Dr Seraphine Maerz1 , Professor Andrew Walter1
1University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
Biography:
Andrew is a Professor of International Relations in the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne. He specialise in the political economy of international money and finance, including their governance among and within countries. Here is a video launching his most recent book, The Wealth Effect (Cambridge, 2019), co-authored with Jeffrey Chwieroth at the LSE: http://www.systemicrisk.ac.uk/events/wealth-effect-how-great-expectations-middle-class-have-changed-politics-banking-crises.
Prior to joining UoM in 2012, Andrew was Reader in International Political Economy at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he was also Academic Director of the TRIUM Global Executive MBA Programme, an alliance between the LSE, NYU Stern School of Business, and the HEC School of Management (Paris), and Research Associate in the Department of Management at the LSE. Externally, he was a member of the Council of Chatham House, a leading British think-tank of international affairs. He also sat on the editorial board of the Review of International Studies, the house journal of the British International Studies Association, from 2011-2015. Over 1990-1997 Andrew was a Fellow of St Antony’s College, Oxford, and University Lecturer in International Relations at Oxford University. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Melbourne, The Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (Singapore), University of British Columbia, International University of Japan, and the Pacific Council on International Policy (University of Southern California, Los Angeles).
Abstract:
We investigate the extent and nature of political biases of international financial institutions (IFIs) who undertake member country surveillance. Although these organisations are constitutionally bound to political neutrality, research has shown that the IMF and World Bank have provided loans on relatively favourable terms to member countries that are politically aligned with the United States and its partners (e.g., Stone 2011). In addition, emerging and developing countries have long argued that the IFIs are a tool of Western powers and Western-biased in their staffing and policy preferences. Yet researchers have not yet investigated potential biases in member country surveillance by the IFIs. Using quantitative analysis of IFI surveillance reports, we investigate how political regime type and its evolution influence the content and nature of international economic surveillance by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, Basel Committee, and the Financial Stability Board. Is there an anti-authoritarian bias in international financial surveillance and has this changed as the influence of non-Western powers in these organisations has grown? How does surveillance treat democratic backsliding?