The Politics of Adjustment: Labor and the Venezuelan Debt Crisis

1986 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 103-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer L. McCoy
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
International Monetary Fund ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Debt Crisis ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
The Us ◽  
Rich Nation ◽  
The Wall Street Journal ◽  
Oil Wealth ◽  
The International Monetary Fund

In mid-1985, the US Embassy in Caracas stated that “Venezuela appears to have successfully coped with its financial crisis” (US Embassy, 1985). In January 1986, the Wall Street Journal announced thatVenezuela will become the first country in Latin America to sign a debt-refinancing agreement without mediation by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Its success stands in stark contrast to the situation in another oil-rich nation, Mexico, where the ruling political party has seemed more interested in using the oil wealth to perpetuate the party's power than to secure the country's independence from the IMF (WSJ, 1986).

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.

Der Aufschwung des Katastrophen-Kapitalismus

2006 ◽  
Vol 36 (143) ◽  
pp. 177-183
Author(s):  
Naomi Klein
Keyword(s):  
Natural Disaster ◽  
International Monetary Fund ◽  
Bush Administration ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Government ◽  
The International Monetary Fund

Fitting to its doctrine of preventiv war, the Bush Administration founded a bureau of reconstruction, designing reconstruction plans for countries which are still not destroyed. Reconstruction after war or after a “natural disaster” developed to a profitable branch of capitalist investment. Also the possibilities to change basic political and economic structures are high and they are widely used by the US-government and institutions like the International Monetary Fund.

The Politics of Freeing Markets in Latin America: Chile, Argentina, and Mexico. By Judith A. Teichman. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001. 288p. $55.00 cloth, $19.95 paper.

2002 ◽  
Vol 96 (3) ◽  
pp. 674-675
Author(s):  
Peter Kingstone
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Reform Process ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
Neoliberal Reform ◽  
Chapel Hill ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Societal Participation ◽  
The International Monetary Fund

The politics of neoliberal reform in Latin America has produced a number of impressions that are more or less widely held, but not necessarily entirely accurate. For example, many critics of the neoliberal reform process see it as a creature of Washington and Wall Street—views of economic development imposed on vulnerable, debt-ridden Latin American governments. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank play crucial roles as carriers of the “Washington Consensus” and enforcers of its policy prescriptions. In this view, insulated technocrats—often with U.S. economics degrees—implement these essentially unpopular programs without consultation, oversight, or any societal participation. “Delegative democracy” and populations battered by a decade or more of debt and inflation help explain the extent to which these unelected and unaccountable technocrats have been able to promote this agenda. A narrow electoral coalition, anchored by wealth holders and conservative ideologues, has maintained the political space for these insulated technocrats to continue, despite deep opposition from societal groups such as labor.

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.

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