Promising Avenues, False Starts and Dead Ends: Global Governance and Development Finance in the Wake of the Crisis

Grabel addresses three related questions. How is the crisis affecting the governance of the IMF and the influence that developing countries have within the institution; the policy space available to developing countries; and the prospects that alternative financial architectures will emerge as competitors or complements to the Fund? At this point it appears that IMF practice on capital controls has changed partly as a consequence of the crisis, that relatively autonomous developing countries are taking advantage of the policy space that has emerged, and that the global financial architecture is becoming more heterogeneous and multi-nodal. Developing countries do not yet enjoy more formal influence at the IMF as a consequence of the crisis. However, it is premature to conclude now that the formal and informal influence of developing countries will not increase in the coming years.