IMF Part 3: Research Design

This is the final component of my 3 part assignment on the IMF.
You can read part 1 here
You can read part 2 here

The purpose of this research design is threefold.  First, it will review the extensive body of academic literature on the International Monetary Fund (IMF), including a brief provision of context based on my previous research.   The IMF's role in facilitating debt relief and economic reforms will be outlined, paying attention specifically to the role of the IMF in achieving its stated goals of assisting nations experiencing balance of payment problems.  The literature review will also examine the IMF's role in facilitating or interrupting domestic democratic processes, and related concepts of its democratic deficit and lack of transparency, and its role in culture and identity, sovereignty, and human security.  This will be situated within a context of globalization and the changing nature of the state. Further, this research design will develop a research question and hypothesis based on and situated within the current academic context. Finally, it will prepare a fieldwork component to a future research project in order to answer the questions raised by other scholars'
work.  By doing so, this paper will contribute to a growing body of literature on one of the most influential institutions of the globalized world, the IMF.




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IMF Part 1: Research Proposal

You can read part 2 here
You can read part 3 here

The purpose of this paper is to outline the initial details of a research project, focused on the neo-liberal policies outlined in Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine (2008) as Chicago School disaster capitalism, specifically as exemplified by occurrences in Latin America during the 1970s. Briefly, Klein posits that disaster capitalism, then during its infancy, saw a small group of powerful elites imposing unpopular economic reforms (namely deregulation, privatization, and government cutbacks) during times of crisis (such as armed conflict, political coups, or during violent oppression by military juntas) for the benefit of transnational corporations (TNCs). This issue has been chosen because of its close ties with globalization, outlined below, and the often devastating impact these policies have had on both national economies and cultures, as well as the heightening effect on the global North/South divide. This is important to explore both for the sake of those victimized by the policies of a few, but also to underline the need for global governance, finance, and other institutions to include rigorous democratic checks and balances on abuses of power, conditions which are at present glaringly absent.
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IMF Part 2: Institution Report

You can read part 1 here
You can read part 2 here

This institution report will provide an in-depth investigation into the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It seeks to clearly outline the institutional history, purpose, membership, and projects of the IMF, as well as its governance structure and protocols. In the course of this examination, care will be paid to the IMF's complex relationship with the processes of globalization, and how it in turn impacts the institution of the state. In so doing, this will lay the foundation for a successful research design.

The history of the IMF begins with its conception in July 1944 (IMF, 2006). It was during the Bretton Woods meetings that 45 nations agreed to the kind of economic cooperation that would prevent a return to the dangerous protectionist policies of the Great Depression, such as “limiting imports, devaluing ... currencies ... and curtailing their citizens' freedom to buy goods abroad and to hold foreign exchange” (ibid.). Born in December of 1945, the IMF was tasked with ensuring exchange rate stability. The intervening decades have seen it transform itself in response to its growing membership (from an initial 29 member nations to 186 as of the 2009 inclusion of Kosovo) (Kosovo Times, 2009), as well as in response to changing world events, featuring an increased focus on crisis prevention. Initially the IMF made significant loans to industrialized economies, but in recent decades the majority have gone to developing and Newly Industrialized Countries (IMF, 2006).
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