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Measuring voting power in an international institution: the United States and the inter-American development bank

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  • Jonathan R. Strand

Abstract

This paper applies a measure of relative voting power to the weighted voting system of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB). Almost all assessments of internal governance of the IADB and other international financial institutions make reference to members' votes as a proxy for relative influence. But as this paper demonstrates, voting weights are misleading. The number of votes a country has in a weighted voting system does not necessarily denote its ability to affect outcomes. The conventional wisdom holds that the United States is omnipotent in the IADB because it has a large number (over 30 percent) of all the votes. This paper reveals that the U.S. obtains much more control over outcomes than originally intended by the institutions' designers. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003

Suggested Citation

  • Jonathan R. Strand, 2003. "Measuring voting power in an international institution: the United States and the inter-American development bank," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 4(1), pages 19-36, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:ecogov:v:4:y:2003:i:1:p:19-36
    DOI: 10.1007/s101010100042
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Elio Londero, 2009. "Some Implications of Multilateral Financing to the Private Sector without Sovereign Guarantee," ICER Working Papers 08-2009, ICER - International Centre for Economic Research.
    2. Karen Taylor & Craig Tipping & Adam McKissack, 2004. "IMF Quotas, Representation and Governance," Treasury Working Papers 2004-03, The Treasury, Australian Government, revised Nov 2004.
    3. David P. Rapkin & Jonathan R. Strand & Michael W. Trevathan, 2016. "Representation and Governance in International Organizations," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 4(3), pages 77-89.
    4. Mona Lyne & Daniel Nielson & Michael Tierney, 2009. "Controlling coalitions: Social lending at the multilateral development banks," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 4(4), pages 407-433, December.
    5. Freixas, Josep & Kaniovski, Serguei, 2014. "The minimum sum representation as an index of voting power," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 233(3), pages 739-748.
    6. Christopher Kilby, 2006. "Donor influence in multilateral development banks: The case of the Asian Development Bank," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 173-195, June.
    7. Hang Luo & Lize Yang & Kourosh Houshmand, 2021. "Power Structure Dynamics in Growing Multilateral Development Banks: The Case of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 12(1), pages 24-39, February.
    8. Rebecca Ray & Rohini Kamal, 2019. "Can South–South Cooperation Compete? The Development Bank of Latin America and the Islamic Development Bank," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 50(1), pages 191-220, January.
    9. Miles Kellerman, 2019. "The proliferation of multilateral development banks," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 107-145, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Key words: weighted voting; a priori voting power; Inter-American Development Bank; Johnston power index; JEL Classification: F0; C71;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F0 - International Economics - - General
    • C71 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Cooperative Games

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