The High Politics of IMF Lending

1999 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Strom C. Thacker
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Alignment Position ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
Political Realignment ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Political Alignment ◽  
The International Monetary Fund ◽  
The Imf

Analysts have long suspected that politics affects the lending patterns of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but none have adequately specified or systematically tested competing explanations. This paper develops a political explanation of IMF lending and tests it statistically on the developing countries between 1985 and 1994. It finds that political realignment toward the United States, the largest power in the IMF, increases a country's probability of receiving an IMF loan. A country's static political alignment position has no significant impact during this period, suggesting that these processes are best modeled dynamically. An analysis of two subsamples rejects the hypothesis that the IMF has become less politicized since the end of the cold war and suggests that the influence of politics has actually increased since 1990. The behavior of multilateral organizations is still driven by the political interests of their more powerful member states.

scholarly journals The West’s Teeth: IMF Conditionality During the Cold War

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ariel Kessel Akerman ◽  
Leonardo Weller ◽  
Joao Paulo Pessoa
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Monetary Fund ◽  
Strong Evidence ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Pressure ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Communist Countries ◽  
The International Monetary Fund ◽  
The Imf

Was the International Monetary Fund (IMF) susceptible to political pressure from the United States and its Western allies during the Cold War? To answer this question, we construct a new database containing the number of conditions applied to over 500 IMF loans since 1970 and analyze how the distance from a borrowing country to its closet communist neighbor affected the IMF conditionality. We show that the fund imposed fewer conditions on loans to countries geographically closer to the communist bloc. Results are stronger when neighboring communist countries were not part of the Warsaw Pact. This pattern persisted during the 1990s, when the fund helped former communist countries in their transition to market economies. However, we find no strong evidence of such discretionary treatment by the IMF after 2001, when thecontainment of communism had ceased to be the West’s top priority.

‘There shall be no musical servitude’: Towards a Multitudinous Shostakovich in the West

2020 ◽  
Vol 145 (2) ◽  
pp. 495-505
Author(s):  
EIRINI DIAMANTOULI
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Musical Style ◽  
The West ◽  
Political Views ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cold War

Ideologically motivated attempts to elucidate Shostakovich’s political views and to determine whether and how they may be coded into his compositions have come to characterize the Western reception of the composer’s works since his death in 1975. Fuelled by the political oppositions of the cold war, Shostakovich’s posthumous reputation in the West has been largely shaped by two conflicting perspectives. These have positioned him on the one hand as a secret dissident, bent and broken under the unbearable strain of totalitarianism, made heroic through his veiled musical resistance to Communism; and on the other hand as a composer compromised by his capitulation to the regime – represented in an anachronistic musical style. Both perspectives surrender Shostakovich and his music to a crude oversimplification driven by vested political interests. Western listeners thus conditioned are primed to hear either the coded dissidence of a tragic victim of Communist brutality or the sinister submission of a ‘loyal son of the Communist Party’.1 For those prepared to accept Shostakovich as a ‘tragic victim’, the publication of his purported memoirs in 1979, ‘as related to and edited by’ the author Solomon Volkov, presents a tantalizing conclusion: bitterly yet discreetly scornful of the Stalinist regime, Shostakovich was indeed a secret dissident and this dissidence was made tangible in his music.

Israel's Moment

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Herf
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Jewish State ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
New Research ◽  
The Cold War

Israel's Moment is a major new account of how a Jewish state came to be forged in the shadow of World War Two and the Holocaust and the onset of the Cold War. Drawing on new research in government, public and private archives, Jeffrey Herf exposes the political realities that underpinned support for and opposition to Zionist aspirations in Palestine. In an unprecedented international account, he explores the role of the United States, the Arab States, the Palestine Arabs, the Zionists, and key European governments from Britain and France to the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Poland. His findings reveal a spectrum of support and opposition that stood in sharp contrast to the political coordinates that emerged during the Cold War, shedding new light on how and why the state of Israel was established in 1948 and challenging conventional associations of left and right, imperialism and anti-imperialism, and racism and anti-racism.

