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Transforming ‘sympathetic interlocutors’ into veto players

Author

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  • Reinsberg, Bernhard
  • Kern, Andreas
  • Rau-Goehring, Matthias

Abstract

International organizations (IOs) often drive policy change in member countries. Given IOs’ limited political leverage over a member country, previous research argues that IOs rely on a combination of hard pressures (i.e., conditionality) and soft pressures (i.e., socialization) to attain their political goals. Expanding this literature, we hypothesize that IOs can enhance their political leverage through loan conditions aimed at politically empowering ‘sympathetic interlocutors’. Studying this mechanism in the context of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), we argue that through prescribing structural loan conditions on central banks (CBI conditionality), the IMF empowers monetary authorities that can serve as a veto player to the government. Relying on a dataset including up to 124 countries between 1980 and 2012, we find that the IMF’s CBI conditionality correlates to countries with fewer checks and balances, a less independent central bank, and where the government relies more heavily on the monetization of public debt. JEL Classification: E52, E58, F5

Suggested Citation

  • Reinsberg, Bernhard & Kern, Andreas & Rau-Goehring, Matthias, 2021. "Transforming ‘sympathetic interlocutors’ into veto players," Working Paper Series 2518, European Central Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20212518
    Note: 842790
    as

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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    central bank independence; conditionality; International Monetary Fund; international political economy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • F5 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy

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