QoG lunch seminar with Liz David-Barrett

Abstract: 

The IMF’s 2018 Framework for Enhanced Engagement on Governance sets out a much more ambitious and interventionist role for the organisation in tackling corruption around the world. For an ostensibly apolitical organisation with a narrow mandate centred on ensuring macroeconomic stability, this marks a major departure into a highly sensitive policy area. Given the Fund’s considerable clout, exercised through loan conditionality and regular surveillance, in a context of widespread malaise about the ineffectiveness of multilateralism in general and anti-corruption efforts in particular, it is also potentially significant for global efforts to combat corruption. This paper therefore seeks to understand how and why the Fund has adopted this new approach, and to offer insights into the potential implications. Drawing on rationalist and constructivist theories about how change happens in international organisations, the research analyses IMF loan agreements, policies and evaluations, in-country governance diagnostics, and interviews with stakeholders at the Fund and connected institutions to explores the drivers of change.