The IMF and Third-World Political Instability: Is There a Connection?

91 Pages·1988·7.488 MB·English

by  Scott R. Sidell (auth.)

THE IMF AND THIRD-WORLD POLITICAL INSTABILITY
The IMF and
Third-World Political
Instability
Is There a Connection?
Scott R. Sidell
M
MACMILLAN
PRESS
©Scott R. Sidell, 1988
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1988 978-0-333-42715-6
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission
of this publication may be made without written permission.
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with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended).
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to
this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and
civil claims for damages.
First published 1988
Published by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Sidell, Scott R.
The IMF and third-world political
instability: is there a connection?
1. International Monetary Fund 2. Economic
assistance
I. Title
332.1'52 HC60
ISBN 978-1-349-09055-6 ISBN 978-1-349-09053-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-09053-2
Contents
List of Tables vi
Acknowledgements x
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Brief history of Fund conditionality 4
1.2 Plan of the study 7
2 Review of the Relevant Literature 9
2.1 Distributional effects of Fund-supported programs 9
2.2 Literature on the determinants of political instability 13
2.3 Summary of the relevant literature 25
3 Concepts, Indicators, and the Analysis Strategy 27
3.1 Operationalisation of the dependent variables 27
3.2 Operationalisation of the explanatory variables 30
3.3 Analysis strategy 40
4 Empirical Findings and Interpretations 47
5 Conclusion 71
Appendix: Countries Empirically Examined 75
n
~~~
Index 81
v
List of Tables
2.1 A summary of the expected direction of relationships
of political variables based on the literature review 26
3.1 Three dimensions of political instability and their
respective indicators 28
3.2 The four transformations of the three dependent
variables to be examined for distributional normality 30
3.3 Explanatory variables and their correspondent
conceptualised dependent variables 31
3.4 Explanatory variables and their respective
operational definitions 36
3.5 Variable transformations and their associated
skewness scores 37
3.6 Descriptive measures of variable transformations
selected for empirical testing 38
3.7 Correlation coefficients between all pairs of the
explanatory variables 39
4.1 Descriptive statistics of cases examined by category 47
4.2 Cross-sectional estimates for the dependent variable
'In collective protest' and the explanatory variable
'IMF-supported economic intervention' 48
4.3 Cross-national estimates for the dependent variable
'In internal war' and the explanatory variable
'IMF-supported economic intervention' 49
4.4 Cross-national estimates for the dependent variable
'In illegitimate executive transfer' and the
explanatory variable 'IMF-supported economic
intervention' 49
4.5 Cross-national estimates for the dependent variable
'In collective protest' and the explanatory variable
'total number of IMF-stand-by arrangements' 50
4.6 Cross-national estimates for the dependent variable
'In internal war' and the explanatory variable 'total
number of IMF-stand-by arrangements' 51
4.7 Cross-national estimates for the dependent variable
'In illegitimate executive transfer' and the
explanatory variable 'total number of IMF-stand-by
arrangements' 51
vi
List of Tables VII
4.8 OLS estimates of the bivariate relationships between
each of the lags of the IMF dummy variable
'presence or absence of IMF-supported economic
intervention' and each of the three dimensions of
political instability 52
4.9 Cross-national estimates for the dependent variable
'In collective protest' and the explanatory variable
'IMF-supported economic intervention at time (t-1)' 52
4.10 Cross-national estimates for the dependent variable
'In collective protest' and the explanatory variable
'IMF-supported economic intervention at time (t-2)' 53
4.11 Cross-national estimates for the dependent variable
'In collective protest' and the explanatory variable
'IMF-supported economic intervention at time (t-3)' 53
4.12 Cross-national estimates for the dependent variable
'In internal war' and the explanatory variable
'IMF-supported economic intervention at time (t-1)' 53
4.13 Cross-national estimates for the dependent variable
'In internal war' and the explanatory variable
'IMF-supported economic intervention at time (t-2)' 54
4.14 Cross-national estimates for the dependent variable
'In internal war' and the explanatory variable
'IMF-supported economic intervention at time (t-3)' 54
4.15 Cross-national estimates for the dependent variable
'In illegitimate executive transfer' and the
explanatory variable 'IMF-supported economic
intervention at time ( t-1 )' 55
4.16 Cross-national estimates for the dependent variable
'In illegitimate executive transfer' and the
explanatory variable 'IMF-supported economic
