seabrooke, Leonard

doi:10.1080/09692290701475346

Cited by 74 publications

(59 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…The archival documents provide a verbatim record of Board discussions, including both the prepared statements and spontaneous comments delivered by Directors. Although previous analyses have drawn heavily on minutes from Executive Board Meetings in support of their arguments (e.g., Clegg 2010a;M o m a n i2010a; Broome and Seabrooke 2007;Calvo-Gonzalez 2007), this article presents the first application of the quantitative 'coding' to the analysis of Board discussions. 13 After collating the EBMs from pre-launch discussions on ESAF, and post-launch reviews during its first decade of operation, I analyzed the documentation to uncover key recurring themes.…”

Section: Bargaining and Arguing In International Organizationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global governance behind closed doors: The IMF boardroom, the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility, and the intersection of material power and norm stabilisation in global politics

Clegg

2011

Rev Int Organ

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Up on the 12th floor of its 19th Street Headquarters, the IMF Board sits in active session for an average of 7 hours per week. Although key matters of policy are decided on in the venue, the rules governing Boardroom interactions remain opaque, resting on an uneasy combination of consensual decision-making and weighted voting. Through a detailed analysis of IMF Board discussions surrounding the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility (ESAF), this article sheds light on the mechanics of power in this often overlooked venue of global economic governance. By exploring the key issues of default liability and loan conditionality, I demonstrate that whilst the Boardroom is a more active site of contestation than has hitherto been recognized, material power is a prime determinant of both Executive Directors' preferences and outcomes reached from discussions. And as the decisions reached form the backbone of the 'instruction sheet' used by Fund staff to guide their everyday operational decisions, these outcomes-and the processes through which they were reached-were factors of primary importance in stabilizing the operational norms at the heart of a controversial phase in the contemporary history of IMF concessional lending.

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Section: Bargaining and Arguing In International Organizationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global governance behind closed doors: The IMF boardroom, the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility, and the intersection of material power and norm stabilisation in global politics

Clegg

2011

Rev Int Organ

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“…For Broome and Seabrooke (2007), the IMF acts mainly as a provider of comparative knowledge for possible policy reform. Lombardi and Woods (Lombardi/Woods 2008) map out several deductively reasoned options concerning how IMF surveillance might convince countries to bring about policy change.…”

Section: Recent Perspectives On the Determinants Of The Rush To Free mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Democratization of political systems reduces the ability of governments to use trade and capital account barriers as a strategy for building support among domestic constituencies and therefore increases the probability of a more open economy (Frye/Mansfield 2004;Martin 2005;Milner/Kubota 2005;Kennedy 2007). Second, other researchers argue that the rise of neoliberal ideas within international financial institutions, especially the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) surveillance power, has forced the liberalization of capital and trade account legislation among IMF member states (Broome/Seabrooke 2007;Chwieroth 2007bChwieroth , 2007aLombardi/ Woods 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

When do Autocracies Start to Liberalize Foreign Trade? Evidence from Four Cases in the Arab World

Richter

2010

SSRN Journal

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“…This latter view is hard to sustain given the substantial differences between major IFIs such as the IMF and the World Bank, despite the 1990s hype of a 'Washington consensus' on economic policy (Bird, 2001;Broad and Kavanagh, 1999). The common tendency of IPE scholars during the past decade and a half to treat the notion of a 'consensus' between the IFIs as given ignores inconvenient empirical evidence that should constantly call into question such expedient charactisations (see Broome and Seabrooke, 2007;Kang, 2007). IPE scholars have too readily accepted as axiomatic the notion that the IMF and the World Bank go about their business by seeking to normatively diffuse or coercively impose a standard set of neoliberal 'Washington consensus' policies in each case.…”

Section: Beyond the Washington Consensus And The Post-washington Consmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Drawing from Scott, how IOs make their member states legible is clearly important in limiting the scope and content of their advice for economic policy reform and institutional change (Barnett and Finnemore, 2004: 67;Broome and Seabrooke, 2007). These effects may be part-and-parcel of the contemporary activities of international organisations (see Li, 2005; on the World Bank, see Neu, et al, 2006; on the OECD, see Dostal, 2004), but they are not manifested in uniform ways.…”

Section: Seeing Like An Iomentioning

confidence: 99%

Seeing like an International Organisation

Broome

Seabrooke²

2012

New Political Economy

Self Cite

121

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International organisations (IOs) often serve as the 'engine room' of ideas for structural reforms at the national level, but how do IOs construct cognitive authority over the forms, processes, and prescriptions for institutional change in their member states? Exploring the analytic institutions created by international organisations provides insights into how they make their member states 'legible', and how greater legibility enables them to construct cognitive authority in specific policy areas which in turn enhances their capacity to influence changes in national frameworks for economic and social governance. By 'seeing like an international organisation' we can increase our understanding of the cognitive and organisational environment that guides an IO's actions and informs its policy advice to states, which enables a more comprehensive picture of how the everyday business of global governance works in practice. Instead of 'black boxing' international organisations, the contributors to this special issue demonstrate how studying IOs from the inside-out expands both our understanding of the policy dialogue between IOs and their member states, as well as how IOs and states learn from each other over time. KeywordsInternational organisations, cognitive authority, global economic governance, economic constructivism How do international organisations (IOs) construct cognitive authority over the forms, process, and prescriptions for institutional change in their member states? This special issue examines this complex question through concentrating on the analytic institutions that shape how IOs 'see' the social environments in which they seek to effect economic reforms and embed particular intellectual frameworks as commonsense solutions to a state's policy problems. The analytic processes through which IOs 'see' different societies and attempt to make them 'legible' through common systems of measurement and benchmarking standards constitute an indirect exercise of political power over distinct social, economic, and political systems, which rests upon the cognitive authority to measure, analyse, and prescribe institutional changes for states that is constructed by -and housed within -IOs themselves. While the processes through which IOs attempt to construct cognitive authority usually operate in the background -and tend to attract

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Seeing like the IMF: Institutional change in small open economies

Cited by 74 publications

References 33 publications

Global governance behind closed doors: The IMF boardroom, the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility, and the intersection of material power and norm stabilisation in global politics

Global governance behind closed doors: The IMF boardroom, the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility, and the intersection of material power and norm stabilisation in global politics

When do Autocracies Start to Liberalize Foreign Trade? Evidence from Four Cases in the Arab World

Seeing like an International Organisation

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