Drivers of Change: Explaining IMF Low Income Country Reform in the Post Washington Consensus

Through use of rationalist, constructivist, and historical structural theory, this study of IMF Low Income Country (LIC) policy change from 1996 to 2010 identifies potential causal variables and mechanisms that drive contemporary reform in the institution toward its poorest member states. Patterns uncovered through principal-agent analysis suggest that coalition formation between at least two actors is a necessary condition for LIC policy reform. Principal-agent analysis also establishes that discontinuity among powerful states gives IMF management and staff greater openings to initiate or block reform efforts. Constructivist analysis assesses if shifts in thinking among IMF insiders and the broader epistemic community of development economists have causal effect on LIC policy reform. Evidence gathered through process tracing methods shows that reform occurred after economic ideas that underwrote previous policy positions lost legitimacy among influential elites within and outside the IMF. Thus while IMF staff self -identify as rational technocrats, they are also driven by concerns of pursuing what the broader elite community deems as appropriate policy choices. When the boundaries of appropriateness change, we can expect reforms that are consistent with new frames of acceptable policy choices to emerge. Stepping outside of mainstream IR theory, historical structural analysis of IMF reform focuses on the interrelation of contemporary capitalist crisis, hegemony, and inclusive neoliberal development models. Here, the IMF is understood to hold a central role in the creation and perpetuation of the current geopolitical order underwritten by globalizing capitalism. Recent IMF LIC reforms that champion more participation, flexibility, and a nod toward Keynesian practices thus are seen as one component of a broader political project pushed by global elites to undermine potential challenges to the contemporary world order. Evidence gathered through discourse analysis and interviews shows that IMF staff and management were cognizant of growing resistance to Washington Consensus reforms and embraced less coercive and more participatory means to increase LIC buy in into concessionary lending programs. The scope and character of contemporary IMF reforms paralleled similar calls for rethinking how to `do\u27 development among global elites. This suggests that a component of IMF policy response in LICs is tied to a broader political project focused on building a more inclusive and hegemonic form of globalizing capitalism. The juxtaposition of three theoretical frameworks to examine the same phenomenon also provides a platform to evaluate current IR theory focused on IMF reform. Rationalist and positivist oriented constructivist approaches provide clear analytical roadmaps to cut through the complex dynamics found in the IMF, identify potential causal variables and mechanisms, and develop testable predictive hypotheses related to institutional reform. However, if studies of IMF LIC reform rely solely on current mainstream frameworks, explanation and analysis of how Fund policy change is interrelated with shifts and tensions in capitalist social structures and the power relations therein remain unexamined. This proves particularly critical when exploring why certain ideas considered market distorting remained off limits in contemporary IMF debates and how post Washington Consensus reforms reflect attempts by global elites to manage crisis points in the contemporary historical structure. In conclusion, I assess the merits of IMF research open to the use of positivist and historical relational paradigms. Such an approach will not produce one correct answer and suffers at some level from divergent baseline understandings of the social world. However, I maintain that despite this tension, the complexity of that world and processes of change within it merit space for mainstream and critical ontologies. Future studies of the IMF should explore more fully how diverse paths of inquiry can be effectively used to explain policy reform.

Accumulating Risk: Environmental Justice And The History Of Capitalism In Detroit, 1880-2015