intervention at time (t-2)' 55
4.17 Cross-national estimates for the dependent variable
'In illegitimate executive transfer' and the
explanatory variable 'IMF-supported economic
intervention at time (t-3)' 56
4.18 Results for the dependent variable 'collective protest'
and the explanatory variable 'IMF-supported
economic intervention at time (t)' and its associated
sociopolitical control variables 56
4.19 Results for the dependent variable 'internal war' and
the explanatory variable 'IMF-supported economic
viii List of Tables
intervention at time (t)' and its associated
sociopolitical control variables, in which
state-sponsored repression is tested at time (t) 57
4.20 Results for the dependent variable 'illegitimate
executive transfer' and the explanatory variable
'historical degree of IMF-supported economic
intervention' and its associated sociopolitical control
variables 57
4.21 Error components estimates of the bivariate
relationships between each of the lags of the IMF
dummy variable 'presence or absence of
IMF-supported economic intervention' and each of
the three dimensions of political instability 60
4.22 Error components estimates of the model containing
the dependent variable 'In collective protest' and the
dependent variable 'IMF-supported economic
intervention at time ( t)' 61
4.23 Error components estimates of the model containing
the dependent variable 'In collective protest' and the
dependent variable 'IMF-supported economic
intervention at time ( t-1 )' 61
4.24 Error components estimates of the model containing
the dependent variable 'In collective protest' and the
dependent variable 'IMF-supported economic
intervention at time (t-2)' 61
4.25 Error components estimates of the model containing
the dependent variable 'In collective protest' and the
dependent variable 'IMF-supported economic
intervention at time (t-3)' 62
4.26 Error components estimates of the model containing
the dependent variable 'In internal war' and the
dependent variable 'IMF-supported economic
intervention at time ( t) 62
4.27 Error components estimates of the model containing
the dependent variable 'In internal war' and the
dependent variable 'IMF-supported economic
intervention at time ( t-1) 62
4.28 Error components estimates of the model containing
the dependent variable 'In internal war' and the
dependent variable 'IMF-supported economic
intervention at time (t-2) 63
List of Tables ix
4.29 Error components estimates of the model containing
the dependent variable 'In internal war' and the
dependent variable 'IMF-supported economic
intervention at time (t-3) 63
4.30 Error components estimates of the model containing
the dependent variable 'In illegitimate executive
transfer' and the dependent variable 'IMF-supported
economic intervention at time ( t)' 63
4.31 Error components estimates of the model containing
the dependent variable 'In illegitimate executive
transfer' and the dependent variable 'IMF-supported
economic intervention at time (t-1)' 64
4.32 Error components estimates of the model containing
the dependent variable 'In illegitimate executive
transfer' and the dependent variable 'IMF-supported
economic intervention at time (t-2)' 64
4.33 Error components estimates of the model containing
the dependent variable 'In illegitimate executive
transfer' and the dependent variable 'IMF-supported
economic intervention at time (t-3)' 64
4.34 Error components, GLS results for the multivariate
model of collective protest 66
4.35 Differences in the likelihood of experiencing
collective protest between those countries that have
experienced a minimum of one IMF stand-by
arrangement, and those that have never experienced
an IMF stand-by arrangement 69
Acknowledgements
First, I would like to thank my wife Linda, for her untiring emotion
al support, and my parents for their instrumental financial and
emotional support, during those much talked about times when
graduate students really need such support. Second, I would like to
thank Kurt Westby, who played a fundamental logistical role in
helping me bridge the 300-mile gap between Harvard and Cornell. I
would also like to thank both the Economics and Government
Departments at Harvard, and the Sociology Department at Cornell
for their generous support of my computer analysis.
In addition, I would like to thank Steve Caldwell and Tom Davis at
Cornell, as well as Stef Haggard and Michael Roemer at Harvard, for
their continuous positive criticism and intellectual substantive and
statistical expertise.
I would also like to extend a special thanks to Jill Appel, Director
of Harvard's Government Data Center, for her constant logistical
support in getting together the data that I needed for this study, and
to the consulting staff at Harvard's Office of Information Technology,
who got me out of one too many computer programing bottlenecks.
Finally, I would like to thank the students and philanthropists
whose financial contributions to Cornell University helped to finance
my graduate studies there.
X