Thesis analyses role of International Monetary Fund in currency crises its proceedings and instruments and thereof arising criticism. In the first chapter there are stated definitions of currency crises, described their causes and possibilities of prevention. Short description of the Fund and used instruments in its operations are also included. The main focus is on analysis of the approach of the IMF to significant currency crises since 1990's. Mexican, south-east Asian, Argentinean and Icelandic crises are analyzed. As a practical aspect of the thesis approach of the IMF to currency crisis in the Czech republic in 1997 is examined as well. In analysis there is always stated overall description of the crisis, approach of the IMF to mitigation of the crisis and thereof arising experts' criticism. In the last chapter there is analysis of certain reports and commissions that dealt with Fund's operations and suggested reforms. Experts' opinions (Kenen, Sedlacek, Jonas) of the IMF's functioning and its summary are also part of the chapter.

International organizations (IOs) operate in increasingly dense institutional networks. This means that IOs rarely act in isolation; instead, their decisions are shaped by the activities performed by other IOs in their issue area. However, existing literature focuses primarily on how individual IOs can solve cooperation problems in a vacuum. How and when can IOs broadly, and U.S.-led liberal IOs in particular, effectively pursue their mandates against the backdrop of institutional crowding? In a three-paper dissertation, I probe the evolution of multilateral cooperation networks and how they structure policymaking in liberal IOs. To explore these dynamics, I construct an extensive, hand-coded dataset of cooperation between organizations in the development and emergency lending issue spaces 1945-2018. This coding draws on the contents of thousands of organizational policy papers, program documents, and press releases. I then leverage quantitative methods, text analysis, and network modeling to analyze these data. I supplement the empirical results with semi-structured interviews and experimental research designs. While existing work suggests that IOs must make concessions to member states to prevent them from shopping between institutions or else restrict their mandates to reclaim monopoly authority, I show that IOs can achieve their mandates and combat complexity through cooperation. In the first paper, I show that such cooperation materializes most easily between IOs whose leading stakeholders are geopolitically aligned. This is because multilateral staff are selected and socialized by leading shareholders to hold beliefs similar to their own. In the second and third papers, I show how cooperation enables IOs to enforce more stringent policies and improve operational performance. On the whole, then, I show that U.S.-led IOs like the World Bank and IMF can coerce welfare-enhancing reforms in target states and promote good governance by cooperating with other organizations in their issue spaces, though geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and other leading IO member states may be obstructive.

Just twenty years after its entry into the World Bank and IMF, China had joined over 50 international organizations (IO) and had become involved with 1,275 international non-governmental organizations (INGOS). Previously one of the least connected states in the world, China is now one of the most connected on the measure of IO membership. Importantly, China’s behavior within IOs has “varied from symbolic to substantive” at various stages in its global participation. Consequently, China has exhibited a dichotomy of puzzling behavior in its interaction in IOs. Sometimes it complies when doing so appeared counter to internal interests, while other times it has undermined organizations it has greatly benefited from. These patterns have not always been consistent either since its participation has varied over time within different organizations. Why does China’s behavior within these organizations vary? Why does China join or create new IOs when it is already a member of a similar organization? I build upon a diverse body of political science research arguing that China looks beyond the satisficing aspect of whether the IO is good enough, and more to how its behavior can optimize achieving its desired interests. My theory posits that in the context of relative shifts in power, variation in China’s IO behaviors is predicated by the extent to which IOs conform to China’s national interests. This rational behavior approach (RBA) outlines four strategies: rule-taking, rule-breaking, rule-changing, and rulemaking. Furthermore, I argue that as an emerging state’s relative power increases over time, so does its bargaining power, leading to a more assertive rule-changing behavior as it attempts to adapt the organization to allow its ascendancy as a rule-maker. My research explores 40 years of the PRC’s participation within the World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund drawing from semi-structured, in-depth interviews with WB China directors, IMF China directors, the Chief Counsel for AIIB’s establishment, a WB president, Department of Treasury and State representatives, and Chinese nationals who have held key positions in both WB and IMF staff. This research also includes reviews of secondary literature exploring China’s interaction within these organizations and analysis of 40 years of annual reports, consultations, and transcripts obtained from archived organizational records. / Political Science

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I am interested in family secrets and the rules and mores that may constrain family behavior or adversely affect a member’s destiny. I make work that looks askance at the efforts to hide from the world those events or secrets that reflect badly on a family. I look at the places where I have discovered some of them: family furniture and objects around the house, which can shed, metaphorically, the secrets and stories that are part of family tradition. I focus light on the lives of my uncelebrated ancestors and bring them, however briefly, into the collective consciousness.

What explains IMF behavior in Europe between 2008 and 2012? Harshly criticized in Greece, yet tentatively praised in Hungary, the institution found itself playing different roles as it responded to a string of financial crises. Its programs varied substantially in terms of conditionality, financing, and private sector involvement. This thesis explores why, highlighting the changing global financial safety net, which is both expanding and becoming more decentralized due to the spectacular rise of regional financing arrangements (RFAs). Existing theories of IMF behavior assume the Fund to be a stand-alone institution and analyse financial assistance as the outcome from the interplay between creditors, borrowers, and staff. By focusing on dynamics within the IMF, however, they miss how developments outside the institution are increasingly shaping its behavior. This thesis brings in the role of changes in the institutional environment by drawing on the literature on regime complexity. The proliferation of RFAs alters the outside options of all actors, which affects their bargaining power. This opens the way for new strategies, through which creditors can entangle institutions by creating overlaps, borrowers can engage in confrontation between alternative financing institutions, and the IMF can find means to co-work with RFAs. These in turn affect whose preferences shape program design. This argument is tested empirically through process-tracing and comparing three cases of IMF-RFA cooperation in Europe. In Hungary, the IMF led the way in shaping a surprisingly 'generous' program with little constraint from the EU. However, in Latvia, the Fund found itself a 'junior partner' in a program driven by local authorities with the support of an European RFA. In Greece, the interests of creditors were paramount, securing IMF acquiescence through the threat of exclusion. These findings point to significant challenges for the Fund going forward. As RFAs continue to proliferate around the world, the IMF needs to avoid the temptation of striking even more Faustian bargains that keep it at the table of financial assistance at the cost of becoming a junior partner.

University of Macau / Faculty of Law

Thesis (Ph.D.) - Carleton University, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 344-364). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Berkeley, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 264-276).