Chilean Copper and U.S. Companies

2020 ◽  
pp. 97-117
Author(s):  
Sebastián Hurtado-Torres
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Democratic Government ◽  
Chilean Copper ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The U.S

This chapter focuses on the role of copper policies in the relations between the United States and Chile during the Frei administration, especially as they relate to the developmental efforts of the Christian Democratic project. During the Frei administration, the political debate on copper policies reached a climax. Since U.S. capitals were among the most significant actors in the story, the discussions around the issue of copper converged with the ideological visions of the United States and the Cold War held by the different Chilean political parties. As the Frei administration tried to introduce the most comprehensive and consistent reform around the structure of the property of the Gran Minería del Cobre, the forces in competition in the arena of Chilean politics stood by their ideological convictions, regarding both copper and the United States, in their opposition or grudging support for the policies proposed by the Christian Democratic government. Moreover, the U.S. government became deeply involved in the matter of copper in Chile, first by pressuring the Chilean government into rolling back a price increase in 1965 and then, mostly through the personal efforts of Ambassador Edward Korry, by mediating in the negotiation between the Frei administration and Anaconda on the nationalization of the U.S. company's largest mine, Chuquicamata, in 1969.

Linkage Politics

2019 ◽  
pp. 290-316
Author(s):  
Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
The United States ◽  
Soviet Policy ◽  
Issue Linkage ◽  
Cross Domain ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
The Cold War

Most discussions of cross-domain deterrence focus on variation in the means of coercion, but variation in political ends can be just as consequential. Cross-domain deterrence in the context of linkage politics, in which disparate political interests are tied together to create incentives for favorable outcomes, gives potential adversaries the opportunity to avoid confrontational meeting engagements by playing for time to clarify interests and choosing the means most suited to achieving new goals. A broader diplomatic conception of cross-domain deterrence can also highlight the potential of using financial, institutional, or other nonmilitary actions that render the threat or use of force less attractive. This chapter draws on newly available archival evidence to examine issue linkage politics in the context of changing strategic interests in the case of U.S. efforts to deter Soviet repression in Poland and East Germany at the end of the Cold War. In both cases, U.S. policymakers used diplomatic reassurance and threats of isolation to shape Soviet policy as the United States pressed its new-found political interests in Eastern Europe rather than its traditional preoccupation with military affairs.

Latin America between the Second World War and the Cold War: Some Reflections on the 1945–8 Conjuncture

1988 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leslie Bethell ◽  
Ian Roxborough
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Second World War ◽  
The Political ◽  
Postwar Period ◽  
World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World

The importance of the years of political and social upheaval immediately following the end of the Second World War and coinciding with the beginnings of the Cold War, that is to say, the period from 1944 or 1945 to 1948 or 1949, for the history of Europe (East and West), the Near and Middle East, Asia (Japan, China, South and East Asia), even Africa (certainly South Africa) in the second half of the twentieth century has long been generally recognised. In recent years historians of the United States, which had not, of course, been a theatre of war and which alone among the major belligerents emerged from the Second World War stronger and more prosperous, have begun to focus attention on the political, social and ideological conflict there in the postwar period – and the long term significance for the United States of the basis on which it was resolved. In contrast, except for Argentina, where Perón's rise to power has always attracted the interest of historians, the immediate postwar years in Latin America, which had been relatively untouched by, and had played a relatively minor role in, the Second World War, remain to a large extent neglected. It is our view that these years constituted a critical conjuncture in the political and social history of Latin America just as they did for much of the rest of the world. In a forthcoming collection of case studies, which we are currently editing, the main features of the immediate postwar period in Latin America, and especially the role played by labour and the Left, will be explored in some detail, country by country.1In this article, somewhat speculative and intentionally polemical, we present the broad outlines of our thesis.

US-Italian Relations

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leopoldo Nuti ◽  
Daniele Fiorentino
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
World War I ◽  
Strong Relationship ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
Cultural Economic ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Political Alignment

Relations between Italy and the United States have gone through different stages, from the early process of nation-building during the 18th and the 19th centuries, to the close diplomatic and political alignment of the Cold War and the first two decades of the 21st century. Throughout these two and a half centuries, relations between the two states occasionally experienced some difficult moments—from the tensions connected to the mass immigration of Italians to the United States at the end of the 19th century, to the diplomatic clash at the Versailles Peace Conference at the end of World War I, culminating with the declaration of war by the Fascist government in December 1941. By and large, however, Italy and the United States have mostly enjoyed a strong relationship based on close cultural, economic, and political ties.