This dissertation is an environmental history of Detroit, Michigan from the 19th century to the present. Recent scholarship on the history of capitalism has largely ignored the problem of environmental inequality, and the negative externalities of economic growth. In contrast, studies of the environmental justice movement have richly documented race, class, and gender inequalities in environmental risk exposure. However, they have neglected the relationship between the development of the environmental justice movement and the restructuring of American capitalism since the 1970s, including deindustrialization and the shift to neoliberalism. Bringing these fields together, this dissertation connects Detroit’s long-term economic transformation to the accumulation of environmental health risks in urban neighborhoods. It argues that environmental conflicts in metropolitan Detroit have historically determined who would pay for the negative externalities of industrial and real estate development. Over the course of the 20th century, corporations, real estate developers, and affluent white residents increasingly shifted the environmental costs of regional growth onto working-class and low-income communities of color. Between the Civil War and World War II, Detroit’s industrialization generated massive air, water, and soil pollution. Because of housing and job segregation, African Americans disproportionately paid the costs of this pollution, in the form of lower property values and higher rates of disease. After World War II, the movement of capital out of Detroit enabled manufacturers to reduce regulatory compliance costs, while leaving a legacy of polluted brownfield sites that the city could not afford to clean up. While manufacturers disinvested from Detroit, they used the threat of job loss to divide workers and environmentalists. In response, United Auto Workers (UAW) leaders formed a coalition for “Environmental and Economic Justice and Jobs” with civil rights and environmental groups. In the 1980s, this coalition broke down in the context of ongoing deindustrialization, metropolitan racial segregation and inequality, and the neoliberal restructuring of the United States economy. In the 1990s and 2000s, the decline of industrial unions altered the political economy of environmental justice activism in Detroit. Increasingly, the movement divided into non-profits and organizations based in a shrinking public sector. The dependence of non-profits on private grant funding became problematic in the 2000s, as local foundations began to support a policy of urban triage, as expressed in the 2010 Detroit Works Project and the 2013 Detroit Future City plan. Meanwhile, as Detroit became one of the epicenters of the nation’s subprime mortgage foreclosure crisis, more and more Detroit residents became vulnerable to losing their homes, or their ability to pay water bills. Neoliberal policies of deregulation, privatization, and austerity exacerbated environmental health risks for low-income Detroiters, especially African American women and children. This trend culminated in 2012-2015, when the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department shut off water for over 100,000 residents. From auto manufacturing to subprime lending, processes of capital accumulation in Detroit have produced negative externalities for vulnerable populations. For the majority of Detroiters, this dissertation ultimately argues, the history of capitalism has not been a story of accumulating wealth, but of accumulating risk

The Emergence of Community Radio in the United States: A Historical Examination of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, 1970 to 1990

The National Federation of Community Broadcasters is the oldest and largest organization of community-oriented, nonprofit radio stations in the United States. Nevertheless, only a handful of scholars have considered the NFCB and its place in the history of mass media in the U.S. In the years leading up to and following the establishment of the NFCB in 1975, the public policy environment that guided the activities noncommercial radio, and all of American mass media, changed dramatically. This study provides a historical account of the NFCB during these formative years, and examines the political, economic, and social forces that propelled the organization during this period. The study examines the conflicts of idealism and realism, intention and action that shaped the NFCB in its first years, and delineates the relationship of the NFCB to the political economy of mass communications media in the U.S. The study explores the role of dissent in the prevailing political economy of communication, and demonstrates how issues of power unfolded in one sector of American broadcasting. The study relies on qualitative and historical methods, employing a combination of document analysis and in-depth interviews to gain a broad understanding of the origins and evolution of the NFCB. The study demonstrates the decisive power and control over the political economy of public broadcasting in the United States held by the U.S. Congress, and the efficacy of the open marketplace for public radio programming envisioned by the founders of the NFCB. The study addresses one of the significant historical controversies in American community radio, finding that contemporary Low Power FM radio services have benefited from the policies advocated by the NFCB in the 1980s. The study concludes that community broadcasters provided the talents, knowledge, skills, and abilities to push public radio in new directions, to become more open to change and more responsive to listeners. In the process, the National Federation of Community Broadcasters moved from the margins to the mainstream of public radio policymaking in the United States

The Third Sector as a Renewable Resource for Europe

Third sector impact; Volunteering; Charity; European Commission; Political legitimacy; Third Sector in Europe; Third Sector as a Renewable Resource; Obstacles to Third Sector Organisation; Development in Europ

