Download files
Abstract
This thesis critically examines the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) ‘crisis of legitimacy’. While existing scholarship has engaged with the notion of this crisis of legitimacy, research on the longer-term developments behind this crisis and of the effectiveness of the organisation’s responses to it remains limited. To address this gap in knowledge, this thesis engages with and extends existing literature to shed new light on the development of the IMF’s crisis of legitimacy and the effectiveness of its response. First, drawing on historical institutionalism, a novel account of the origins and nature of the IMF’s legitimacy over time is constructed. The thesis argues that, despite deteriorating conditions from the early 1980s, it was only post 1997 that a true ‘crisis of legitimacy’ emerged. Accordingly, the outbreak of the Asian financial crisis is framed as opening a ‘critical juncture’ that allowed for criticisms of the IMF’s legitimacy to take hold, ushering in questions of the organisation’s right to govern and to make decisions for its member states. Second, to assess the effectiveness of the IMF’s institutional responses to its crisis of legitimacy, two reform programs implemented in the wake of the global financial crisis (GFC) are conceptualised and examined as direct legitimation strategies: the 2010 Quota and Governance reforms and the 2012 Integrated Surveillance Decision. Drawing on in-person interviews with member state representatives, the thesis assesses the responses of large emerging markets to the implementation of these legitimation strategies, as these member states are central to the IMF’s crisis of legitimacy. The thesis argues that the IMF has managed to strengthen its claim to legitimacy through its post-GFC legitimation strategies, particularly the 2010 Quota and Governance reforms. The IMF’s ‘legitimacy discourse’ and top-down cultivation of legitimacy sentiments through the reforms is acutely important in this regard. Accordingly, in taking steps to address legitimacy critiques through the legitimation strategies, the Fund has managed to strengthen the social bases of its structural and ideational legitimacy. Key to the maintenance of this strengthened legitimacy – and, indeed, to achieving a full re-constitution – will be ensuring ongoing reform processes that keep the organisation in line with global economic realities.