Ownership and conditionality in IMF-supported programs: Back to Per Jacobsson’s time

Using a historical case study this article provides an example of how heterogeneity of interests within a government may affect the interplay between country ownership of reforms and conditionality in IMF-supported programs. The case study also highlights how pro-reformers’ preferences may be conditional on reforms advancing their personal agendas. This suggests a new issue to be addressed by formal models of conditionality. Two main themes emerge from the analysis: (a) the importance of a clear hierarchy to unify heterogeneous interests among decision makers; and, (b) a flexible country-tailored approach to conditionality can contribute to domestic ownership of reforms.

普惠制的法律困境与未来之路

普惠制在GATT/WTO框架内的法律地位由GATT1971年的“豁免决定”和1979年的“授权条款”予以确立。因这两项法律文件缺乏约束性条款且无争端解决办法,为GSP在GATT／WTO框架内的推行所引发的法律争议埋下隐患。“印度诉欧盟关税优惠案”折射出的普惠制法律困境主要有：GSP项目的可诉性、“授权条款”与最惠国待遇原则的关系、GSP法律文件中“普遍的”、“非互惠”和“非歧视”要求与发达国家“有差别”、“有条件”地实施GSP间的矛盾。     

'Good Governance': The Rise and Decline of a Policy Metaphor?

This study aims to explore the conditions under which the criterion of 'good governance' first became adopted as a donor policy metaphor and now seems likely to get eclipsed. Why did it emerge at the time it did, and what, since then, has been its track record? Particular attention will be given in this regard to successive shifts in the relevant policy thinking within the World Bank. Moreover, the study discusses whether good governance is likely to keep drawing the same level of attention as it has done hitherto.     

Compliance and non-compliance as sources of recognition: Slovakia and NATO

This article argues that there is a difference in what constitutes the sources of recognition prior to countries' membership in the Euro-Atlantic community represented by NATO and after countries become its members. While prior to membership, countries are recognized for their compliance with NATO standards and policies, upon membership countries get the opportunity to promote specific interests legitimately and may seek recognition via non-compliance with NATO mainstream.The paper explores this dynamic of recognition on the issue of Kosovo independence where Slovakia went from supporting NATO in its effort to protect civilians in Kosovo in the late 1990s to non-recognition of Kosovo in defiance of the majority of NATO member states less than a decade later. The crucial point proposed here is that there was a shift in how recognition by NATO worked prior to Slovakia's membership and upon membership in these frameworks. While prior to membership recognition was achieved by compliance and identification with NATO standpoints, policies and actions, upon membership, recognition is achieved by differentiation from these patterns. More generally, the study shows that NATO membership is a powerful source of conditionality in relation to future members and a powerful source of legitimacy in relation to current members' actions. While this has been discussed in the literature, the point here is that recognition in its various forms is an important driving force in these conditionality processes.     

IMF conditionality: An approach based on the theory of special interest politics

Financial assistance provided by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other International Financial Institutions (IFIs) aims to help member countries reduce their economic policy distortions. Because these distortions are endogenously generated, it is important to understand how IFI assistance interacts with the domestic political economy. In this paper, we review recent models of IFI conditional assistance that are based on the theory of special interest politics (Grossman and Helpman 2001). In these models, governments adopt inefficient economic policies and instruments because of lobbying by interest groups. IFI assistance helps reduce these inefficiencies, at least under perfect and symmetric information, and provided IFIs are representative of the general public in creditor and debtor countries. Factors limiting the effectiveness of conditional assistance as an incentive system are also identified. These are related to information asymmetries, the potential for political instability in debtor countries, and the IFIs’ own financial solvency.

IMF programs and human rights, 1981–2003

We examined the effects of International Monetary Fund (IMF) supervised programs on changes in government respect for physical integrity rights in developing countries between 1981 and 2003. A longer period under an IMF program increased government use of torture and extra judicial killing and also worsened the overall human rights conditions in developing countries. The use of a two-stage model ruled out the possibility that human rights practices would have worsened even if IMF programs had not been in effect. Previous studies of the impacts of IMF programs also found that they had worsened government respect for human rights. However, those studies did not control for the effects of selection. We found preliminary evidence that the worsened human rights conditions persisted even after the reforms in program lending of the late 1990s.

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Eastern and Western Perceptions on EU Aid in Light of the Arab Spring

The European Union welcomed the demonstrators’ demands wholeheartedly during the Arab Spring, trying to maximize the assistance that it could offer to support genuine democratic transition, at least at a rhetorical level. This article reflects on the changes in the neighborhood policy by focusing on public perceptions measured in Europe and in countries in close proximity to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. European views on solidarity are compared to local public opinion on EU involvement in the region. Recipient views in Jordan, Egypt, Palestine, and Israel are explored by analyzing relevant results of the Arab Barometer and Neighborhood Barometer surveys. Findings indicate that the Middle Eastern public opinion tends to appreciate the EU’s gestures with the exception of Egypt, but conditionality is more in line with European public opinion.     

Turkey and the IMF: A case study in the political economy of policy implementation

Research into IMF program implementation has usually taken the form of large sample regression analyses. A more detailed explanation is offered in this paper through a case study of program implementation in Turkey between 1999 and 2004. Our research is based on a series of in-depth interviews with policy makers, program negotiators, bureaucrats, interest groups and IMF personnel. Our results reinforce hypotheses that emerge from the theory of implementation and the large sample econometric work, but they also offer new and enhanced explanations. Program implementation depends on a range of factors which interact with one another. These include domestic political economy factors, such as the importance of special interest groups, political cohesiveness and program ownership by the government and the IMF, but also other idiosyncratic factors such as, in the case of Turkey, the existence of a crisis, the desire to join the EU and the role of influential technocrats. Our research has implications for the design of IMF programs.

The institutional failures of International Monetary Fund conditionality

The purpose of this paper is to propose an analytical framework integrating the diverse explanations of the failure of IMF conditionality. The IMF is a key player in the running of markets in a global economy. The institutional failures of IMF conditionality are appreciated at two complementary levels: (a) its intrinsic bureaucratic bias, and (b) the inability of the IMF to manage the institutional change required for the development of market processes. A new approach of conditionality suggests the separation of the role of the IMF as financial backer from its role as adviser to countries confronted by the globalization process.