International relations in Spanish physics from 1900 to the Cold War

2002 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joséé M. Sáánchez-Ron
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Civil War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Physical Sciences ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Cold War

This paper studies the tactics developed in Spain to improve the country's scientific capacity over most of the 20th century. Early in the 20th century, Spain sought to raise its low scientific standing by establishing relations with foreign scientists. The tactics changed according to the political situation. The first part of the paper covers the period from 1900 to the Civil War (1936-39); the second examines consequences of the conflict for physical scientists in Spain; and the third analyzes the growth of physical sciences in Franco's Spain following the Civil War, a period in which the United States exerted special influence.

A crise do último império: a Guerra Fria e as décadas finais do colonialismo português (1945-1975)

Diálogos ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 126
Author(s):  
Adriano De Freixo
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
The Political ◽  
International Capital ◽  
Colonial Policy ◽  
Colonial Empire ◽  
Financial Interests ◽  
Portuguese Colonialism ◽  
The Cold War

A partir dos anos 1950, no auge do processo de descolonização afro-asiática, Portugal sofreu diversas pressões internacionais devido à sua política colonial. Marcado historicamente por sua debilidade econômica, o país havia implementado um modelo colonialista baseado na abertura de seus domínios ultramarinos à atuação do capital internacional, em um modelo de colonialismo dependente. Este fato, aliado aos interesses estratégicos dos EUA e da OTAN, no contexto da Guerra Fria, fez com que as grandes potências acabassem esvaziando as pressões contrárias ao colonialismo português. Assim, apesar da política isolacionista implementada pelo regime salazarista e da condenação da opinião pública internacional, os interesses econômicos e financeiros das grandes potências e as determinações político-estratégicas da conjuntura internacional acabaram por garantir alguma sobrevida ao Império Colonial Luso até meados da década de 1970. Abstract The crisis of the last empire: the Cold War and the final decades of Portuguese colonialism (1945-1975) From the 1950s onwards, at the height of the process of Afro-Asian decolonization, Portugal underwent various international pressures due to its colonial policy. Historically marked by its economic weakness, the country had implemented a dependent colonialist model based on the opening of its overseas domains to the international capital. In addition, the strategic interests of the United States and NATO within the context of the Cold War resulted in a deflation of the pressures against Portuguese colonialism by the great powers. Hence, despite the isolationist policy implemented by the Salazar regime and the condemnation of colonialism by international public opinion, the economic and financial interests of the great powers, as well the political and strategic constraints of the international conjuncture, granted the survival to the Portuguese Colonial Empire until the mid-1970s. Resumen La crisis del último imperio: la Guerra Fría y las últimas décadas del colonialismo portugués (1945-1975) Desde la década de 1950, en el apogeo del proceso de descolonización africano-asiática, Portugal sufrió varias presiones internacionales debido a su política colonial. Marcado históricamente por su debilidad económica, el país había implementado un modelo colonialista basado en la apertura de sus dominios de ultramar a la actuación del capital internacional, en un modelo de colonialismo dependiente. Este hecho, junto con los intereses estratégicos de los EE.UU. y la OTAN en el contexto de la Guerra Fría, hizo que las grandes potencias acabaran por vaciar las presiones contra el colonialismo portugués. Así, a pesar de la política aislacionista implementada por el régimen salazarista y la condena por la opinión pública internacional, los intereses económicos y financieros de las grandes potencias y las determinaciones político-estratégicas de la coyuntura internacional acabaron por garantizar alguna sobrevida al Imperio Colonial Luso hasta mediados de la década de 1970

Anglo-American Primacy and the Global Spread of Democracy: An International Genealogy

2012 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 341-373 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Narizny
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
The Past ◽  
Global Spread ◽  
Great Power Politics ◽  
American Primacy ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The Cold War

For the past three centuries, Great Britain and the United States have stood in succession at the apex of the international hierarchy of power. They have been on the winning side of every systemic conflict in this period, from the War of the Spanish Succession to the Cold War. As a result, they have been able to influence the political and economic development of states around the world. In many of their colonies, conquests, and clients, they have propagated ideals and institutions conducive to democratization. At the same time, they have defeated numerous rivals whose success would have had ruinous consequences for democracy. The global spread of democracy, therefore, has been endogenous to the game of great power politics.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document