The International Monetary Fund and the Chilean Chicago Boys, 1973–7: Cold Ties between Warm Ideological Partners

2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 179-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Kedar
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
International Monetary Fund ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Modus Operandi ◽  
Member States ◽  
Augusto Pinochet ◽  
Fruitful Cooperation ◽  
The International Monetary Fund ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
The Imf

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.

Argentina's Bargaining with the IMF

1987 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 55-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kendall W. Stiles
Keyword(s):  
International Monetary Fund ◽  
Political Connections ◽  
Member States ◽  
Political Perspective ◽  
The World ◽  
The International Monetary Fund ◽  
The Imf ◽  
Adjustment Programs

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently published a pamphlet on the question of whether the IMF, as an institution, imposes austerity on debtors. The response focused on the second half of the question and argued that IMF adjustment programs were, in fact, not systematically austere. However, from a political perspective, the first half of the question is much more provocative. Does the IMF “impose” its will on member states, and, if so, how? Many have argued i that, by virtue of its political connections with the financial centers of the world and its intellectual sophistication, the so-called “negotiations” which debtor nations conduct with Fund staff, prior to the drafting of an agreement on lending conditions, is little more than an exercise in coercion on the part of the Fund.

Salvador Allende and the International Monetary Fund, 1970–1973: TheDepoliticisationandTechnocratisationof Cold War Relations

2015 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 717-747 ◽  
Author(s):  
CLAUDIA KEDAR
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Monetary Fund ◽  
Salvador Allende ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
High Degree ◽  
The International Monetary Fund ◽  
The Imf

AbstractThis 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.

The International Monetary Fund, Party System Institutionalization, and Protest in Latin America

2016 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 26-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergio Béjar ◽  
Juan Andrés Moraes
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
International Monetary Fund ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Party System ◽  
Theoretical Argument ◽  
Anecdotal Evidence ◽  
Main Hypothesis ◽  
Sponsored Programs ◽  
Party System Institutionalization ◽  
The International Monetary Fund

AbstractExtant studies have documented a positive correlation between country participation in International Monetary Fund–sponsored programs and collective protests in Latin America. However, anecdotal evidence indicates that there is a great deal of variation in the number of protests in recipient countries across the region. This article provides a theoretical argument that explains how the fund interacts with the level of party system institutionalization to affect the level of protest. The main prediction is that the level of protest decreases in recipient countries when the level of party system institutionalization is high. Empirical results from a sample of 16 Latin American democracies observed from 1982 to 2007 provide strong statistical and substantive support for the main hypothesis.

Labor and Resistance to the International Monetary Fund

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dustin Walcher
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
International Monetary Fund ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Social Lives ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The International Monetary Fund ◽  
The Imf

Since the immediate post–World War II era, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has played a leading role in the political, economic, and social lives of Latin Americans. Its role has evolved from the Bretton Woods era of the postwar period, through the era of the Washington Consensus, and into the post-2008 crisis period. However, throughout those times the institution served as the enforcement instrument for orthodox economic policies within the liberal international order. It conditioned emergency lending to countries in economic distress on the implementation of austere economic policies. The region’s workers consistently bore the costs of the IMF’s prescribed policies. Such policies resulted in fewer public-sector jobs, reductions in welfare state benefits, and increased levels of foreign involvement in national economies. Consequently, the IMF became the subject of frequent labor protests. Workers understood the key role the IMF played in devising the policies that caused them pain and often took steps to resist. Although the IMF’s effects on the working class are well understood within Latin America, it has not been the subject of sustained historical analysis. To understand the dynamics of the region’s political economy, historians should focus on the IMF to a degree similar to that of economists and political scientists. More specifically, the relationship between the IMF and Latin American workers is ripe for sustained analysis across disciplinary boundaries.

scholarly journals Taming the Tiger: Voting Rights and Political Instability in Latin America

2004 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josep M. Colomer
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Formal Model ◽  
Political Instability ◽  
Voting Rights ◽  
Historical Survey ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Different Levels

AbstractThis article discusses the relationship between certain institutional regulations of voting rights and elections, different levels of electoral participation, and the degree of political instability in several Latin American political experiences. A formal model specifies the hypotheses that sudden enlargements of the electorate may provoke high levels of political instability, especially under plurality and other restrictive electoral rules, while gradual enlargements of the electorate may prevent much electoral and political innovation and help stability. Empirical data illustrate these hypotheses. A historical survey identifies different patterns of political instability and stability in different countries and periods, which can be compared with the adoption of different voting rights regulations and electoral rules either encouraging or depressing turnout.

scholarly journals Practising what they Preach: Did the IMF and Iceland Exercise Good Governance in their Relations 2008-2011?

