Another seat at the board: Russia's IMF executive director

International Journal

Volumn 62, Issue 4, 2007, Pages 916-939

  Momani, Bessma ^a,b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO   (Canada)

^b CENTRE FOR INTERNATIONAL GOVERNANCE INNOVATION   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 38849113882     PISSN: 00207020     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/002070200706200411     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (50)

1. Fora recent review of IMF reform debates, see Eric Helleinerand Bessma Momani, Slipping into Obscurity: Crisis and Reform at the IMF (Waterloo: Centre for International Governance and Innovation, 2007);
2. and Edwin Truman, A Strategy for IMF Reform (Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 2006).
3. See Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore, Rules for the World: International Organizations in Global Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004).
4. Bessma Momani, "Limits of streamlining fund conditionality: IMF's organizational culture," Journal of International Relations & Development 8, no. 2 (June 2005).
5. For IMF arguments about the role of the staff and executive board, see Joseph Gold, "Political considerations are prohibited by articles of agreement when the fund considers requests for use of resources," IMF Survey, Washington, DC, 23 May 1983,148.
6. See Stone Thacker, "The high politics of IMF lending," World Politics 52, no. 1 (October 1999): 38-75;
7. Miles Kahler, "The United States and the international monetary: Declining influence or declining interest?" in Margaret P. Karns and Karen A. Mingot, eds., The United States and Multilateral Institutions: Patterns of Changing Instrumentality and Influence (London: Routledge, 1990).
8. Also see Bessma Momani, IMF-Egyptian Debt Negotiations (Cairo: American University of Cairo Press, 2006),
9. and Idem, "American politicization of the International Monetary Fund," Review of International Political Economy 11, no. 5 (December 2004).
10. Erica Gould, "Money talks: Supplementary financiers and international monetary IMF conditionality," International Organization 57, no. 3 (2003): 551-86;
11. Thomas Oatley and Jason Yackee, "American interests and IMF lending," International Politics 41, no. 3 (2004): 415-29;
12. Richard Leaver and Leonard Seabrooke, "Can the IMF be reformed?" in Julie De Los Reyes and Walen Bello, eds., Global Finance (London: Zed Press), 25-35.
13. Darren G. Hawkins, "States, international organizations, and principal-agent theory," in Darren G. Hawkins, David A. Lake, Daniel L. Nielson, and Michael J. Tierney, eds., Delegation and Agency in International Organizations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006);
14. Ngaire Woods, The Globalizes (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006).
15. For an argument on bridge-building efforts, see Daniel L. Nielson, Michael J. Tierney, and Catherine Weaver, "Bridging the rationalist-constructivist divide: Re-engineering the culture of the World Bank," Journal of International Relations and Development 9, no. 2 (2006): 107-39.
16. For an application of delegation theory to IMF surveillance, see Bessma Momani, "IMF surveillance and America's Turkish delight," Perspectives: The Central European Review of International Affairs 27 (winter 2007).
17. See James Boughton, "Transcript of an IMF economic forum: Reforming the IMF: Governance and the executive board," Washington, D.C, 4 November 2005, www.internationalmonetaryfund.org. Quota values based on Edwin Truman, "Rearranging IMF chairs and shares: The sine qua non of IMF reform," Paper presented at the Institute for International Economics conference on IMF reform, 23 September 2006, 19.
18. Johann Prader, "The IMF's role in a changing world and changing markets," Austrian alternate executive director of the International Monetary Fund, luncheon speech given at the International Bankers Forum Luxembourg, 13 October 1999, www.bcl.lu.
19. IMF minutes, executive board meeting 92/85, Washington, DC, 8 July 1992, 3.
20. Raymond Mikesell, "The Bretton Woods debates: A memoir," Essays in International Finance Series 192, Princeton University, 1994, 35-36.
21. Other mentionables: Canada, 400; Australia, 200; Netherlands 275; and Poland, 125. All figures found in Articles of Agreement, Washington, DC, IMF, 1992, 60.
22. This number increased from the 80 percent threshold as the US' share of quota decreased over time, to today's 17 percent of total quota that still gives the United States the only veto power. See Joseph Gold, Voting Majorities in the Fund (Washington, DC: IMF, 1977).
23. For an excellent account of changes at the EB, see Ngaire Woods and Domenico Lombardi, "Uneven patterns of governance: How developing countries are represented in the IMF," Review of International Political Economy (August 2006). Woods and Lombardi have also noted that Russia has remained inactive in cross-coalition groups built at the executive board, 507.
