Thesis advisor: Robert MurphyMuch has been said, often negatively, of the role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank in the international system. Usually these criticisms focus on financial advice rooted in neoliberal ideology rather than in conditions within a given economy, or on the strict conditions attached to IMF or World Bank loans. The discussion of the role of these institutions often does not extend into the discussion of revolutions. This study seeks to draw connections between IMF or World Bank involvement in developing states and the revolutions that occurred within them. Using John Foran’s model for revolution in the Third World, the study aims to determine whether conditionality constitutes a “world-systemic opening”—a change in the international system that allows the structural inadequacies of a state to fall to the pressures of the society beneath it. This examination reaffirms the notion that revolutions are complex processes with roots in a state’s structures and its placement in the international system. The revolutionary consequences of IMF and World Bank involvement is not limited to conditionality, however; in the three situations studied, conditionality was limited, despite rules to the contrary. Throughout these revolutions, the work of the IMF and World Bank is pervasive, especially in economic policy advising and the extending of loans crucial to the survival of the old economic system. More often than not it is the withdrawal of funding due to political oppression or instability than it is conditionality that constitutes a world-systemic opening.Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2010.Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: College Honors Program.Discipline: International Studies
