Contesting neoliberalism: A Qualitative Comparative Analysis of anti-government protests following International Monetary Fund conditionality in Latin America
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2023-06-23
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en
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The International Monetary Fund (IMF) plays an important part in today’s interconnected, neoliberal world. The conditionality on its loans demands free trade and market liberalization policies from countries taking on its debt, which has often been pointed out as ineffective or outright detrimental for those countries’ economic and political development. As a result, there have been many instances of contestation against the policies enacted after IMF conditionality, a phenomenon that remains understudied considering its many aspects. In this thesis, I seek to change this by studying anti-government protests after IMF conditionality in Latin America, a region that has been affected by much IMF activity and has seen its fair share of resistance to, and contestation of, these interferences and their effects. I do this by performing a Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), which allows me to study this phenomenon in all its different contexts and properties, while still making a meaningful comparison across 20 cases of IMF conditionality, of which 9 have experienced the aforementioned protests. I find that especially having a leftwing party leading government and high levels of inflation are important variables for providing a context that likely leads to protests after IMF conditionality, and that there are marked differences between democratic and non-democratic countries. My findings inform the larger theoretical debates on global neoliberalism and the role of the IMF, as well as debates on social movement theory, and actors like policy makers considering taking on IMF debt.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen