(Page 2 of 28) - Getting a Seat at the IMF Executive Board Table: Strategic, Economic, or Bureaucratic Politics? authored by Momani, Bessma.

Introduction

Created in 1944 as part of the post-World War strategy to prevent another Great

Depression, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was ideally meant to coordinate financing
and technical advice to member countries experiencing economic imbalances. Today, however,
the IMF is frequently criticized for its failure to be accountable and legitimate in the eyes of its
own members. Recently, many prominent policymakers across the world have argued that the
IMF’s legitimacy crisis can only be resolved by re-allocating the 24 seats on its Executive Board
in a way that gives greater voice to countries that are seen to be underrepresented. Specific
proposals involve decreasing and consolidating European representation and making the
Executive Directors of Russia, Saudi Arabia, and China- which do not represent any other
members and therefore have sole constituency-free seats- absorb other Fund members in their
constituencies. Ideally, this could free up seats at the Executive Board and allow quota increases
for those deemed underrepresented or unheard: emerging market economies and less developed
countries.

While policy-makers have been discussing how to recompose the Executive Board, little

academic attention has been devoted to this important organ of international monetary decision-
making. Moreover, we have a rich literature on the study of international organizations that has
not been applied to analyze how seats at the IMF Executive Board might be acquired. Three
theoretical schools studying decision-making in international organizations are lead by
bureaucratic organization theories, realist theories, and bridging the two, delegation theories. Are
IMF Executive Board seats determined by bureaucratic considerations, as organizational
theorists would argue, or by strategic power politics, as realists would contend, or by a
combination of external constraints and internal accommodation, as delegation theorists would
purport? The theoretical debate on this issue is lively, with hypothesizing taking place on every
front.

Bureaucratic organization theorists, further inspired by constructivism in political

science, have argued that the IMF staff have intellectual dominance in the institution. IMF staff
play a key role in shaping IMF policies, programs, and ultimately decision-making. The fusion
of constructivism and organizational theories, spearheaded by the multi-case study by Barnett
and Finnemore, has given stronger ontological and purposive value to international
organizations. International organizations are viewed as ‘social contexts’ which have their own
culture, norms, and idiosyncrasies that need to be considered when trying to explain IMF
decision-making. There are ‘unintended consequences’ of IMF staff behaviour that produces
mission creep or ‘dysfunctional behaviour’: policies and decisions that are not necessarily
sanctioned by the IMF Executive Board. The IMF staff can often push forward their own
agendas because they have respected economic expertise. They are in effect ‘in authority’
because the Executive Board has entrusted them with key functions and the staff are also ‘an
authority’ because they create economic knowledge and ideas to which member countries are
receptive.

For a recent review of IMF reform debates, see Eric Helleiner and Bessma Momani, Slipping into

Obscurity: Crisis and Reform at the IMF (Waterloo: Centre for International Governance and Innovation.
2007) and see Edwin Truman, A Strategy for IMF Reform. (Washington, DC: Institute for International
Economics. 2006).

See Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore. Rules for the World: International Organizations in Global