24. "A factsheet: IMF quotas," IMF, Washington, DC, September 2005, www.imf.org; "Report to the IMF executive board of the quota formula review group," IMF, Washington, DC, 28 April 2000.
25. Leo Van Houtven, "Governance of the IMF: Decision making, institutional oversight, transparency, and accountability," pamphlet series no. 53, IMF, Washington, DC, 2002, 5; " A factsheet, IMF quotas."
26. Huw Evans, "The Bretton Woods institutions: A view from the boards," working paper no. 32, London, Centre for Economic Policy Research, July 1997, 10;
27. quoted in James Boughton's Silent Revolution: The International Monetary Fund, 1979-1989 (Washington DC: IMF, 2001), 857.
28. "Selected decisions and selected documents of the International Monetary Fund, 33rd issue," IMF, Washington, DC, 1998, 638-61. As well, see Boughton, Silent revolution;
29. Yoshiko Kojo, "Burden-sharing under US leadership: The case of quota increases of the IMF since the 1970s," in H. Bienen, ed., Power, Economics and Security (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992): 286-308.
30. IMF, "Selected decisions and selected documents," 638-661. One of the final, yet key, members still holding out fund payment was the United States, because congress remained reluctant to appropriate money to the IMF in a critical election year that saw domestic concerns over mounting deficits.
31. Confirmed in a personal interview with a former executive director; see also Rich Miller, "G7 close to deal to get Russia into IMF," Reuters News, 13 February 1992.
32. John Major, John Major: The Autobiography (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1999), 501.
33. See Bush presidential record, national security council memorandum, William Sittmann to Phillip Brady, "Points to be made for bipartisan congressional leadership meeting on i April 1992," 10*21365, 31 March 1992, 4.
34. Confirmed in a personal interview with a former executive director; also see Miller, "G7 close to deal."
35. Both quotes are from the deciphered cable from the US mission in Moscow. See "From American embassy Moscow to secretary of state Washington DC," Moscow, US embassy, declassified cable, 15 April 1992, 15. Senators Kerry and Bradley were in Moscow on the heels of the president's announcement and before the act was tabled in June in the senate.
36. Michel Camdessus, "Executive board minutes," IMF, Washington, DC, 5 February 1992, 92/14, 5. See also Camdessus, "Statement by the managing director on Russia during an informal meeting of the executive board," IMF, Washington, DC, 27 February 1992, 92/36, 1.
37. "Quota calculations of the republics of the former Soviet Union: Methodological issues," memo to the members of the committee of the whole on methodology for quota calculation of the republics of the former Soviet Union, EB/CW/QMethodology/92/1, IMF, Washington, DC, 28 February 1992, 2-4.
38. "Quota calculations," 22, 27, 32.
39. "Statement by the staff representative in response to questions raised by executive directors, committee of the whole on membership for the republics of the former USSR," memo to the members of the committee of the whole on membership for the Republics of the former USSR, EB/CW/QMethodology/92/ 5, IMF, Washington, DC, 26 March 1992, 5.
40. Michel Camdessus, "Economie transformation in the fifteen republics of the Former USSR: A challenge or an opportunity for the world?" Address to Georgetown University school of foreign service, IMF, Washington, DC, 15 April 1992.
41. "The republics of the former Soviet Union: The calculation of increase in quota under the ninth general review," memo to the members of the committee of the whole membership for the republics of the former Soviet Union, EB/CW/QMethodology/92/4, IMF, Washington, DC, 25 March 1992, 2.
42. "Russian Federation: Calculation of quota," memo to the members of the committee of the whole on membership, Russian Federation, EB/CW/QMethodology/92/1, IMF, Washington, DC, 30 March 1992, 6.
43. IMF minutes, committee of the whole on membership, Russian Federation, meeting 92/1-3/31/91, IMF, Washington, DC, 30 March 1992, 3.
44. IMF minutes, 3, 4, 9.
45. I Sickha, "We are exchange the (new) constitution for the government," Komsomolskaya Pravda, 4 April 1992;
46. Pavel Golub, "IMF gives Russian government vote of confidence," Izvestia, 1 April 1992;
47. Mikhail Leontyev, "Russian Federation government's sensational success," Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 2 April 1992,
48. all in Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press, 29 April 1992 vol. XLIV, no 13;
49. Otto Latsis, "Forty seven years late," Izvestia, 28 April 1992,
50. Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press, 27 May 1992, vol. XLIV, no 17.