Birds of a feather?
- The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank ascribe to impartiality in their mandates. At the same time, scholarship indicates that their decisions are disproportionately influenced by powerful member states. Impartiality is seen as crucial in determining International Organizations' (IOs) effectiveness and legitimacy in the literature. However, we know little about whether key interlocutors in national governments perceive the International Financial Institutions as biased actors who do the bidding for powerful member states or as impartial executors of policy. In order to better understand these perceptions, we surveyed high-level civil servants who are chiefly responsible for four policy areas from more than 100 countries. We found substantial variations in impartiality perceptions. What explains these variations? By developing an argument of selective awareness, we extend rationalist and ideational perspectives on IO impartiality to explain domestic perceptions. Using novel survey data, we test whether staffingThe International Monetary Fund and the World Bank ascribe to impartiality in their mandates. At the same time, scholarship indicates that their decisions are disproportionately influenced by powerful member states. Impartiality is seen as crucial in determining International Organizations' (IOs) effectiveness and legitimacy in the literature. However, we know little about whether key interlocutors in national governments perceive the International Financial Institutions as biased actors who do the bidding for powerful member states or as impartial executors of policy. In order to better understand these perceptions, we surveyed high-level civil servants who are chiefly responsible for four policy areas from more than 100 countries. We found substantial variations in impartiality perceptions. What explains these variations? By developing an argument of selective awareness, we extend rationalist and ideational perspectives on IO impartiality to explain domestic perceptions. Using novel survey data, we test whether staffing underrepresentation, voting underrepresentation, alignment to the major shareholders and overlapping economic policy paradigms are associated with impartiality perceptions. We find substantial evidence that shared economic policy paradigms influence impartiality perceptions. The findings imply that by diversifying their ideational culture, IOs can increase the likelihood that domestic stakeholders view them as impartial.…
Author details: | Mirko Noa HeinzelORCiDGND, Jonas RichterGND, Per-Olof BuschORCiDGND, Hauke FeilORCiDGND, Jana HeroldORCiDGND, Andrea LieseORCiDGND |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1080/09692290.2020.1749711 |
ISSN: | 0969-2290 |
ISSN: | 1466-4526 |
Title of parent work (English): | Review of international political economy |
Subtitle (English): | the determinants of impartiality perceptions of the IMF and the World Bank |
Publisher: | Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group |
Place of publishing: | Abingdon |
Publication type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Date of first publication: | 2020/04/13 |
Publication year: | 2020 |
Release date: | 2023/07/14 |
Tag: | Impartiality; International; International Financial Institutions; Monetary Fund; World Bank; bias |
Volume: | 28 |
Issue: | 5 |
Number of pages: | 25 |
First page: | 1249 |
Last Page: | 1273 |
Funding institution: | German Research Foundation (DFG)German Research Foundation (DFG) [1745; TP 02 LI 1947/1-1] |
Organizational units: | Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Sozialwissenschaften / Fachgruppe Politik- & Verwaltungswissenschaft |
DDC classification: | 3 Sozialwissenschaften / 32 Politikwissenschaft / 320 Politikwissenschaft |
Peer review: | Referiert |
Publishing method: | Open Access / Hybrid Open-Access |
License (German): | CC-BY-NC-ND - Namensnennung, nicht kommerziell, keine Bearbeitungen 4.0 International |
External remark: | Zweitveröffentlichung in der Schriftenreihe Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Reihe ; 186 |