2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hjálti Ómar Ágústsson ◽  
Rachael Lorna Johnstone
Keyword(s):  
International Monetary Fund ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
The Past ◽  
The International Monetary Fund ◽  
The Imf

Between September 2008 and August 2011, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Iceland were engaged in cooperation under a stand-by agreement involving a loan from the IMF to Iceland of over 2bn USD. The IMF is one of a number of major international institutions that has been increasing its emphasis on good governance over the past two decades, in particular, emphasising the need for improved governance in debtor countries. In this paper, the authors review the extent to which principles of good governance were exercised in the interaction between the IMF and Iceland within the context of the stand-by programme.

scholarly journals Adding Fuel to Fire: How IMF demands for austerity will drive up inequality worldwide

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nona Tamale
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
International Monetary Fund ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Uneven Distribution ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Global Institutions ◽  
Briefing Paper ◽  
The International Monetary Fund ◽  
The Imf

The COVID-19 pandemic has dealt a huge blow to every country, and many governments have struggled to meet their populations’ urgent needs during the crisis. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has stepped in to offer extra support to a large number of countries during the pandemic. However, Oxfam’s analysis shows that as of 15 March 2021, 85% of the 107 COVID-19 loans negotiated between the IMF and 85 governments indicate plans to undertake austerity once the health crisis abates. The findings in this briefing paper show that the IMF is systematically encouraging countries to adopt austerity measures once the pandemic subsides, risking a severe spike in already increased inequality levels. A variety of studies have revealed the uneven distribution of the burden of austerity, which is more likely to be shouldered by women, low-income households and vulnerable groups, while the wealth of the richest people increases. Oxfam joins global institutions and civil society in urging governments worldwide and the IMF to focus their energies instead on a people-centred, just and equal recovery that will fight inequality and not fuel it. Austerity will not ‘build back better’.

Selected Decisions and Selected Documents of the International Monetary Fund, Forty First Issue Supplement

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Monetary Fund ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Executive Board ◽  
Second Amendment ◽  
Board Of Governors ◽  
The International Monetary Fund ◽  
Frequent Reference ◽  
Made In ◽  
The Imf

This volume is the Forty-First Issue of Selected Decisions and Selected Documents of the IMF. It includes decisions, interpretations, and resolutions of the Executive Board and the Board of Governors of the IMF, as well as selected documents, to which frequent reference is made in the current activities of the IMF. In addition, it includes certain documents relating to the IMF, the United Nations, and other international organizations. As with other recent issues, the number of decisions in force continues to increase, with the decision format tending to be longer given the use of summings up in lieu of formal decisions. Accordingly, it has become necessary to delete certain decisions that were included in earlier issues, that is, those that only completed or called for reviews of decisions, those that lapsed, and those that were superseded by more recent decisions. Wherever reference is made in these decisions and documents to a provision of the IMF’s Articles of Agreement or Rules and Regulations that has subsequently been renumbered by, or because of, the Second Amendment of the Fund’s Articles of Agreement (effective April 1, 1978), the corresponding provision currently in effect is cited in a footnote.

From IMF Poster Child to Wayward Student

2019 ◽  
pp. 185-193
Author(s):  
Jerome Roos
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Monetary Fund ◽  
Financial System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fiscal Discipline ◽  
Enforcement Mechanism ◽  
International Financial System ◽  
The International Monetary Fund ◽  
The Imf

This chapter considers why the International Monetary Fund (IMF) did it not prevent Argentina's record default of 2001. It suggests that the IMF was both unable and unwilling to stop it. While the second enforcement mechanism of conditional IMF lending was initially fully operative, helping to enforce Argentina's compliance in the first years of the crisis, the outcome of the megaswap greatly reduced the risk of an Argentine default to the international financial system. Combined with mounting domestic opposition in the United States to further international bailout loans, this greatly weakened the IMF's capacity to impose fiscal discipline on Argentina, eventually leading the Fund to pull the plug on its own bailout program, causing the second enforcement mechanism to break down altogether. The chapter recounts the process through which this breakdown occurred.

Argentina and the IMF in Turbulent Times, 1976–1984

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen C. Nelson
Keyword(s):  
International Monetary Fund ◽  
Sovereign Default ◽  
Military Junta ◽  
Turbulent Times ◽  
Economic Beliefs ◽  
The Military ◽  
The International Monetary Fund ◽  
Economic Policymaking ◽  
The Imf

This chapter examines Argentina's relationship with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) during the period 1976–1984. It tracks Argentina's engagement with the IMF from the arrival of a Fund mission soon after the military junta took power in 1976 through to the economic meltdown in the last months of 2001, which culminated in the withdrawal of IMF support for the country and the largest sovereign default in history to that point. The Argentina-IMF case is used to test the argument linking treatment of borrowers to shared economic beliefs. The chapter first provides an overview of economic policymaking in Argentina in 1976–1981 and in 1991–2001; economic policymaking in the latter period was dominated by neoliberals. It also compares the economic beliefs of neoliberals with those of structuralists and concludes with a discussion of the breakdown in Argentine-IMF relations.

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