The IMF, tackling inequality, and post-neoliberal ‘reglobalization’: the paradoxes of political legitimation within economistic parameters

ABSTRACT

In a quest for political legitimacy and traction since the global financial crisis and the Arab Spring, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has become much more engaged in tackling inequality through its surveillance and other operations. This article analyses the depth and strength of this egalitarian commitment to reorient Fund actions. Notwithstanding shifts in high-level IMF rhetoric, we find that rigidity in the IMF’s mind-set and priorities is a major roadblock to substantive transformation. In a fine-grained analysis of Fund surveillance we investigate the conceptualization and operationalization of inequality and social protection as ‘macro-critical’ issues (essential for growth and stability). We argue that the IMF’s political legitimation operates within restrictive economistic parameters that flow from its technocratic compulsions. This paradoxically exacerbates the Fund’s legitimacy problems. We explore the Fund’s efforts to address the rhetoric-practice gap, but find that the kinds of economists they hire, and the mind-set their models reflect, limit its capacity for tackling inequality.

KEYWORDS:

• IMF
• inequality
• social protection
• surveillance
• economic expertise
• legitimacy

Acknowledgements

Te-Anne Robles would like to thank the University of Edinburgh’s Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities for the financial support provided during the writing of this article. The authors would particularly like to thank Jack Copley for helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The IEO provides independent assessments of various aspects of IMF operations. While it reports to the Executive Board, the IEO is independent of the IMF management.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Leverhulme Trust: [grant number MRF-2017-063].

Notes on contributors

Ben Clift

Ben Clift is Professor of International Political Economy at the University of Warwick, UK.

Te-Anne Robles

Te-Anne Robles is Teaching Fellow in East Asian Politics in the School of Government and International Affairs at the University of Durham, UK.