How Left a Turn? Legacies of the Neoliberal State in Latin America

In the 1980s and 1990s, the Latin American region experienced a profound shift in development ideologies that resulted in the creation of a new type of state: the Latin American neoliberal state. This state emerged in three stages: the stabilization stage—focused on balance of payments and austerity; the structural adjustment stage—which was more broadly and deeply focused on changing the structure and culture of society; and the institutional turn—which was an acknowledgment that the neoliberal state had not effectively dealt with poverty, inequality, or the quality of institutions that integrated market, society, and polity. Beginning in the early 2000s, an electoral shift to the left swept through the region and was characterized by antagonistic rhetoric towards neoliberal policies. This study compares the historical developments of Argentina, Ecuador, and Peru and shows that in cases where the neoliberal state was fully developed, the leftist shift either did not occur (Peru) during the 2000s, or where it did occur (Argentina) did not constitute a break with the neoliberal state but rather formed a fourth stage of neoliberalism. In this stage, the government sought to increase spending on some social programs but did so in ways that legitimated the wider neoliberal state rather than creating a new developmental model that would move beyond neoliberalism

From lending in the Andes to thriving in Latin America: CAF’s continuity, growth and long-term financing in the region

What explains the Development Bank of Latin America’s (CAF, in Spanish) continuity and expansion since the 1990s? This thesis explores how an initially small Andean development bank crafted a successful strategy to survive in a troubled region and eventually thrive as an important lending source. This thesis argues that CAF’s expansion can be attributed to four main factors: 1) leadership, 2) institutional design, 3) member governments’ preferences and 4) Brazil’s push for regional cooperation beyond trade. Theoretically, this thesis draws upon two sets of interrelated academic debates to explain CAF’s growth: 1) International Political Economy (IPE) and International Organization (IO) theories discussing the main motivations for the design, culture, and behaviour of international institutions, and 2) IPE and International Relations (IR) literature on national interests, regional cooperation and development governance in South America. This thesis makes an empirical contribution to existing literature by providing the first detailed analysis of the history of CAF, while seeking to explain the reasons behind its expansion within a region in which defaults on external debt obligations have not been uncommon. Theoretically, this thesis invites scholars to reengage with the study of leadership in IOs. The study of CAF highlights the importance of successful agency under strong leadership in the survival and growth of RFIs. This thesis accounts for how and when CAF has employed its granted discretion and taken advantage of its institutional features to expand its mission and act in ways that were not originally outlined by its principals. It also examines how CAF has successfully balanced in its own terms the distinct demands of two types of stakeholders (member countries and credit rating agencies), while partaking in regional discussions and agendas related to infrastructure development. Moreover, this thesis shows that the rise of certain states as regional leaders can also influence an IO’s strategy in trying to understand and engage more often with a state that is leading the agenda on regional cooperation

Forging a New Democratic Party: The Politics of the Third Way From Clinton to Obama

This dissertation analyzes the evolution of the American Democratic Party’s ideological orientation from 1985 to 2014. The central problem is to develop an understanding of how shifts in political-economic context and factional agency combine to produce alterations in the predominant ideology of a U.S. political party. The primary question posed is how the centrist perspective known as the ‘third way’ replaced the left-liberalism of the New Deal and Great Society eras as the guiding public philosophy of the Democratic Party. Whereas many scholars propose that the modern third way revisionism of center-left parties is explained primarily as electoral opportunism or as an adoption of the political logic of the New Right, this study focuses on how changes in political economy (particularly the transition from Keynesianism to neoliberalism) prompted the elaboration of an alternative ideological framework that sought to adapt to new times. In the U.S. case, the primary agent of this process of ideological reorientation was the New Democrat faction, most well-known for its connection to President Bill Clinton. Combining qualitative document analysis and focused interviews with personnel from the think-tanks and policy institutes of the New Democrat faction and its competitors, the dissertation finds that the initiation and maintenance of reorientation is dependent on a faction’s success in elaborating and continually ‘decontesting’ an alternative framework that de-legitimatizes a party’s pre-existing ideological commitments. Adapting Michael Freeden’s approach to the study of ideologies, a conceptual morphology, or map, of third way politics is presented that centers on the particular meanings of opportunity, responsibility, and community elaborated by the New Democrats. These ‘decontested’ concepts signified a commitment to equality of opportunity over egalitarian outcomes, a vision of the welfare state centered on obligation rather than entitlement, and a devotion to communitarian rather than class or identity politics. By analyzing the process of continuous decontestation engaged in by this faction, the dissertation argues that the third way not only constitutes a distinct ideological system, but that it has been the predominant policymaking outlook of the Democratic Party for nearly a quarter century – stretching from Clinton to Obama and possibly beyond

