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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

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  • Liam Clegg

Abstract

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. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012

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  • Liam Clegg, 2012. "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," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 7(3), pages 285-308, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:revint:v:7:y:2012:i:3:p:285-308
    DOI: 10.1007/s11558-011-9133-6
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    Cited by:

    1. Martin Koch, 2012. "International Organizations in Development and Global Inequality: the Example of the World Bank's Pension Policy," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2012-103, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    2. Koch, Martin, 2012. "International Organizations in Development and Global Inequality: The Example of the World Bank's Pension Policy," WIDER Working Paper Series 103, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    IMF; International organizations; Executive board; Executive directors; Concessional lending; D73; F33; F55;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
    • F33 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Monetary Arrangements and Institutions
    • F55 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy - - - International Institutional Arrangements

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