International institutions such as the IMF are strongly influenced by the ideological preferences of officials. A scientific study
It may seem to some that we are discovering hot water, but what we present to you is official scientific evidence that demonstrates how officials of the International Monetary Fund are influenced in their decisions by their personal political inclinations, and therefore like these, and not the the general interest or of the states that are part of the organization govern the world economy.
You can read the complete paper at this address . The title is clear “Biased Bureaucrats and Policies of international Organizations”. Biased bureaucrats and policies of international organizations. The life of peoples in the hands of the prejudices of a group of functional people
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Ideological influence in the IMF: How staff political leanings shape global policies
New research highlights how the individual ideological leanings of International Monetary Fund (IMF) officials significantly influence the organization's policies, challenging the common idea of a purely impartial and technocratic international bureaucracy.
The study reveals that IMF officials, far from being neutral actors, carry with them ideological biases that directly influence the design of loan conditionality policies. In particular, officials with more conservative tendencies show a greater propensity to impose market liberalization conditions on recipient countries. This can be detrimental to the effectiveness of the loans themselves and their implementation.
This ideological heterogeneity manifests itself primarily in the scale, scope and content of conditionalities associated with loans. The IMF assigns responsibility for operations in a borrowing country to a single official, giving him or her wide latitude in designing conditionalities, thus making the impact of personal biases more visible. and this turns out to be a huge problem.
However, the influence of ideological biases is not unlimited. The research highlights how these personal biases emerge mainly in programs of limited relevance to more powerful member states. When the geopolitical and economic interests of major member countries are at stake, officials' decision-making autonomy is significantly reduced.
Implications for global governance. International organizations extension of mainstream ideologies
This phenomenon raises important questions about the governance of international organizations, which are not higher-level bodies, but often just the expression of the prejudices of their officials, who judge based on their own minds. So even crises like that of Greece, if we think about it, were the result of their biases. Other officials would have acted differently.
On the one hand, there is a need to ensure fair and uniform treatment of countries facing similar challenges. On the other hand, excessive oversight could undermine officials' ability to respond effectively to rapidly evolving problems.
The issue of individual accountability in large international organizations remains a significant challenge. How to judge the performance of officials in individual cases? As Joseph Stiglitz, former chief economist of the World Bank, has pointed out, in large organizations it is often difficult to design incentives that lead to individual accountability, even when organizational accountability exists. This can lead to bureaucratic behavior that dilutes individual responsibility into collective responsibility.
So, in the end, large organizations are still made up of people who judge based on their own personal ideas. Cases like Argetina or Greece could have had different evolutions if other officials, with different ideas, had been responsible for the cases. This is a very serious fact and makes us understand how entire populations are, literally, in the hands of the prejudices of often mediocre officials.
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The article International institutions such as the IMF are strongly influenced by the ideological preferences of officials. A scientific study comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/le-istituzione-internazionali-come-fmi-sono-fortemente-influenzate-dalle-prefernze-ideologiche-dei-funzionari-uno-studio-scientifico/ on Sun, 10 Nov 2024 12:30:13 +0000.