Building Bridges Across Cultures: A Case Study of the People-to-People Campaign, 1956-1975

This study traces origins, operation, successes and failures of the People-to-People program featured during the second term of the Eisenhower presidency. The program was a product of and a reaction to the Cold War international conflicts that emanated from diametrically opposed ideologies of democracies and the communist world. U.S. claims to the superiority of democracy over communism were rooted in immediate post-war America's quest for world leadership. The People-to-People campaign was a government-backed popular movement, which spread in the 1950s and expanded into the 1960s. It was partially coordinated and partially funded by the United States Information Agency during its first few years, with the expectation that it would attract private as well as grassroots support once it was launched. This dissertation explores People-to-People's various programs and projects including the Sister-Cities and the University chapter as models for secular voluntary movements of ordinary citizens who were committed to improving mutual understanding between peoples from different cultures. The idealistic nature of people-to-people diplomacy, along with a wide variety of personal and social stakes associated with international travel and relations, made the People-to-People University program one of the most popular student organizations on college campuses in the 1960s. People-to-People's popularity and ideals at that time attracted young Americans and provided them with both the opportunity and the enthusiasm to interact with foreign peoples at the grassroots level. It also gave them a sense of belonging to a broader, constructive human network, which promoted an appreciation of diverse cultures and a way to contribute to building the "bonds of solidarity" among people of many nations during the contested period of the Cold War

Pivotal Crisis: State Power and Social Forces in the Making of Neoliberal Capitalism

The thesis uses original archival research to outline a novel account of social and world order change in the 1970s—from the collapse of Bretton Woods to the Reagan Revolution—that shifts the focus of explanation from the strategic vision and unilateral capacity of the US to determine outcomes to the pragmatic attempts of West German political and economic elites to cope with the crisis of post-war capitalism and to harness American power to this end. The main argument is that the parochial way in which German state managers sought to preserve the domestic compact between capital and labour prevented a more progressive and solidaristic resolution of the crisis and created the conditions for the neoliberal counterattack. Anxious to defend its export model against protectionism and inflation, German policy makers mobilized their country’s financial power to counter the interventionist and expansionary remedies of the European Left and to commit the United States in particular to monetary and fiscal discipline. While initially successful, this strategy proved self-defeating as it pushed the US into the Volcker interest rate shock that radically disinflated the world economy and ultimately undermined the basis for the German welfare state and its corporatist balance as well. The dissertation enriches and broadens our understanding of the origins of neoliberal globalization by focusing on an economically dominant state/society complex that is normally held to be inimical to the neoliberal onslaught. The crucial, but largely unintentional, German contribution challenges some of the critical accounts that see neoliberalism as an American imposition (Gowan 1999), a financial coup (Duménil and Lévy 2004), or an ideological conversion (Blyth 2002). My dissertation offers an alternative interpretation of the rise of neoliberalism as driven by a complex process of disembedding in which state power, class interests, and ideas are refracted through the prism of an interdependent world economy, and where the strategic and creative choices that some actors make to deal with the problems they confront reshape the range of options available to others